home or away

Adding photos

2008-06-18T13:21:00.001-07:00

There is hope yet for everyone who's been waiting for any photo that's ever been snapped on my camera since I got back to Singapore. Fresh snaps take priority coz I worked out that's the only way current stuff can be seen...but I'm working my way backwards so keep checking back on my picasa gallery and I'll fill in stuff right back to August 07 in due time! :)

Los Angeles: incoming!

2008-06-17T01:47:00.000-07:00

It was to be an 18hr flight from Singapore to Los Angeles with a brief 1hr stop at Taipei. Having skipped sleep the night before; I was happy to get onboard, curl up and go to sleep - however, I realised to my dismay that I had two kids behind me, one kicking and pounding on the back of my seat and the other screaming and yelling. Fantastic. Oh. Not to mention angry guy one seat away from me. I paused to thank the Lord for the space of one seat and the next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and angry guy had been replaced by smiley, dimple guy - When I managed to say awake for more than 5 minutes, I realised he was alot of fun.

So anyway...I was too tired...I fell asleep reading the Financial Times re. Wimbledon as the plan began to taxi on the runway and the next thing I knew we were well and truly airborne and they were serving dinner. I recall having some dinner and then the next thing I knew we were preparing for descent in Taipei. I stayed awake for all of the 20mins we had to get off and then back on the same aircraft and I woke up to watch Step Up 2 and then went back to sleep, waking only as we were descending into LAX airspace...it was a beautiful sunset.

Ryan's flight was arriving from Detroit at 9:15pm and my flight arrived at 8:20pm so I thought it'd be just nice if I factored in time for immigration and customs...but I got a text from him saying his flight was delayed - I checked the screen at T2 and it said i would arrive at 10:45pm so I found a cafe, had a drink and worked on some accounts stuff. Eventually his flight landed...he sidled up beside me where I was standing by the bag carousel and it was soooo good to see him again! We chatted, caught up and what not while waiting for his container to arrive and Leanna picked us up outside. We went straight to Denny's and downed the grand slam breakfast in honour of old memories and towards making new ones (she has those pictures). Ryan wasn't sure of the state of his apartment since he'd been away so I stayed at Leanna's instead...this couch and the lovely four-pronged light will be my bedroom for at least two nights.

Leanna with her new dog "Dromy" and Erin's 7-wk old kittens - the grey one is "greybear" and the white and black one is "panda"

16th June (Mon) started off with a 9am meeting with Bernice at the Dream Centre finalising some details and handing in of some forms and signing off on stuff...and the whole day was spent doing scheduling and meetings and sorting out finance stuff followed by an amazing Chai Latte at the Downbeat Cafe on Alvrado and Sunset Blvd. Leanna picked me up from there, we got home, walked and bathed Dromy and then drove somewhere because she was giving her cock-a-poo (cocker spaniel cross poodle) away. We eventually had dinner round 10pm at the El Pollo Loco round the corner and did some grocery shopping at Ralph's. You can see from the photo below that I enjoyed my dinner immensely!

The world within my reach

2008-06-02T05:27:00.000-07:00

a thousand reasons i'm glad to be home

sleepover at SGH

2008-05-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

if only it were as docile as it sounds... (hey prepare yourselves, this is a really long entry but there's a really good ending so don't give up halfway!!)

So. After a truly washed out monday night with no sleep whatsoever under my belt, I admit myself into Ward 63 and the Singapore General Hospital at 7am on a rainy Tuesday morning (27 May) - note: myself...because my darling cuz kindda overslept!! It got to be quite a drag because initially they told my my surgery was gonna be at 9:45am but then at 12 they still hadn't called and around 1pm they told me it'd be plus or minus 2 hrs from 5pm. Since there was nothing else to do and I was feeling fine, Jo and I headed downstairs for a walk so she could have lunch and I could pick the flowers/gift that Dad's church was gonna give me... haha. That's sunflower number one + happy monkey I've named "tohggy!"

While the flowers were getting done up and Jo had deserted me in her bid to "buy stuff" at Cheers, I got the call from the ward i/c to say that the operating theatre had called and they were sending a trolley to collect me - I wondered what kind of a trolley it'd be and my mind conjured up images of the cold storage kindda shopping trolleys. Anyway, we headed upstairs and got changed into the blue operating gown in a midst of frenzy and much laughs - according to the nurse, jo and i were "hyper". I thought the gown kindda made me look like a blue angel of sorts...haha! But yeah if you've always liked me smiling, enjoy this photo for as long as you can coz you don't see me smiling for a looooong time after I come out of recovery from the procedure.

While I'm waiting in the prep area outside the theatre where they put in the IV line and ask me a bunch of questions repeatedly about contact lenses, loose teeth, drug allergies and etc, my assigned young anesthetist asks about my occupation and when I say "youth pastor", he's the first one of all the form-fillers who doesn't grunt and ask "what's that" - so I took it that he was familiar with church and the concept of pastors and such. When he turns around, I check out the cross dangling from his neck and so I ask "what church do you go to?" He doesn't give me a direct answer but motions with his hands and semi-grunts "i go when i have the time - which is like..never??" I picked up something. But it wasn't clear. I waited. I won't record the rest of what happened, but yeah...i so wanna tell the dude he should come back to church, drop by sjsm for a visit and stuff.

We head in, I'm transfered to the table, the main (old/senior) anesthetist gets them to put an arm board for my left arm, tells them I'm cold so they give me some hot air to warm me up...they put the gas mask on, tell me it'll be sweet and that I'll feel a burning sensation heading up my arm and then I'll be out. I forgot to mention. Earlier Prof Tan Kok Chai came to meet me for the first time while I was in the prep area and he told me it was gonna be a straight-forward and quick 10-15min procedure to fix the displaced nasal plate and that I had nothing to worry about. Dr Leo - the doctor I'd been seeing at the specialist clinic who'd recommended and set up the surgery was also present. I heard some joke about how they shouldn't press the gas mask too hard otherwise it might crush my nose and then they wouldn't even have to do the op and it'd be a waste of the anesthesia...and then I was out.

[ brace yourself for photo below]

When I woke up, they told me not to panic because I couldn't breathe; they said my nose was packed and I should breathe from my mouth - they told me that already. They made sure I was breathing and then pulled out the stuff they'd used to intubate me for the op. I wasn't too sure what was going on...all I knew at that time was. PAIN. SCATHING, SEETHING, UNKIND, THOUGHTLESS, MINDBLOWING PAIN. I COULD NOT THINK. I COULD NOT CRY. I COULD NOT SPEAK. IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH. I think I passed out because of the pain. When I woke up again, I was in recovery - still in pain. Someone told me I had been given morphine but that it would take time. I waited while I sobbed - not at will and without sound, eternity elapsed and I was sure it wasn't kicking in...I asked for more. They got a doctor, I got another shot....waited some more...still in unbearable pain. I asked for more. And while they got someone else to give me another shot I asked them to get Wendy - who's also an anesthetist from our church...currently in the OT (i knew that because we spoke briefly earlier). By grace she just happened to have heard my voice and was heading in my direction right then (i think i heard her say that - i'd have to confirm) and it was SO FANTASTIC to have a familiar voice in my ear, hold my hand, listen to me rave about my pain...and really the fact that she believed I was in pain - the ones before seemed to think my claim dubious for whatever reasons - but yeah I explained that my pain threshold was really generally quite high and that what I was experiencing then was truly horrible. I think I had another 3 doses of morphine before I finally settled. It turns out I was in the theatre for over an hour and and at some point she said she had to leave...and I faded out again.

By the time I got wheeled back to the ward, it was past 7pm. Wendy was there waiting - ahhh the angel :) I don't actually remember exactly who was there, but I know furry was there too...and eve and mel and the rest of the wondergroup came. I think the first night was a blur mainly because of the effects of the anesthesia and morphine combined...plus the fact that my eyes were so swollen I could hardly open them. I do know that I'd received many more sunflowers - everyone was speculating if they were my favourite flowers - but really it's coz they're the only pretty flowers from the store downstairs! haha! But seriously, the flowers were beautiful and so was "tohggy" that you'd met earlier, and now in this photo my beautiful friend a me-to-you bear that's slightly confused in a husky suit - I've named him "Akejai" in memory of Ninjai and Akela :)

[happy snaps with cellkids & akejai - oh how i love my darlings
- who were all rather sedate when they first saw me..I guess it was the surreality of the fact i was silent and not bugging them to answer questions, read the bible or discuss stuff! haha :D]

Day 2 was hell. Literally - and all the more an incentive for me to not want to end up there. The grogginess of the anesthesia had well and truly worn off, as had the morphine. pain knew new heights again in this state of consciousness and as before, it was a task to convince the nursing personnel that I required higher doses of painkillers to manage the pain. My left eye was watering still - incredibly so, and getting very sore and red as a result. A steady stream of visitors kept me prayed over and the encouragement kept me looking forward. Dad had also given me 1 Thess 5:16-18 early that morning and it was a constant reminder through the tough times to look upwards when there seemed to be nothing to look forward to ahead - be joyful, thankful and always in prayer. My dad rocks - coz he couldn't be with me during this time, he woke up esp. early in Vietnam so that he could pray for me...and reminded me that my heavenly father was here with me all the time even though he wasn't.

I think at some point in the afternoon I actually thought I'd concede defeat and forget about trying to stay strong and happy for the world around me; looking up was becoming increasingly difficult too...because the kind of pain I was going through just didn't feel like I could punch through! At 6pm though - a huge bunch of colourful, massive and happy balloons came wafting into the room and brought so much cheer that I couldn't help but smile each time I looked at them dancing in the air waves of the air conditioner. They made me want to BE well, so that I could grab them, run along the corridor with them and take them out into the sunlight and release them into the air - watch them rise and feel my spirit lift as I watch them go...balloons have that effect on me. free. very free. [Thanks tim :)]

A whole host of other flowers and gift baskets arrived and my soft-toy-family was growing very rapidly too - i almost didn't have enough space to sleep left on my bed! Ken's orange daffodil and his note was the sweetest gift of the day :) And Ryan's teddy with words and a lil gift that will definitely outlast this ordeal will stay close to me.

Day 3 started well. Pain was either lessening or I had become accustomed to it. Dr Leo came in - finally - and I had a whole host of questions for him. He explained that they'd originally gone in just to fix the displaced nasal plate but once they were in they realised there was much further damage than the Xray showed. So. Fix no.1 was the left nasal plate causing obstruction...that was relocated in its right place, fix no.2 was having to straighten the septum (main nose bone) that had deviated or been warped by the impact - this required shaving off and chiselling he said and finally, fix no.3 was a mucosal hypertrophy in the right nostril - caused again by the impact on the left, and I'm not sure if they reduced it or removed it but it was basically a lump/clot that had formed as a result of the trauma. So yeah....it's good to know it's all dealt with and I'm thankful that God gave me the clear signs to proceed with the surgery - had I listened to my stubborn self, I would've opted not to - and the doc said these things would've gone unnoticed but caused alot of problems for me in the future. Once again. God is awesome, He rocks my socks off with the way He is TRULY OMNISCIENT and somehow finds a way to let my small little mind know what's good for me :)

It's probably worth mentioning that I started eating properly again in the evening of Day 3 - It's probably coz around that time was when my sense of taste came back. They pulled out all the dressing that had been packed into my nose during the procedure at about 11 in the morning - now THAT almost killed me again. You know on a side matter, it's quite amazing how much gauze can be stuffed into one's nose. The abrasion was painful and I was bleeding for awhile after the ordeal and was in dire need of cheering up....the rest of the day was pure gluttony starting with a sugar roll from Polar, followed by meatballs and a hot dog from IKEA and to top it all off, a pint of B&Js New York Super Fudge Chunk which I promptly DEVOURED while they went to get a dvd from some super dodge dvd rental place in AMK...hahha! [Check out how I'm smiling again!]

So anyway. It's early morning on Day 4, I couldn't quite sleep before because I'd slept so much of Day3 away - coz the pain was no longer waking me from my slumber...and so I thought I'd blog...so ahlyn and david can join me on this crazy experience. I so miss having you around to love on me and stuff...like boy if you were here you could chuck me down a hill on the wheelchair and into the thrash can....again. hahha!

I just wanna say thanks to a coupla people who really made a difference to me in this time of much pain. Jo - what can i say? your sacrifice leaves me without words, Tim - best gifts, biggest heart...defo a boat floater, Pearly & Daph - love that you rocked up...and with bird's nest to boot, Cellkids/ Wondergroup - you make me smile and you give me reasons to wanna get better real quick, Gerald T - v touched leh you made it down twice when you're like sick yourself, Ken my darling son - you continue to be a sweet sweet ray of sunshine in my life, Pene - your continuous presence is a real sight for my teary eyes...not to mention the wonderful food you've brought!, Laura - a thousand sms' just so I know you're there....it worked! Dad, Mum, Jan & Dave - you're all sending me your love from various corners of the earth,Vic - you kept coming out despite how busy and tired you were...i hope you know that you're truly loved and forgiven. Alice, Margaret, PK, Grace, Young (x2), Priscilla, Lydia who took time out from the busy work at SJSM to come say hi. So yeah....You've all played a significant part in getting this smile back on my face...your love is not wasted and I truly value you and want you to know that I am grateful and hope to someday return the love and affection you've shown me - hopefully not in such negative circumstances of course!

To everyone else who took the time out to send love my way either in physical presence, with gifts and cards, phonecalls or texts....THANK YOU. I do appreciate you and feel very loved. I thank God for you and pray a whole heap of blessings on you!!

Alrighty. I'm gonna grab a coupla hours of sleep and hopefully I'll be heading home by 11am! :)

the fragility of a face

2008-05-25T04:54:00.001-07:00

Time to sit and yet not feel compelled to do work; starbucks has that effect - coupled with the ridiculously annoying dropout rate of wireless@sg on my macbook. So that means I swop back to my trusty lil world-travelled vaio and hit the 5000++ photos that have yet to be sorted, edited and captioned before finding their way online somewhere...and with that, I thought I might as well hit the blog and give everyone the real story regarding the nose thing. It's best done with pictures...so enjoy...

the start of a very unfortunate event

the final blow...

the mayhem around me when everyone realised I had turned on the blood fountain

minutes later - after having washed off in the toilet

@ SGH's A&E waiting to see the doc - kotex icebag in place...

me with the guilty but very very forgiven one :D

So anyway...the photos should provide a good understanding and plenty of laughs :) It was truly a freak accident and I guess we learn that rules are there for a reason (ie: stay on the podiums when using jousting sticks. or, use provided helmets. or, don't mix two games together!) Still, it was all quite an experience and definitely one of those to be remembered for all time, ya know...one of those you tell your grandkids someday... :D

The experience? The smack of the rod itself wasn't actually painful...when I went down I was actually checking to see if any teeth had been knocked loose rather than whether my nose was in place. It was only after those gathered around started gasping in shock that I looked up and realised there was blood gushing from my nose - literally, it felt very...gushy. It was worse when I was washing up in the toilet and trying to ascertain if my nose was actually broken or if it was just a trauma bleed...for one, i had to cough up and blow out lumps of blood (ewwww!) and secondly, that's when the shock had worn of and the pain set in...and oh the throbbing!

Because of the pain - and mind you my pain threshold is...HIGH - we decided to head to SGH's A&E...

(oh no, I have to leave starbucks now, I'll finish up later. maybe)

Blog's Back in Business

2008-04-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

Sooo.....7 months of silence has finally broken!

Thank YOU for your patience and I'm sorry I didn't quite reply everyone's email regarding the "death" of the blog or the fact that I had been in Byron Bay for way toooo long! haha :D It isn't that it's taken me all this time to settle back into being home in Singapore...and at this stage it would suffice to say I've been busy! :) I'm gonna chuck a thumbnail grid - foretaste of the Brisbane, Airlie Beach, Hamilton Island, Cairns, Kuranda, and Cape Trib & Daintree Rainforest Albums! So yeah...check out the rest of my round-Australia trip that marked the end of my round the world trip, and then the rest of Singapore stuff will come be uploaded in bits and pieces and I'll be trying to blog consistently here on in!

Byron Bay

2007-10-08T04:54:00.000-07:00

I arrived at Byron Bay at about 9pm, got picked up by the hostel van and headed straight for the hostel. I was pretty drained by the long bus ride so I just settled in and read a book till I fell asleep.

18 Jul (Wed) - After brekkie I made my way to the beach, just a short 7 minute walk from my hostel. I was going to walk to the lighthouse but the beach was so pretty and the weather so perfect that I ended up just sitting and chilling on the sand, taking in the salty sea air for an hour. Eventually I stretched, got up and headed back into town.

Lunch was the agenda and after checking a few places out, I settled for Mongers' gourmet fish and chips - which was YUMMY! And considering it's price, freshness and most importantly, tasty-factor....it was truly gourmet food! haha! The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around town and stopping at a cafe for coffee whilst I read later on.

Sunset was on the beach and after it had set, I made my way up the little hill to get to the lighthouse. It was a pretty steep climb up and wasn't much fun as the mozzies settle in together with the dark of the night. However, having reached the top, the views of the coast on all sides was breathtaking, as was the lighthouse itself!

I spent the rest of the evening laughing like mad as I got to know Samara and Claire, discussing tennis, excellence, lies, stain-making, and as we drifted off to sleep, mohitos and an old man who looked really young. They were a blast, Byron Bay would not have been half as fun nor as memorable had I not been in the same room as them! I have to say though, THEY GOT EXTRA BLANKETS AND I DIDN'T!!! Pffffttt!!

19 Jul (Thu) - I woke bright and early and went surfing with Ben, we drove for about half an hour up or down the coast I don't know...but we found some swell at that beach and checked it out from the car park. It looked small but I swear it doubled as we got changed, waxed up and made our way down. It was not fun paddling out...although I experienced for the first time, running out amongst the rocks on one end of the bay and just jumping out right out the back and then just catching a wave in..WheeeEEeeEE!! :p Repeat the process a coupla times, add to it several mouthfuls of salt water and desperate gulps to avoid crashing waves overhead and that's pretty much my whole morning. Didn't bring my camera, so alas, no photos.

After a hot shower, Claire, Samara and I head out for a hot drink and lunch - the rest of the afternoon was spent recovering from the very tiring morning and also Samara was pretty sick so she slept the afternoon away. Late that evening, Claire and I went out to have dinner at Hog's Breath...hahahh been awhile since I had a decent dinner! It took awhile to sort all my stuff out and pack up - there was also a new guy who took Monique's bunk (she left the morning before) and he was pretty funny and mentioned a certain company's website that zoomed a distant memory into my frontal lobe - unwelcome. haha!

20 Jul (Fri) - I wake up, finished packing and checked out. On the way to the bus station, I bought a huge muffin and ate it after I was on the bus and settle in for another long bus ride up to Brisbane! Oh...and I got given a pair of shoes.... :p

Coffs Harbour

2007-09-28T23:22:00.000-07:00

I was in Coffs Harbour for all of one day....arriving at 5:30am on the 17th of July and leaving at about 5pm that very evening. So...the "seasoned" traveller that I was should've known it wouldda been freezing and pitch black when I got to Coffs Harbour...but I hadn't thought about that! I'd only thought I'd get there and have 12hrs to suss out the entire town and anything of interest in its vicinity! So....I checked myself into a nearby hotel that had a pretty cool digitised, human-less, system of booking, paying for and accessing your room from a little unit built into the wall of the hotel lobby.

4 hours later, I dragged myself out of bed and packed up my stuff and checked out of the hotel which I then realised was called Formula1 hotel. Still feeling grumpy about the fact that I'd paid for an entire day but only got 4 hours, I dropped my bag off at the tourist info centre and began my walk around town. I made my way to the Rotary Park which I would walk through to get to the beach and a whole host of other "attractions"...

First stop was the Botanic Garden, slated to be the best in the region....now I have to state from the very start that I don't like flowers...really. I can only think of two flowers that I actually like, neither of which would make me swoon or anything remotely close. BUT i paused to walk through it anyway and quite enjoyed the walk and all the bright, vibrant colourful flowers in full bloom. I did see my favourite flower....and I also enjoyed the rather large section of cactii on display.

Shortly after exiting the Botanic Garden, I found myself walking along a large river...flanked on both sides by beautiful parkland. I stopped at a little pier under a large tree to consume my lunch of bread, butter and cheese and also to do a little reading while waiting for the intensity of the mid-day sun to lessen a little. From there I walked for another 40 minutes before arriving at the Coffs Harbour Jetty where there were loads of restaurants, cafes and shops.

I spent 2 hours walking along the beach, watching locals fish and taking in the salty sea air after the week spent in urban pollution aka...sydney :D

The rest of the afternoon prior to heading back to the info centre to pick up my bags and wait for my bus was spent at the Pet Porpoise Pool...playing ball with their dolphins in 6 giant pools, watching seals and sea lions basking in the sun and playing amongst themselves and even tiny little penguins had their own enclosure while turtles and other large fish swam in a large circular glass tank.

More photos of the dolphins, seals, sea lions and etc can be found in the Pet Porpoise Pool album; Flowers and etc can be found in the Botanic Garden album; generic photos from around Coffs Harbour and the beach can be found in the Coffs Harbour Album.

Sydney - Finally

2007-09-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

So. I'm all of close to three months behind blogging schedule...a time within which loads has happened. But let me start first where I first left off...July the 10th; I flew over to Sydney and began my trip up the length of Australia's east coast.

In a nutshell...

July 10 (Tues) - The flight couldn't be any longer, I was sooooo amped to get to Sydney to catch up with an old friend, Susan...well not that old really, but feels like it...coz once upon a time we used to hang heaps, laugh lots, eat loads on roadtrips and ya know...all that kindda stuff that good friends do! So yeah, I got to the airport and she was there; I had a mild heart attack as I came down the escalator and saw her there...and no not because she had become a man or anything drastic like that, merely because a lady had a baby doll she was carrying and dropped it over the side of a bench - and I thought it was a real baby! Anyway, from the airport, we stopped at Raj's place enroute to her home so I could pass some stuff to Justin (from LA) who was in town for Hillsong Conference and was heading home the following morning. We chatted some when we got home but then went to bed quickly coz she had work the next day.

July 11 (Wed) - I spent most of my first day sleeping and then doing some work...and when Susan got back that night we went to a bar and I stretched beyond my own eating boundaries that night when we ordered cured ocean trout and a cheese platter - together with some cocktails. I actually ate the stuff, and yes very very proud of myself for not gagging...the cheese was not so cool, but the walnut bread that came with it was yummy! Later that night, we went to Citrus in Newtown - a cafe I'd visited several times when I was in Sydney in 2006...because they had the best crepes with bacon, maple syrup and ice cream, which we had that night (in the photo above).

July 12 (Thu) - After spending the morning responding to and writing emails, I walked down to the fish market and had me some fish and chips...staying to people-watch, allow my lunch to digest so I could purchase and then eat some fresh fruit from the markets. The rest of the afternoon was spent walking from one end of the city to the other...pausing for awhile in Chinatown where I noticed a new piece of installation art just before the famed arches; it is quite possible that it isn't new, merely that I had missed it the last time I was there. The plaque beneath it named the piece as "Golden Water Mouth" - a piece that celebrated contemporary life and the historic character of Chinatown.

That night, I had dinner with Susan and her housemates....Shalini and Stephen - and yes I did find it hilarious that all three of them had names starting with 'S'. We went to the James Squire Brewhouse for dinner and it was a massive dinner with Shalini ordering a GIANT slab of ribs, Susan having lamb I think , Stephen ordering a bowl of mussels and me having a mushroom and spinach risotto - and no by no means was it anywhere close to as healthy as it sounded. I did also try a "platter" of four mini glasses of beers brewed "in-house"...none of which I found enjoyable...much to everyone's dismay...or should I say, disgruntled-ness.

July 13 (Fri) - I spent much of the day chilling out again, venturing out round dinner time to catch the bunch that had just arrived after spending their week skiing somewhere closer to Melbourne in the mountains. The bunch being Gloria, Shane, Justin, Chester and Aunchisa. I think we had kebabs for dinner, walked all the way to the Sydney Opera House just to take photos and then jumped on a bus to Newtown for coffee and cakes.

July 14 (Sat) - Caught up with Chester, Justin and Shane for lunch at the Sydney Fish Market...where we shared a HUGE seafood platter, inclusive of lobster mornay, fish, oysters, mussels, squid, prawns and loads of chips! We then spent the afternoon walking it off while taking in the sights and sounds of darling harbour, the city, and even sunset at harbour bridge. We also made a mandatory stop at Krispy Kreme so I could get a dozen for the housemates to share!

We passed an illusionist on our way back....he was rather scary. When we passed he was levitating glasses and other small objects above his head, bringing them to land on his face or on the point of his nose and the like. But when I whipped out my camera he said "wait! I have a special one for you..." and then proceeded to enact one of the most freak "tricks" I'd ever seen being done on the street...he took a knife, showed how sharp it was by hacking into the wooden thing he had with him and cut through a thick fold of paper which he then laid down on the ground and then proceeded to saw into his wrist. And blood spurted on the ground beneath...not fun. at all. alot of people screamed and walked away. We left too.

Later that evening, I join Susan, Stephen, Shalini and Kanesan at Will & Tobys to listen to a band. The pub was really cool..with a nice bar on its third floor...where we all agreed had pretty stuffy service (but great cocktails) and the band was playing on the second floor so after our first drink we moved downstairs to ensure we secured seats - which we did on the very front row - and spent the rest of the evening/night listening to...well....mediocre...music. Was that too harsh? Oh well. We had pizza before hopping into a cab and calling it a night.

July 15 (Sun) - I slept in, then FINALLY caught up with my friend Hsiao Chien who'd just arrived in Sydney a coupla days before...she was gonna be in Sydney for a year pursuing.....FURTHER EDUCATION....and a man. hhahha! :D We went to a very nicely decorated thai restaurant and pigged out on prawn phad thai and chicken green curry...it was YUM! Food aside, it was great banter and catchup as we each recounted almost all that had transpired in the months gone past since we'd last seen each other...which was also when we first got acquainted...almost a year ago at the time.

We then went to the Fish Market so I could get some lobsters that I was makign for dinner back home that night and obviously we stopped for desserts as well...eating Pat and Stick's homemade ice cream and a little cheesecake and chocolate tart - no wonder she puts on so much weight you say!! :D Soon it was time to part and I head home to make dinner for the wonderful people who've been great hosts to me for the past week...we had alot of fun in the kitchen...and I also did burn my hand, which wasn't fun at all - but we did have a sumptuous meal of lobster thermidor and twice baked potato....served with a spinach, feta and walnut salad (of which I had more than 5 mouthfuls!!!) and topped off with a warm chocolate cake served with a dollop of fresh cream!

July 16 (Mon) - The day was spent packing and also grooming myself (no don't ask) and having my last coffee at citrus as well as dinner with Susan before we head off for the bus station and say our goodbyes. I would spend the next 10 hours on a greyhound bus to Coffs Harbour...whee! hahah :D

YAY!!! I'm beginning to catch up with my blog!!! I promise there will not be such a long lapse ever again!!! :D

PS: The Sydney Album is up on my photo gallery too!

Helooo to the world from Singapore!

2007-08-17T12:34:00.001-07:00

Yep, been home for about 18 days now, 3 of which were spent in Bintan - an Indonesian island off Singapore. Blogs from Australia's east coast and all of Singapore to catch up with but that'll take awhile...in the meantime, enjoy a video...

This is a song that Amanda and I co-wrote while on our Exmouth roadtrip, I apologise for my rather loud singing and it's actually quite hilarious at the start and end...there was more but I edited it out. haha! Anyway, this song comes for a place where God had been revealing to me how His Love should be the reason we do what we do (serve, live, evangelise, etc) and I guess also from a heart that knows that in comparison to his love, a love that sent his son to die on the cross, our plans and aspirations and agenda just pale ridiculously! So yeah, enjoy the song, feel free to laugh again and also to comment. Ta

Coastal Northern West Oz

2007-08-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

27/6 Wed - It started out on a gloomy rainy wednesday afternoon on the 27th of June...Amanda and I packed our bags, chucked them into the car (with several bags of snacks & etc) together with our newly purchased 12ltr plastic water dispenser and off we went. With a copy of the Australia Lonely Planet on our dashboard and a lunch stop at Subway, we commenced what was to be a north-bound trip of over 1300kms to Exmouth.

4 and half hours later and just as the sky was turning dark, we found ourselves in Geraldton...more specifically, outside the cinemas at Geraldton and so we popped in, bought two tickets for an 8pm show to Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer then cheked into a dorm at Foreshore Backpackers...we asked for a twin room but none were available...but we ended up having the 4-bed dorm to ourselves anyway.

After we'd put our sheets out and etc, we went for a walk around town and discovered Australia's best kept secret right out the back of our hostel....a Megatoy Playground Solution. Haven't heard of it??? Man you need to get with it!!! hahah :p Well yeah it was a playground, but not JUST a playground...it is the mothership of all playgrounds, including a pirate ship, a spider-webby contraption, and a quartet of balancing-act-type-contraptions, as well as smaller single units of balancing surfboards, and last but not least, THE SPINNAMAJIGGY. Yup. It's thus named. It took us both awhile to work out how it worked - amidst laughing, screaming and bumbling around and hanging on for our lives! The photo album for the trip will give you a much better idea of how amazing this playground is!!

After the movie it was pretty much straight back to the dorm and into bed in "anticipation" of our looooong stretch of driving the following day.

28/6 Thurs - We check out the main "sights" of Geraldton before heading out and these include Saint Francis Xavier Church and the HMAS Sydney Memorial. While the church was an impressive building in its own right, attention at this juncture has to be given to the memorial...which comprised of a large dome made up by 645 steel seagulls (each commemorating a sailor lost at sea when the Sydney sank) with a large propellor beneath it, two long walls with each name as well as its story inscribed, a replical hull on which the australian flag flies, and lastly...a statue of a lady with her hand on her hat looking out to sea (awaiting the ship's return).

2 hours later, we arrive at the national park in Kalbarri and stop to take in the sights at Hawk's Head lookout...where we are offered sweeping views of the river and gorge...with the colourful dusty red earth presented in a variety of colours at different sections on the cliff walls. We stop at another "lookout" and walk down to the river bank and clamber across some rocks and boulders but really it wasn't anything very exciting, especially not in a gloomy drizzle...so we got back into the car and continued the upward drive.

6 hours later we finally cross over from grey cloudy skies to blue skies and this is pretty much just as we drive across into the Tropic of Capricorn...marked by a large sign and a white line across the road. Yes we did stop for photos ;) An hour later (it's 5:20pm by now), we drive into Coral Bay and are both immediately enchanted by the beauty of the bay as well as the quiet village ambience of the little town. Petrol prices leave alot wanting though, with unleaded priced at $1.7320 per litre...we had no choice because we had to carry on upwards to Exmouth and didn't want to risk running out (we weren't even sure we were going to make it to Coral Bay!!!) so we had to fill her up and that exorbitant rate and then continue.

We arrived in Exmouth at about 7:30 and spent forever trying to find the place we wanted to stay at and then after we'd found it, to try and work out how to get in and really the funniest thing was after we'd finally got it sorted, checked in, gotten our sheets and keys etc, we proceeded to be "organised" and put our sheets etc onto our beds in the dorm so we could go walk around town and not have to come back and try and do it in the dark. In our great hurry to do so we both somehow missed something and put our sheets on beds in the wrong dorm!!! But we did enjoy our wedges and coffee as well as a really long chat and the commencement of our "Esther" study at the Ningaloo Dreaming cafe before we went back and discovered our key couldn't open the door to the dorm we'd put our sheets in..and it was humorous horror that we realised what we'd done and spent the night freezing on sheet-less beds in the correct dorm.

29/6 Fri - We head to the dive shop early in the morning coz Amanda's starting her dive course...worked out okay, she's doing it with only one other person. I book my whaleshark dive for the next day then walk to "town" for a coffee, spending the rest of the morning by the pool at our backpackers resort waiting for her lunchtime. It's actually a pretty cool pool, very lagoon styled with coconut trees and overhanging rocks.

We lunched from the large food reserve we'd brought with us from home...including peanutbutter sandwiches, mandarins and muesli bars then while Amanda went for her pool sessions I checked out the marina and the beaches along Exmouth's east coast. There was hardly anyone around...but I did see some emus crossing the road and then just walking around aimlessly. It was a lazy afternoon spent basking on the beach with my book - an army of ordinary people. Dinner was at Seachange Cafe where we shared a Fisherman's Basket (fish, crabmeat, scallops, calamari and chips) and I think we spent the rest of the night chilling in our room, playing guitar, singing and songwriting.

30/6 Sat - I had to be at the diveshop at 7am for my whaleshark dive...the shop is an activity hive with people running all over the place getting gear, paying for trips, trying out their wetties and fins and etc. Eventually after everyone has their gear sorted and bags and air tanks are chucked into the trailer at the back of the bus, we're off to the jetty where everyone lends a hand to get gearbags and tanks onto the tinny that takes out out onto the tender. At first the day seems really dismal, for a start, because we had a late start, there wasn't time for us to dive before we went whaleshark spotting...secondly, it was grey and rainy and hours went by without any whaleshark sightings - by our skipper or the spotter plane they'd enlisted. We did have several humpback whale sightings though...

An hour before the skipper had said we'd call off the search and head back, we suddenly got word that a whaleshark had been spotted and so we raced there, only to find it'd dived and probably wouldn't return to the surface. 30 minutes passed and I thought...great probably not gonna get to see one, and then we got word there was another one and as we made our way to the site where it'd been spotted, it popped up right beside us! :D Everyone was ready and geared up and jumped in on cue...and my friends, this is the precise moment where I discovered a new sport....sprint snorkelling! First we try to get out of the whalesharks way (you want to..it's like 10m long and its head is 1m wide!) and then you sprint snorkel up along its side to try and stay with it for as long as you can.

I went in for three swims with it...and pretty much by the third time I'd finally gotten the flow right, to jump in, get out of its way and get into position and then swim alongside...all without bein hyper-excited or exhausted from the sprint-swim, and so I could finally actually look at it, take in its HUGEness, its magnificence and the phenomenal design of it's patterned spotting...really if anyone reckons evolution is THE way it all began, then try and explain how the whaleshark evolved into its proportions and design and how no other fish carries the same markings.

We did our dive after that and I got to see a giant cod...which is famous in the area, it was at least 2m long (imagine how many fish and chips that could serve up!) and was just sitting on the sandbed, looking pretty clumsy! On the way back, the front tyre on our bus blew and so we hung around on the side of the road for about half an hour (bringing back horrible memories from Costa Rica - 5 flats in 10 days) and eventually got picked up by another bus.

Dinner was at Planet Burger - a little caravan kitchen that pulled up at the carpark close to our backpackers and served up pretty decent souvlakis and burgers. I had a chicken kebab with the lot (bacon, egg and cheese) and I was pretty knackered after the days "sprint snorkelling" episodes so we went to bed pretty early that night. What was a bummer though, was that Amanda's "classmate" at her dive course had been forced to drop out because she couldn't pass her diving medical examination, resulting in insufficient numbers for the dive boat to go out the following day and so Amanda had the day off.

1/7 Sun - We started the morning on a beach on the eastern side of Exmouth, watching a pretty amazing sunrise while chomping on almonds and mandarins. After the sun had well and truly risen, we head back to our room to get changed and prepped up for church...we'd decided to visit Exmouth Christian Fellowship, where we experienced a "Hath-A-Sunday" that was based on 1 Cor 14:26 and members of the congregation were invited to go up and share anything as a contribution of what they had.

We check out Whalers Inn after that, thinking there'd be live music but we just missed it and only got to see the band packing up. Nevertheless, we had a really good burger for lunch ...we shared it so Amanda's half had all the salad chucked into it and I had a double meat dosage with the sesame bits on the top of the bun cut off! We then had to tossup between sticky date pudding and a roasted almond chocolate tia maria tart for dessert. Sticky Date Pudding won... :D

In keeping with it being the "Sabbath", we went back to our room and slept away the rest of the afternoon and woke up at about 7pm and spent the evening at the Mini Golf centre...which we deemed to be a "happy place", offering up good vibes, okay coffee, good scones and great people who owned the place. I don't remember our scores but I recall it being really whacky with us taking as many as 8 or 9 shots at some of the holes...all good laughs really. It started raining not long after we had ordered our devonshire tea (for dinner) and so we stayed there for awhile, waiting for the rain to stop.

2/7 Mon - Boat wasn't going out either for lack of numbers, so Amanda came back in and we then drove north of Exmouth to check out the lighthouse - the views from there were pretty amazing, with extensive views of the coast below where you could watch set after set of waves rolling in, breaking and peeling across the bay in clean lines with gentle offshore winds helping them hold their shape. Because it was all grey and rainy, we just sat in the car snacking before eventually moving on to the Jurabi Turtle Centre.

It wasn't really the season for both egg-laying or hatchling-spotting so we jus the eggs and hatchlings faced...such as feral foxes and crabs as well as strong waves washing the sand away, exposing the nests and eating the eggs or eating the hatchlings as they make their way down the beach into the ocean.

We eventually arrive at the Cape Range National Park and after a brief stop at the tourist information centre, we head straight for the reknown Turquoise Bay to do a drift-snorkel. It was a really rewarding (though cold) snorkelling sesh, with sightings of a medium-sized spotted lagoon ray, a turtle, maori wrasses, and a whole heap of other fishes admist colourful coral.

That evening, we try to pan-fry roast almonds in a bit to have them become crisp (the roasted effect)...because we brought them raw and we didnt haven an oven at Potshot. It was quite a riot, with everyone in the kitchen eyeing us down as though we were martians...and it didn't help that we were standing there for over an hour, stirring a pan full of almonds. It was only after we decided to put a pot-lid on to simulate an oven kindda heat atmosphere that we found quick success, retiring to our room to chomp on our crunchy almonds, incredibly satisfied by our ingenuity. :D

3/7 Tues - Still not enough numbers for Amanda to head out on the boat, so we booked ourselves onto a deep-sea fishing charter and head out bright an early for my first-ever fishing expedition. It was actually pretty cool because pretty much straight after we pulled up, one of the guys caught a pretty large fish (it was a giant trevally) and although it got away, he got another one later. Our skipper was Keran and the deck-hand was Lofty - both of whom were rather amused by Amanda and I...apparantly because they'd never met anyone as happy as us out on the boat - they added that women were never happy beyond 10 minutes at a time. haha!

Hours later, they were saying it was a really bad day and they couldn't find fish on their radars...but we still managed to catch a spangled emperor (snapper) and the others caught a couple of them and a sweet lip as well. I also endured a hook in the finger when amanda and I miscommunicated about chucking the sinker overboard...no biggy though, I survived, and so did Amanda... :p I have to say though, I think it's horrible how they repeated stuck a screwdriver into every fish's head and then swished it around saying it was the best way to kill them...UGH. I wouldn't like that happening to me!

When we get back, the boys get to cleaning and filleting our fish and we meet Crusty, Lofty's female staffy. And we head to the shops to buy some butter and garlic to cook our fish with...Lofy also drops by to give us a pack of large tiger prawns (yum yum!!) that we decide to keep for the following day's meal. It is an AWESOME meal of fish with chunks of Brumby's spinach and feta "tear-and-share" loaf!

4/7 Wed - A return visit to the Exmouth Hospital regarding the bites Amanda and I have been getting (we've been told that they're sandfly bites) but the wait would've been forever and we didn't want to waste a sunny day sitting inside the hospital so we moved on and went out to the National Park again and spend the afternoon snorkelling off its beaches before finally watching a pretty sunset at Turquoise Beach.

We see a whole heap of kangaroos and meet our very first Echidna (like a porcupine) on our way back - drop into the photo gallery for a look at them and also our rather luxurious seafood dinner of prawns and fresh fish fillets.

5/7 Thu - I don't have many photos from this day apart from dinner from Planet Burger, so I'm not entirely sure what we did today, I'm guessing we mooched around doing not much?

6/7 Fri - Diving at Murion Island! Finally Amanda gets to go dive, but she finds out she's seasick (she's still adamant that she isn't!) but anyway, yeah the boat ride out there and back were pretty long coz the islands are pretty far off the coast of Exmouth so it's mildly hellish for anyone who's even mildly prone to seasickness! But we had fun all the same though, and the lunch spread was pretty good too!

When we get back, we head to Lofty's place to pick up some seafood he's packed for us to take home to Perth with us...and ended up getting some gifts to take home too! I get the front "saw" off a sawtooth shark and Amanda gets a whale tooth. We take a coupla photos out back with the hacking saw off a 16ft shark (that's way tooo big and prized to be given away) and said our farewells to crusty before sayin farewell and heading back to our room for an early night in preparation for our early and long drive towards home the following day.

7/7 Sat - We arrive at Monkey Mia in the early afternoon and find out there's no more dolphin feeding for the day (that only happens in the morning) so after spending a coupla minutes debating and checking the maps for other options, we decide to stay for a night and leave in the morning after seeing the dolphins. Seeing as its a little coastal village with not much on, we pack a whole bunch of food and settle on a grassy bit in front of the beach and spend the rest of the arvo chomping away, playing guitar and finishing up the song.

That night, we go for an Aboriginal campfire cultural experience and it was rather interesting, going bushwalking along the beach then settling around a huge campfire where we inhale loads of sandalwood smoke which the aborigines believe to have a healing quality. Our guide, Capes, teaches us loads of aboriginal local language and it was quite amazing how he'd switch between native tongue and english seamlessly and continuously. The highlight was probably when he took a raw fish and baked in on the hot coal ashes - then offerred it to us...according to Amanda, the texture was...unlike any other fish she'd ever consumed! :D

8/7 Sun - Early in the morning, we wake, pack up and head to the beach for the early morning dolphin feeding...although it's a ridiculous time of day, the beach is lined with visitors there to see the dolphins and sadly, only one dolphin appears...it's Nicky though, the same dolphin that Amanda had seen (and been talking very excitedly about the day before) when she'd visisted 7 years ago. He swims along the beach and eventually they feed him several fishes before asking us to step back so he'll leave.

We then cook up a rather large seafood brunch and eat up as much as we can before packing the rest to take back to Perth (so it doesn't spoil)...I can't quite remember how it happened but I think as we headed south towards Perth the weather just got worse and worse and we decided it'd be pointless to spend another night/day somewhere else on the coast so we made a bee-line for home and arrived not long after dark...passing sandstorms and more crazy weather along the way. But yeap...the adventure that seemed like it might never end did end...and it was pretty much..ALL good! :D

KEYpers Retreat

2007-07-26T01:16:00.002-07:00

For the unknowing and ignorant, KEYpers was my last CG in Perth before I bid the country farewell and went off gallavanting...and it was rather timely that when I returned to Perth they were having a retreat at North Dandalup and I guess I kindda just rocked up and got to meet the new crew as well as chill out and catch up with the old guard.

Their full retreat was from 23rd to 25th June...but I stayed the one night, enjoyed a good teaching session by Amanda's dad and mum that was to grow increasingly significant as the weekend went by - unbeknownst to all (myself included). Before the session we were fed really well as the designated group toiled and laboured in the kitchen all arvo then served up several different chicken dishes, veggies and etc.

After the session Aunty Bea laid out a "surprise" supper platter consisting of chocolate fondue and fresh fruits with marshmallows as well as a cheese and mixed fruit and nut platter! Talk about being pampered and loved! I have to state that it waS at this specific time that Justin acquired a love and appreciation of cheese and "tasteless crackers"! It was a long night with random chatter, lots of foot massages (courtesy of OSIM contraptions), indian poker and more!

Justin and I left at 7:30am the next morning coz had to catch a flight home to KL later that day and I had to visit a friend's church in Perth. A quality weekend with a very special bunch of people...what more can I say? :)

Akela ;)

2007-07-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

So I did write a tribute to her when I gave her to a Singaporean family who are now residing in perth right? If I hadn't already said it, they're an awesome family and I'm so grateful for their love for her and also of their understanding in allowing and furthermore welcoming me to visit her anytime I'm in Perth. And if that wasn't already mind-blowingly amazing, they're also happy to let me have her for a day!! You can be sure I didn't need to be asked more than once....a day with my baby, how can I say no?? :p

Round about noon on the 25th of June, I picked Akela up for her new home and ran around in their yard for about an hour with her, trying (and failing) to try to get her less excited before I took her out.

Many thanks to Amanda and Aunty Bea for the use of their car to pick her up - it was real roomy and Akela loved it!

We then went to Lake Monger for abit of a walk/jog by the lake...if you recall, this was the last place I took her before driving the long road up north to give her away on the last day. This was also the place where in the frenzied running amuck and playing on the grass fields, I lost the keys to my car...!!!

Next up was Fremantle for lunch and desserts with my cousin Cherilyn who was in town...Akela loved the attention she got, except for maybe that of these three extremely loud and high-pitched school gals - did I mention they had a rather pungently cheap deodorant on too? :p But yeah, everyone who walked past gave her pats and cuddles.

Leighton Beach for a sunset stroll/walkabout was our last stop before taking her back to her new home...she left lotsa imprints on the beach...and deepened those already left on my heart.

PS: Uploaded a whole album of other photos from the two days I spent with her [Click Here]

From an internet kiosk at Brisbane Transfer Centre

2007-07-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

So I've just paid $2 for 20minutes on this kiosk...largely because I had to do some urgent work for a client. That's done now and I have 4mins remaining so i thuoght I might as well drop a note here, afterall...it really has been awhile!

My blog is kinda like a month behind in actual time, with a coupla more perth entries to go regarding Akela and the KEYpers cell retreat, followed by 12 days on a Coastal North-west road trip all the way to Exmouth and back...and then a week in Sydney, a day in Coffs Harbour and 2 days at Byron Bay followed by this weekend spent in Brisbane...so yeap at least you know that's what you're missing out on! :op

I'll catch up eventually...I have to!! Coz my travels are about to end!!! In just 8 days I will arrive in Singapore and that would be the end of my round-the-world galavanting that you've all joined me on in the last 7+ months! Don't fret or sigh though....I will departing the very next day for a family holiday and so there's more!!

I am well and all is well...definitely amped about heading home and looking forward to saving the world!! :p

Family & Friends in Perth

2007-07-13T18:23:00.000-07:00

Woohoo!! Back in Oz!! Apart from the really swollen and throbbing arm, it was an awesome feeling to come through customs in Perth and step out into a familiar airport arrival hall; that and the fact that my flight had brought me home so quickly that I'd arrive half an hour before my designated transport arrived. haha! But arrive she did, with happy smiles but irritation at my lack of hearing and thus answering her phonecalls. Because I'm about month behind in blogs, instead of detailing what I've done day by day, I reckon it's best to bring you the highlights of the three weeks I spent in Perth...largely spent catching up with family and friends between 6-27 June.

Amanda (Part 1 of many) - Picked me up, let me pick our dinner venue and then welcomed me into her home...who can find a better friend? :) But here's the dealbreaker...at about midnight, despite having a massive paper to write and exams to study for, because my arm is starting to go numb and the swelling starts travelling up my arm, she takes me to the hospital where we spend in excess of 4hrs waiting for med students to tell me that my bite could be "either poisoning or infection" - which I already knew!!! I should state that I went there with the sole intention of finding out which it was - the first being a greater concern obviously. Anyway, 4 hours two jabs and a two-week dose of antibiotics later, they said that if I was nauseous the next day and had a fever, it would say it's poisoning. Bah. While we were there though, Amanda had her first go at being in my shoes... hahahha!

Tan family in town - That's Uncle Jeff, Aunty Linda, and their two boys, Ryan and Jerrold. They'd been in for a week already, spent most of it down south at North Dandalup and Margaret River and headed up to bring mum back to me (my mum arrived in Perth with them and had been travelling with them). So they came back up on the 7th but I was feeling pretty sick from meds and the bite and stuff so after lunch at Coco's in South Perth, we went home to rest with the intention of meeting for dinner later at about 7:30, but I got progressively more nauseous and chucked one big spew before retiring for the night at 7pm - obviously dinner was off.

I felt better the next day though, and so together with mum and aaron...I took the boys to lunch at Little Creatures in Fremantle where we had a feast of pizzas, chilli mussels, proscuitto wrapped prawns, frites and some other stuff. The boys had their taste of the lil creatures Rogers before we headed off for gelato and buosino at Amano - where Jerrold squashes a maggot-carrying fly. Their family goes out to dinner that evening and when they return we take them to the airport to say byeeee.

Mumfret (aka mummy dearest, mom, ma) - yay! hadn't seen my mum for 6mths now, pretty much since I hit the road in december, so it was cool to see her again (although our plans to hang out and do some mother-daughter travel were ruined by some peeps). I had to tow her to a coupla meetings with me in the early days but in any case, we had fun hitting my favourite hangouts, restaurants and cafes in various parts of Perth, plus beaches at Freo, Cottesloe, Trigg and she also did alot of shopping at Harbourtown, Westfield Innaloo and at Garden City too. What can I say? That's my mummy!

The Lee Family (that's Uncle Nick, Aunty Miranda, Denise, Adele and Jordan) - while mum was here we drove up to see the family that I'd known since the beginning of my time in Perth and have had the privilege of getting to know and be a part of too! Though they cook a mean feast at home, we opted to head out to Hillary's for dinner instead. It's amazing but it really did seem like all three kids had grown SO MUCH in the 6 months I'd been away...we shared a huge seafood platter amongst the four of us and could hardly finish it!!

The de Mello's (Uncle Bas, Aunty Yvonne, Justin and Shane) - another northern hike but definitely worth it, awesome to go catch up with a family that's always held its doors open to me and more importantly had their arms and hearts open to me whenever I needed a safe place. Justin and Shane were studying for exams then...plus shane was sick in bed...bleah, so Uncle Bas, Aunty Yvonne, Mumfret and I went for lunch in the city at Matsuri - and I conclude their food really is crap and defo not worth the money you pay for it! But it was great company anyway so...no complains there! :)

Kirsty - My sister, friend, chick, and what not....she's so many things to me but really this one is just a princess and a gem! We hadn't spoken much whilst I'd been on the road but we had so much to catch up on and that made it that much more special I guess. We spent a whole evening catching up at Oriels over several coffees, teas and cakes and then went on to the Llama Bar and after we just had to leave, arranged to hang out again the coming weekend - which proved to be a retreat of sorts for the both of us with chill out chats and sharing of hearts, visits to two churches, breaking of bread (nutella slice) around a fridge - that later developed as the power source for the hen and chicks bunch - shall expound on this later.

Justin - Ex-colleague and friend whilst on the road, it was lovely to catch up and amazingly indulgent too coz I got treated to what I have to say must be the best meal I've had in a loooooong time at Zafferano's! At his insistence (and my great desire obviously), we did the full three course.....I had an entree of calamari, seafood paella for my main and an apple and rhubarb crumble for dessert. We yakked for hours, doing a full catch up of the last 6 months and discussing all sorts of funny crazy things (like not dating and just marrying the next person who asks me to) and suddenly it was too late and we had to go - but not before we drove through the tunnel under mounts bay road that I never even knew existed!! :p

Cheryl - she was languishing in 9-subject exams when I arrived so i waited the exam period out before we hung out and did stuff. Although I did make the occasional visit to bring smiles and coffee (and "retard" retorts!)....after the exam ordeal was over though, I spent a night at her place and went for the most horrendous, lung-killing, muscle-pulling run at ever-too-early in the morning. But...it was all good after when we had yummy sandwiches and cake at 130 in Leederville.

Dawn - she's from singas but been in Sydney studying for awhile now, decided to travel around aust (like what I'm doing now) before heading home and Perth was her last stop. We were in secondary school together in Perth then lost contact for a coupla years and somehow found each other again just before she was heading to Sydney (I was already in Perth then)...so yeah same country, all the more reason to stay in touch I guess!

Amanda (2 of many more to come) - Had a pretty crazy late afternoon colouring her hair, which was a two-step process that involved first an overall colour and then a streaking/bleaching highlighting bit. And you need to know that this came after waiting for her to clear all her assignments and exams followed by pretty intensive days and nights of talking and catching up in very great detail. :)

Tanglets - Michelle, Yvonne and Rachael...three of the most wonderful, exuberant and beautiful ladies in Perth. I had dinner at their house and we watched crazy videos and laughed lots and lots and eventually settled into bed for the night - but not before taking funny photos with mad animals AND pulling down the curtain, the rod it was supported by, knocking down a rather large mirror, and everything else on the top of a shelf, including a large glass of water all over Rae's bedroom slippers...yeap, that's me. But they still love me...aren't they darlings?

Cherilyn - My cousin was in town for a night...we caught up for lunch at little creatures, coffee somewhere else in freo (I had akela with me all day that day...will write about that later) and eventually after a looooong drive up to where Akela lives now, we ended up back in Northbridge for dinner at Kim Chee House and then she had to head back to the hotel to pack up and prep up for her flight out.

I guess this is a tribute to a phenomenal family - did I mention Amanda's family? - and to fantastic friends...people who are a part of who I am today and continue to shape who I will be tomorrow with their love, acceptance, encouragement and support. Three cheers to family and friends - everyone say HOORAY!

Fiji's Coral Coast

2007-07-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

2/6 (Sat) - From the airport I hopped onto a local bus that would take me to Korolevu, a town on the southern coast of Viti Levu. Nadi is on the western coast of Viti Levu, which is Fiji's main and largest island, so it was about a 3hr bus ride where we passed through central Nadi and made a quick stop at the bus station (where I got the photo of the funny ice cream man) to drop off and pick up more passengers before continuing on down what is known as Coral Coast. That the bus was full of Indians surprised me...but this was only the beginning of my forray into the world of Fijian populace...it ends somewhat with my understanding of the multiple coups Fiji has experienced since 1997.

I'd tried to book a bed at nearby hostels but none had vacancies so I ended up booking myself into Tambua Sands Beach Resort for a night. The bus dropped me off right outside the entrance and I was pleasantly surprised by the location of the resort; furthermore, I was given a beach-front bure (Fijian type hut) which had a patio where I could sit in and take in the views and inhale salty sea air. The bure had a queen-sized bed and two singles so I guess it's normally meant for families, the resort also had a funny shaped pool that was very welcoming and beckoning. There wasn't anything to do closeby so spent the entire afternoon and most of the evening streatched out on the beach reading. It started raining after sunset and it poured down for the whole night.

3/6 (Sun) - I contemplated shifting my flight out of Fiji forward because of the crappy rainy weather but after ringing the dive shop in Beqa (pronounched mbeng-ah) I was assured that the dive continued even in rainy weather and more importantly, that visibility was unlikely to be affected by the rain and wind, and so I packed up and checked out and headed for the side of the road to wait for a passing bus that would take me to Pacific Harbour (about an hour away). I was dropped off at the Arts Village there and knowing that the hostel I had booked was attached to it, I kindda ambled around looking out for it and found it behind a pond and at the end of a funky-looking wooden bridge across the pond.

I was housed in a 24-bed dorm (the largest I'd encountered thus far on my trip) with only one other person in it - and we had been allocated beds on opposite ends of the dorm...the place was kindda cool, with a lounge area that had an air-hockey table, tv, dvd player and even a massage chair of sorts! Its pool comes out tops on the "features" list though, with a rather odd-looking "face" structure at one end of it with a slide from the side and the whole pool area covered with fine soft sand...or actually the jacuzzi tucked away in the back behind the pool bar might come close too! That evening I caught up on my LA blogging and photo sorting in the lounge area while Roxana (the other girl in the dorm) hired out and watched Pink Panther and we chatted a little about destinations we've been to and upcoming round-australia travels.

4/6 (Mon) - Shark diving!! Finally!! I'd been so amped about it since I started planning the trip to Fiji coz I'd heard on numerous occasions that this was the best shark dive location in the world! I got picked up from the front of tsulu at 8am and met the rest of the people I'd be diving with on the trip as they got picked up from various locations. About 15minutes into the drive I realised I hadn't brought my dive card and just as I was wondering what to do and chastising myself at the inconvenience I'd cause to the group, the guy beside me said to the driver that he had to go back coz he'd forgotten his card....I laughed - comic relief, and the driver told us we might not need it (coz details could be looked up online).

We got to the dive shop, paid for our dives and signed off indemnities then got kitted up and headed for the boat where we were introduced to "papa", our divemaster for the day. He quickly launched into giving us the dive profile and alot of information about the sharks we'd be diving with as well as the processes involved with the feeding and diving we'd be involved in that morning. I learnt a fair bit from the "lecture", such as the fact that the sharks have poor vision (did you know that???) and also that some sharks could consume 150kg of fish at one go...I think this was the tiger shark.

When we arrived at the top of Shark Reef, the crew began chucking some of the fish they'd brought over the side and it was pretty crazy watching the feeding frenzy begin and all the giant trevally and sharks jumping and snapping at the surface to grab chunks of the fish - and at the point you begin to wonder "do i really want to be jumping in there?" But I did anyway and had the two most rewarding dives ever! On the first dive we descend first to 30m and sit amazed whilst watching all these giant trevally and other huge fishes (about 1-3m long) swim all around us in a huge frenzy. We also spot several BIG 3-4m bull sharks circling and after about 20minutes we make our way up to about 17m where they begin to feed the sharks...at this depth we see about 5 different types of reef sharks that are smaller, about 1-2m and after this make our ascent to rest on the boat for an hour before the second dive.

The specific goal of the second dive is to feed the bull sharks and it's such an unreal experience, to see these huge creatures that we fear so much within an arm's length and especially seeing their jaws pull wide open and clamp down on chunks of fish being fed to them at the same distance (you can see their rows of teeth!!!) is just such a rush. Seeing them down there has definitely given me a newfound awe of their magnificence and also painted them in a rather funny light...where while I've always thought them to be insanely fast, accurate killing machines, I now actually see them as dumb-looking (blunt noses held back in the palm of the feeder's hand while they chuck fish into their mouths) in a cute way and I almost feel sorry for them coz they look clumsy (I know they are not, but they look that way coz they are so huge!!)

After the dive Niko (the guy who'd forgotten his padi card as well) and Tero who are both from Finland, grabbed their bags from where they'd been accomodated and leave em at the huge dorm at Tsulu and we have pizza for lunch at tha arts village. Eventually they work out that they can't get to where they want to go by that night and so they opt to stay a night at tsulu and leave the following morning so we end up watching Final Destination 3 in the lounge before heading off to bed that night.

5/6 (Tues) - I wake bright and early to pack all my stuff and take it down to reception and arrange with them to leave my stuff there while I went out for my whitewater kayaking daytrip. While waiting for the arranged transport, I sat down on a cane/rattan woven chair to wait and two minutes later feel like my arm was being stung; I look down at it and see three or four redspots and dismissing it as mosquito or ant bites, I just put some anti-hestamine cream on it but about 30 seconds later I realise it must be more than just a normal bite because the whole area had swollen and become a red angry lump! I tell the girl at the counter to ask if perhaps there was a known spider or something that caused such reactions and they ended up lifting the chair and banging it and etc to look for the culprit that had found me but they found nothing. I didn't think anything could be done anyway and so when the guy arrived to pick me up I thought I'd just go and see what happened...by then (20mins later) it did look like it was starting to subside.

A short 10 minute drive takes us to the office of Fiji Rivers (the people who were conducting this whitewater kayaking thimajiggy) where we pay up, get given a windbreakerand a dry bag and a short briefing that pointed out on a map the places where we'd be heading that day. We get into a 4WD bus and 2 hours later we hop out with numb bums into the village of Nakavika in the Namosi Highlands where we were handed a sulu (sarong) to cover up our knees with before walking through the village. Fact: did you know that the Namosi Province was the last one in Fiji that stopped cannibalism? (I didn't even know they practiced it..hhahaha!)

We walk straight to the Village Chief's house, passing some kava being dried under aluminium sheets, a litter of piglets, a hen and her chicks as well as many happy children from the village kindergarten. At the chief's house, our guide prepares some kava for the sevu sevu (a traditional ceremony where permission is sought from the chief for entering the village and its grounds as well as for the use of the river). Because it's deemed uncourteous if we don't each drink a bowl, everyone has to and we're taught the terms of "low tide", "high tide" and "monsoon" to determine how much we get served. So, I asked for "low tide" and had my first taste of kava - not entirely impressed. One of the group aptly described it as..."looks like mud, tastes like mud"...haha! What was interesting though was that my tongue went numb almost immediately and the guide explained that it was a "relaxing drink" and that as you drink more bowls, more and more of your muscles kindda go to sleep. (I wondered why we were drinking kava before we went kayaking???!!! haha!)

From there it was a short drive to where we'd begin a walk down to the riverbed where our inflatable kayaks waited...the first 30minutes were probably the most exhilirating with the most rapids to navigate through - i capsized and floated downstream twice before working out the difference in controlling the inflatable craft as opposed to a normal kayak (wasn't so bad compared to the others..haha!) We continued for about an hour before stopping at a flat part of the river where it was really peaceful, we were in a gorge and there was a small waterfall cascading down a cliff face right across where we'd pulled in for lunch.

After another hour of paddling, we pull in somewhere else an go on abit of a trek to a really large waterfall; tonnes of water cascades off a rocky cliff face and when we're about 50m away we're already getting covered in its spray. We make our way across slipper rocks and wade across the "river" and eventually find ourselves right beneath the thundering waters (not really beneath it...it'd be too painful!) Just another half an hour's paddling downstream and we transfer into a motorised longboat and continue downstream for about 45minutes then get picked up by the bus and head back to Pacific Harbour.

I get back and realise my arm is pretty sore from the bite/sting earlier that morning but quickly shower, change and repack my bags at tsulu then head out to the side of the main road to try and catch a bus back to Nadi for my 6am flight the next morning. However, two ladies I start chatting to while waiting wave down a taxi and manage to work out a deal for me so I get to cab all the way to Nadi Airport for a mere $15 (only $3 more than a bus which would've been full of locals and taken over an hour longer)! On the way, I realise my arm is really quite swollen and painful but coz I'm wearing a jumper I couldn't actually see what it was like. I grab a shepherd's pie and an 'el presidente' (fancy sounding double espresso) from the "Republic of Capuccino" coz I'm in for a looong night.

I grab my big backpack from left luggage then pretty much look like I'm camping on two rows of seats in the waiting area of the airport while I open up everything and start deciding what to bring back and what to chuck; which item needs to be checked in and what can be taken onboard & more importantly, what entertainment I need with me on the 4hr long flight, 3hr wait at Auckland airport and lastly, the 7hr flight that'll take me back to Perth.

And in the midst of the packing I made two distress calls to my sis to check with her mum-on-law as to whether there was anything I could do about my increasingly swollen, painful and throbbing arm that was so so hot it was all red! Apart from downing anti-histamine pills and trying to compress it with a cold, wet tourniquet, not much...but it was a long and painful night.

6/6 (Wed) - Morning arrives and my bags are all packed up and I've put on my "freedom junkies" shoes that are awesome and I have to give credit to all the Los Angeles Masters Commission incredibly talented students for em. I fall asleep sitting in the time between checking in and actually being able to board the plane and lose my bottle of water in that process. I also meet a brazillian dude named Conrado whom I end up being seated beside for the flight and we have a whole load of laughs and realise that we arrived in Fiji on the same flight from LA a week ago (talk about small world!).

Conrado was a real sweetie, coz having seen how my arm was so swollen and even felt the heat of it through my jumper, he volunteered to chill with me at the airport and look for a doctor or pharmacy once we'd cleared customs etc. There was no doctor though, so I just purchased an anti-bacterial cream and that had to make do for abother 8hrs til I arrived in Perth. My flight to Perth left Auckland late but arrived in Perth about half an hour earlier than planned and I cleared customs real quick too so just sat around waiting for awhile whilst Amanda made her way to the airport. It was so sweet just to take in the sweet, clean, crisp and fresh air of Perth - amazing feeling of being home.

Mana Beach Island, Fiji

2007-06-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

30/5 (Wed) - Arriving at the airport in Nadi (pronounced nan-di) at about 5:30am, the sky was still dark as I made my way towards the "left luggage" counter and spent about an hour outside it unpacking an repacking my bags so that I'd only have to take my little blue bag with me and could leave behind my backpack as well as a a board I'd bought for my brother in LA. By the time I'd sorted all that out (it included a trip back to the departures building to get local fijian currency out of the atm), about an hour and a half had passed and I was greeted by bright blue skies outside the airport.

I purchased a domestic flight out to Mana Beach Island, one of the islands within the Mamanucas Group just west of Nadi, and settled in a seat with a Z-bar to chew on whilst I journaled and went through the music I had on my iPod...waiting for an hour to pass so I could board the plane. I thought I'd seen the smallest passenger plane in Costa Rica....this one was smaller. Operated by Pacific Sun, the plane was an 8-seater but really if it was going to be comfortable (take the word with a pinch of salt here), it should really only be taking 4. Anyway, the flight was a short 15 minutes and we flew over amazingly clear blue waters dotted everywhere with little islands and some remained just slightly below the waters surface..really quite amazing!

We pulled into an air strip and shortly after landing I was greeted by two guys...one was Soka and I can't remember the other guy's name. They put my bag into a wheelbarrow and said we would take a short 10minute walk to the hostel...on the way there we walked past the Mana Beach Resort which sprawled all across the beachfront and the boys told me that if we weren't guests tehre then we weren't allowed to even step into the resort grounds or use its toilets, restaurants, deck chairs, and even its dive shop!

Anyway...Mereani's (the hostel) is pretty uncrowded and we are pretty much right on the beach and I get my own room with meals provided, nothing to complain about at all really! I head out to try and organise my dives right away and managed to (eventually) book a dive that afternoon...so with several hours to kill, I purchase a highly expensive disposable underwater camera and also take some shots round the jetty at the beach. Of note is this pipe that carries water from somewhere within the resort and sprays it out under the jetty.

The first dive was meant to be at Supermarkets - a dive site known for its shark sightings...however, the swell was too big and that would've meant a crap dive so the divemaster said we'd dive somewhere else instead. We ended up at North Reef where we did a 38minute diving with maximum depth recorded at 19 meters...visibility was poor and a strong surge made it a rather unpleasant dive. We did see a school of barracudas though, and that was pretty cool and almost made up for it :) Got back in for dinner at the hostel and got to know the other guests as well as the crew a lil bit better and while they all ended up drinking heaps of kava that night, I was jet lagged and wanted to get some solid sleep in before more diving the following day.

31/5 (Thurs) - Bright and early I was up and out at the dive shop getting ready for the dive at Supermarket...I was pretty amped for sharks this time! The sea looked a little less "phat" and we hoped that there would be less surge and undercurrents this time...on this dive James (a guy form NZ) was doing his open water so he had his own instructor with him and so just me and John (divemaster) dropped down at the furthest part of the reef and pretty much exactly where we descended, we saw a bull shark circling and it was HUGE...it was pretty awesome too. But visibility too wasn't that great and as we swam on we saw a coupla other small sharks in the distance as well as some giant clams, moray eels and etc. It was a 42minute dive with maximum depth recorded at 20metres....I opted not to do another dive because with visibility as low as 5m at times, I didn't think it worth paying to see not much. I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the local village and subsequently lounging around reading and journaling at a secluded beach about 20mins walk west of the hostel.

1/6 (Fri) - After brekkie at the hostel, I set off for Sunset Beach where I was told I'd find good snorkelling and swimming. It was a warm and uncomfortable walk but when I got there, it was as though I'd found my own slice of paradise. White sand beaches with crystal clear waters....and....not a soul in sight! The entire beach was mine for the day, I never saw a single soul while I swam, snorkelled, dried out, swam some more, shriveled in the sun, and swam some more...you get the idea. :D

The day past quickly and by the time I headed back for my room, it was dinner time and the crew insisted that I'd have to join them for kava and a fire-dance show that evening. So I showered, got dressed, had dinner and prepared to go...however, while waiting I went back to the room and eventually fell asleep (i blame it on the hearty dinner they cooked up) - dress, shoes and all!

2/6 (Sat) Alas, the time had come to leave my lovely island...I had brekkie, packed up and dragged my little blue bag to the airstrip and chatted with a couple from New Zealand who'd spent a week at the resort and had been aghast to find out that the prices they'd paid for their drinks were double what non-resort residents would've paid in shops, restaurants and bars around the village. Then it was back into the mini 8-seater planes and a short 15min flight to Nadi Airport.

Done & Done

2007-06-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

Had a heavenly week in Fiji then too many long flights back to Perth - so yes, I'm back home (although I will be going home to Singapore at some point too)...which brings us back to, am I home? or am I away?

Anyway.

I'm still playing catch up with my blog...but at least all my LA entries are up now and all the albums are in the photo gallery too so you definitely need to check them out, I think there are some 8 or 9 albums from LA.

Here's a funny vid from Angelus Temple for you to check out while I sort out Fijian photos and get my fingers flying across the keyboard with bula, vineka, kava and other funny fiji adventures...

My last 24hrs in LA

2007-06-10T01:38:00.000-07:00

Down to my last 24...and I couldn't have better picked the company I was with! Arranging to catch up with Jade and Angel back at Angel's pad later, Ryan, Leanna, Tim and I head first to Westwood so I can get my last Diddy Riese fix (which was somewhat disappointing coz it was so late and they'd run out of the cookie flavours that I normally had...but the ice cream was still great and the company more than made up for it - what with Tim's straw-flower and all! From there we head to Santa Monica Pier and the first thing we see is row upon row of crosses on the sand...and I remember it's Memorial day on the 28th of May. There were crosses, candles and several boards with statistics of fatalities in the Iraq war (most deaths occurring from non-combat situations) and several filled with photos of those who'd lost their lives in the war.

We walk further down the pier and enter Pacific Park..it's like a fair that's always there, with its own ferris wheel, mini roller coaster and lots of stalls with a variety of games to be played and giant plush toys to be won...and the flavour for them at this point in time is Shrek...so there's Shreks, donkeys and baby ogres hanging from every stall! We amble around for a little and try to get one of those crushed and embossed pennies but the machine was out of service and they were locking the gates and closing stalls so we got the hint and headed out...stopping to grab a hot churro for Jade and also to snap a photo outside the restaurant Bubba Gump - where you can put your feet into Forrest Gump's shoes whilst sitting on a bench and snap a photo...I took the photo...without me. :D

We were gonna try and catch a midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 but apparantly they didn't have such late shows...even on a long weekend! So Jade lovingly volunteered to make dessert at Angel's place so while she and Angel went to get the ingredients, the four of us headed for their place in two cars; both bgot lost. I was in Tim's car...and we managed to exit too early and then find ourself staring at an incredibly large mormon temple and after several calls to Angel, we manage to find our way there with Jade already busy in the kitchen. Tim helps with peeling apples and we find he's actually quite skilled for the job, pulling off looooooong coils which we take in turn to eat up!

Jade serves up some chicken pasta while she puts the apple crumble into the oven...it was so good I had seconds! haha! And then at 3am, the apple crumble comes out of the oven looking oh-so-tasty! It's so funny coz the last time I saw Jade, we were in Perth at her party a year ago and she made an apple crumble at 1:30am and I thought she was mad....hahaha! Anyway, we eat up and yak a little longer till everyone starts passing out and at about 4am, Ryan takes Leanna, Brittney and I back to the DC while Jade crashes at Angel's for the night. (PS: check out the spelling on that pot on the stove!)

I go to sleep at about 5am and wake at 10:30am and start packing...I was supposed to lunch with Laura and we agreed to do it at 12:30...but she realises some of the other MC gals have organised a surprise for her (belated birthday surprise which we later find out is a manicure and pedicure) so we swop stuff around and Jade and I head to Burbank to go to Costco so I can get a box of Reese's and have lunch at the same time. Sadly, Costco was closed and we almost didn't make it to Chipotle but we did and the food was great - I didn't have my camera on me!! haha! So anyway, we get back to DC and I finish up packing and we head to the Alcove for a bite, Laura has a very big bite...of her Ham and Cheese sandwich...and we share two chocolate cakes between us...hahaha! It's a long story that one.

While we chat away, Jade nips off to get some groceries coz she's cooking dinner at Michael's place that evening...it's a mini farewell of sorts coz he's moving out of the dream center to Orange County. So anyway...from there we head back to the Dream Center to pick up my bags, finish off writing out my statement for witnessing the car incident so I can sign it and have it verified by someone so it can be used in Jade's court trial, and then more groceries at Vons and then we're off to his place. Jade whips up a french something chicken with rice (she is just the awesomest cook ever!!) while I put new music onto my ipod (Brady decided to gift me in kind for the website with a bunch of CDs coz we didn't get to buy any!).

From Michael's place, Angel, Jade and I zip off to the airport where Ryan and Leanna were already waiting for us and after I check my bags in, we all go to the main terminal where there are some coffee places and chill for about an hour taking numerous photos (they're below) and sorta saying goodbye I guess....Ryan's our timekeeper and he tells us when it's time to go so I get dropped back at the Air Newzealand Terminal and then suddenly, I'm on my own...even on the plane I score a whole row to myself (Yes!!!) and after eating my plane food, I go to ZzzzZZZzzZZ all the way till they serve brekkie 2 hrs before we arrive in Nadi, Fiji.

LA Wk3 : 21 - 27 May

2007-06-08T07:19:00.000-07:00

Monday (21/5) - Finally...a day of rest has appeared in the midst of the busy schedule. We were meant to head to the beach but it was all grey and cold so we logically decided not to. Instead, we spend the morning first at the Inglewood Courts, putting up bail (fine) of $630 for the two infractions the officer charged Jade with last monday and booking in a court trial on the 12th of June - to contest the charges obviously. And then we head on to the Air Newzealand office nearby and get my remaining flights from LA to Nadi (Fiji) and Nadi to Auckland and then on to Perth re-issued. After being greeted by an empty reception area where you're supposed to read instructions and punch buttons to reach someone, it was sorted easily enough and we head back to the DC.

At about 3pm, we make it to Melanie's place and find they're not in...and as we head out to the shops to get scone ingredients, they drive up and so we all go to the supermarket together. Eventually, we get back and Jade's making yummy scones while I'm trying not to blow my nose off while trying to make bookings for my flights, dives and accomodation in Fiji the following week (how organised am I doing it a week in advance?? haha!!) Anyway...the scones come out of the oven and the whole apartment is filled with the aroma of freshly baked scones...yum yum! I have to say...thumbs up to Jade for whipping up without even having a recipe to look at! Jade books tickets to the dodgers game that night then I leave with her to go back to the DC for a quick workout at the gym before the game.

Angel, Tim and Ryan meet us back at the DC and we drive to the game together...and they both make fun of my asian-trigger-happy ways. Tsk tsk! Angel, Jade and I took our "necessary" photo in front of the dodgers sign and we head inside to find our seats. Soonafter, Tim launches into very detailed explanations of how the game works, and give me the basics of how Balls, Strikes and Outs are counted and I even grasped the concept of an "inning"!! haha! I was just started to get it when Melanie and Leanna arrived and I go on a "tour" of the stadium with Melanie as we walk around looking for "real" and by that she means healthy food. She settles for a salad and I grab a horrible dried out churro (oh well) and head back to our seats to watch the game.

Sometime later I cross a coupla seats to go sit with Leanna and Melanie and chat for abit...and I think before that there was some song they sang..like a cheer song, and the words were on the scoreboard and everyone got up and started singing (i have video evidence...hahah!). Oh and I haven't mentioned that across from where we sat, there was a sign up in the hills saying "THINK BLUE" imitating the HOLLYWOOD sign in the hills...but blue referring to the dodgers obviously. And I decide that Ryan should convert and be Ryammed bin Purblueorange and he converts me into some mad-looking nazi warlordess...and yes, we're still friends.

Tuesday (22/5) - Again, no photos of what happened in the day, so that means whatever we were doing, we were very busy at it. That night though, was the monthly Women's Ministry meeting at Angelus Temple and Gina Hanley spoke on "great fakes"...there was a skit I didn't quite get, a french chef (not really) educating us on making preparing a cheese platter and I guess the highlight of the night would (sadly) be when she said (probably in error) that "women need to BE the holy spirit"...which became a punch line for the rest of the night. After service Angel, Jade, Sarah and I went to a nearby little vietnamese place...by then my cold was so bad I couldn't taste a single thing, but because it was so crowded, I assume it was good chow.

We stop by at the supermarket on the way back and pick up a cake for Laura...it was her birthday the following day so we were gonna do a surprise cake-cutting at midnight. It was a great success coz she had actually gone to sleep already (despite the noise Angel, Jade and I were making yakking away) and then when we did eventually cut the cake Lashonda (not sure how that's spelt) joined us too and freaked us all out coz she had ringworm!!! But we still love her! :p We ended up yakking till like 3am and so Angel slept over...on my mattress...hahah!

Wednesday (23/5) - Jade and I spend the morning running errands in preparation of this Saturday's HUGE MC service and amongst some of the things we had to get, we stopped in at chinatown to pick up some bags and so we got lunch from Sam Woo's BBQ (I had beef brisket and shrimp wanton noodle...hehe) We "da pao-ed" coz we didn't have time and so we get back and Angel joins us there and she and Jade attack their Duck + Charsiew rice while I contend with the noodles until Chris drives by in the truck beeping his horn, signalling it was time for Angel and I to go.

We were volunteering with Under The Bridge that afternoon...a ministry that goes out to skid row with hot food to feed the homeless people. It was pretty sad...I'd never seen that many homeless people before in my life, and to see them all together in one place was somewhat overwhelming for a moment and then Chris told Angel and I to just go mingle and speak with the people so that's what we did. There were alot of people waiting in line for the food so that's where we started. I spoke to a filipino lady who said she came out there for meals whenever she was having troubles with her husband at home, and then later on as people were getting their food we just sat with them as they ate. Some wanted to talk, some didnt. Some cried, some laughted...so many faces, so many people....so many needs. The last lady I spoke to said to call her "dreds" coz of the dreadlocks she had....she just come to Los Angeles on a bus a week ago...from the Bronx in New York. We chatted some and she asked me to pray for her..and then we chatted some more and she asked when Christ was gonna preach (she pointed to him, coz she didn't know his name)..and she said that she wanted to hear him speak coz last week when she'd been sleeping out on the streets, she saw him get arrested and said that because he gets treated the same way they do and still comes back out to love em and feed them, he was real, and what he would have to say would be good stuff.

I get back to the DC exhausted...not sure if it's physical, mental or emotional...but I feel drained. Jade and Angel are planning to go to the United show at the LA forum that night, but I'd arranged to go out to Dream St Skid Row that evening with Ryan and Leanna so I wasn't going. While we were sitting in the room discussing them getting tickets, Brady rang and Jade asks him to come down and hang out then go to the United thinggy...and while he's on the way, Jade tells us he's just moved from Kansas City and she and Chad had met him like two months ago or something when he came to check LA out. Anyway, so he arrives and we meet him...later on we all go down to the cafe to talk and what eventuates is a sharing of hearts, skills, interests etc and before I know it, we've agreed to meet again sometime in the week to have a look at a website for a ministry him and Theresa are starting.

At 6:30pm, Ryan, Leanna and I meet up with Mickey and a group from Oklahoma to go out to Skid Row...this time we're handing out bags of chips (later we realise they are mixed berry flavoured chips...not potato chips!! haha!) and just there to invite them to church if they want and let them know about discipleship, food chapel and various DC ministries that could help them out if they need it. The whole place looks different at night compared to what I'd just seen in the day...I learn from asking Mickey a whole load of questions that it's a crime to be homeless...so to speak...and so police come and try to give them a hard time and move em elsewhere or take them to prison and stuff like that. Kindda sad huh.

We get back to the DC at 9:30 and I hadn't had dinner yet so Leanna insists that I need to go somewhere and eat (how sweet!) and eventually we decide to go to "denny's!!!!" coz when I was asking what was open, Ryan suggested it and Lenana and I let out the same exclamation as though we had shared fond memories of the place, when the fact of the matter really is that I hadn't been to Denny's since the one at Holland Village in Singapore closed down eons ago! I got excited thinking about corn beef hash...but when we got there, they didn't have it on their menu. Instead, they had some specials so I had a grand slam breakfast that consisted of hash, eggs, bacon and sausages...PLUS 3 large buttermilk pancakes...hahah!

No I didn't finish it all! What was amazing though, was that they had refilable flavoured coffees and hot chocs...and I ordered a hot choc while ryan and leanna had the coffees, and because they couldn't decide which flavour to get, the waitress brought a fourth coffee just for us to try...and whenever we refilled, the fourth glass got refilled too!! It got even better! When we went to pay, the waitress only charged us for one coffee...when in reality we'd had like maybe 12 different coffees and hot chocs between the three of us! In fact the coffees were so good we had to take a pic with the froth on our lips...hahha!

Thursday (24/5) - Bright and early at 7:15am, Angel and I head out to the black top to join the food truck...it turns out we were a little too early and it was about 7:45am when we started loading up the truck with fresh and canned produce and about 8am by the time we leave. We meet Alfred who's the driver, Jose who decides how much food to take & etc and Patricia, who's a 3mth volunteer from the UK. We visit two sites that morning in the vicinity of K-town...and at each site we get out, bag the food into invidivual bags as the line is formed and their names are taken and when all the food is ready, the line starts moving and we hand out a bag at a time.

We go to Justin's office and I somehow landed myself the task of entering all the Red Eye newcomers details into the excel database and so I do that for awhile while Angel highlights all the relevant numbers in over 90 pages of his mobile bill for the month. Don't you think God must love him so much...to send him two helpers in one day. Bleah....! Anyway, from there we decide to have dinner at the DC Diner (to save money!!) then go to Angelus for service...and Joy Enriquez was performing that night...in her crazy high heels.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was opening that night and Chad, Anthony and some of the other guys were dressed up for the occasion and had Jade do makeup for them. As for us, we went to Hollywood Gelato where Brady joined us for a short while before we headed back coz Jade had to sort out the shoes for Saturday. We hadn't seen Nancy in two days coz I'd been out doing the volunteer stuff and while at service that evening, I'd felt to ring her and so I did but she didn't pickup...but when we got back to the DC and Angel and I had just changed into sleep gear, Nancy sent me a text saying she was fighting with her mum who was kicking her out and that she was crying and all...so we got our clothes back on to go to her place and went looking for Jade who decided she'd come with us as well...and Brady came along too, just coz...and that night, Nancy said she wanted Jesus in her life. Yay!

Friday (25/5) - Same deal for the food truck, except Tim joined us today...plus we had watermelons...which were super heavy!!! And cartons of lettuce too! As Angel discovered, I was "freakishly strong" and so we hoisted away and eventually got the truck loaded up and off we went. This morning we went to three sites in the South Central vicinity...the first stop a primary school, the second a russian house and the third a place where it was all men instead of the usual women and children who came to get food and so we packed the food into individual bags inside the truck and just handed them out from the front as they passed by.

When we got back, Brady was already waiting at the cafe - we were going to discuss the website - and so I grabbed my laptop and headed down and had a very productive hour or so discussing what he wanted and then whipping up a layout of sorts. Halfway through we went to see how Nancy was doing ( we were going to bring her in to fill out the application for discipleship)...but she wasn't in. So anyway, we worked on it for awhile till we had a layout Brady was happy with and then I went and packed up some stuff I was gonna mail, to home and as pressies for peeps and then Brady gave me a lift to the Post Office. After that we hit Amoeba Music and Borders in an attempt to find some Christian CDs (I'd heard some music of american worship bands and leaders that I hadn't heard of before and wanted to chem them out) but didn't find many - oh but I bought the new switchfoot album for 5 bucks! We then had Baja Fresh before heading back to the DC where we parted ways with the assurance that I'd work on the site overnight and have it done by the next day.

So I was going to spend the evening at the DC working on the site but all the Masters Commission students were going to the temple for rehearsal and Jade said that they could use another pair of eyes so I went as well and did some work while watching them rehearse. After watching them run it through twice, Angel rang and said some of them were going for ice-cream (I thought we were going ice-skating...) and so after numerous calls and etc, Alicia dropped me back at the DC, I grabbed a jumper then went over to Justin's office to continue working on his database but Angel arrived soon after and Justin had me trying to fix his outgoing mail server problem and so we left it for later, grabbed Joel from down the hallway then head to Jake and Sarah's new house and wait for Ryan to arrive with Leanna.

We get a tour of the house and I watch Jake and Joel play basketball on the XBox on their giant TV while waiting and eventually they arrive and we drive to Pasa Dena and I finally get to try 21 Choices...which I'd heard about from wayyy in the start of my trip. It's basically frozen yoghurt with a whole lot of toppings you can mix in...cold rock style. I get chocolate with almonds, peanut butter cup chocolate topped with fresh strawberries....I have to say, I think it was a fabulous combination! :D And then I'm all night in Justin's office working on the ZA website...and manage to finish it at exactly 9:30am the next morning, just in time for Adopt-a-Block!

Saturday (26/5) - I grab a blueberry bagel and chuck a generous spread of cream cheese on it then head down to the Adopt-a-Block meeting with Angel. She was going to Laura's site at Imperial Court and I was going to Shelly's site to say goodbye to the peeps I'd gotten to know in the last month...how sad! Jade wasn't around coz she was busy with prepping stuff for service that night so I rode with Tim and Faith and got them to make a quick stop at VONS to get some goodies for the kids and I got a cake for Pamela...the girl I'd met the first week from the apartments and she'd said her birthday was on the 31st of May and I'd told her that if I was still around, I'd get he a chocolate cake on my last visit before I left....so yeah I stuck to my word. sadly though, she wasn't there...and I ended up giving the cake to Shelly as a "thank you and goodbye" present. It was sad to say bye to Nancy...she asked me why would God send me to her and then take me away...and also saying by to Grandpa Eic was hard too...Erica was around and she was alot friendlier today, she even let me carry her and she wouldn't let go of my hand and was very smiley.

Later that afternoon, I went back to Justin's office to fix up his email and I lunch with Angel at the DC Diner then we go back to Jade's room to have a look at Angel's resume and stuf. We decide to nap but like the moment I start dozing off, Brady sends a text saying he's arrived and is at the cafe with some images we can use on the site so we spend some time selecting some and working on them. Then it's time to go for SNR...and it's a huge night coz Masters Commission is running the service...they've also put up an art gallery out front with pieces painted by the MC students and also they were selling shoes designed and painted by the students too! The service was hugely successful, with everything running wayyy smoother than I'd witnessed from rehearsal the night before.

Also, it was really special coz Nancy rocked up to service with Jason...there'd been so many times I'd gone to get her and she'd said she'd come later and she never did and this time...my last service here, she made the effort and I was so massively proud of her! Also I think coz it's got to do with how she's got big J in her now it makes it alot easier :) So yeah, after service she's waiting for us to go grab dinner and so we all help Jade take down all the gallery stuff (and i buy a pair of the freedom shoes) while Brady makes mad swings at pieces of paper dressed up as balls and eventually we head for Burger King...but decide to go to taco Bell instead...which is a combined KFC as well. We order our food and then Nancy and Jason go grab a seat while Brady and I wait for the food...and suddenly Jason storms out and Nancy's like all stressed out coz she thinks he's going to go home and thrash her stuff...so we get our food packed into bags and head back to hers and eat there. Jade joins us there for awhile and then she's got other girls in the car and she heads off with them to the Bourgeois Pig while Brady and I go back to the DC coz he's got some updated docs to give me for the site..and then he goes to join em later. I'm up working in Justin's office till 3:30am that night.

Sunday (27/5) - I overslept. haha...okay so I guess you may have gotten the hint when I said that last night's service was my last service in LA....I didn't plan it, nor am I proud of it...but I vaguely remember having a conversation with Jade at like 8:30 when she said she was leaving in 5 minutes and so I said I'd walk down at 9:30...the next time I open my eyes it's 11am already...so yeah. Anyway...a mammoth lunch discussion picks up after service and at the end of it I'm at Pink's for their famous stretch chilli cheese hot dog with Ryan and Leanna...so it wasn't comparable to the Taj Mahal (Leanna made that comparison!!) but it was definitely in the top 5 hot dogs I've had in my life! :p

From there we head to Hollywood & Highland to meet Melanie and get ice cream at Cold Stone - another ice-creamery I'd heard alot about (again, think cold-rock)...all the combinations I wanted weren't available coz they'd run out of chocolate ice cream...bleah! So I have a Mudpie Mojo or something....which is coffee ice cream with peanut butter, pecans, oreos and brownies mixed in. For some reason, mine finishes up much bigger than the others' and everyone decided it was photo-worthy and jumped in to take a photo with it!

We then spent some time actually walking out on Hollywood Blvd and taking photos of the stars on the ground and also the hand and foot prints at the Chinese Theatre (did you even know there was a chinese theatre in Hollywood??? I found this hilarious!!!). They had all these people in various costumes that you could pay to take photos with...there were alot of Johnny Depps out in pirate garb with the movie having just been released. And there was this girl and her brother busking...the girl was incredibly pale and skinny and her brother, well, Ryan and Leanna thought he was the girl's mother...and I thought it was her sister coz she looked younger than a mum...and then we realised she was a he when he started singing.

From there we went to big lots and I got a special pressie for my bro (many thanks to ryan for finding it for me!!) then we head to Patrice's place to meet Justin and pick up some lights and other gear for Red Eye at Chad's place in Bel Air that night. We get there and it's a sweet pad with views of the whole of LA down in the valley beneath....everyone gets busy either setting up the numerous lights we'd brought or prepping the food with melanie and later after all the food's gone, we sing a medley of familiar songs then watch the Invisible Children DVD...which presents the children of Uganda and their current plight while the LRA continues to abduct them for recruitment purposes. I can't describe it...so you gotta watch it for yourself. Check out www.invisiblechildren.com

Seeing as I was saying goodbye to many of them there and won't be seeing them again, we proceeded to take number of random photos:

so retarded I know....I dunno where I was looking...hahah!

Bula from Auckland, NZ

2007-06-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

Okay so that's weird mix I know...Bula is hello/welcome in Fijian (where I've just left) but I'm now sitting at the Auckland airport waiting for my connecting flight to Perth (wheee!!!! I'm coming home!!!), plus I'm gonna get to see my mum...whom I haven't seen since Dec06, so I'm soooooooo excited!

So yeah, at the airport and finally have net access again since the day I left LA. Uploaded two week-long entries from my time in LA and have another 2 more to come, will do them from Perth. Haven't written about Fiji yet. Will find the time I promise....what you need to know for now is, I dived with sharks, barracudas and had awesome white sand, blue skies and crystal clear water beaches all to myself. ;)

And here's a video of the lovely Jade for your enjoyment:

LA Wk2 : 14 - 20 May

2007-06-05T17:06:00.000-07:00

Monday (14/5) - It's a half-off day today...we start the morning off at Mama Dang's for lunch...she's put in a phenomenal effort into preparing lunch for us with a starter of plantain tempura with a hint of coconut in the batter then freshly-cooked Pho. For the ignorant, that's a vietnamese noodle dish with meatballs and raw beef slices..and for those that know me too well, you'd remember that Vietnamese is actually one of the very few cuisines I don't do...so why do I eat it now you ask? Well...haha I don't know...but only this dish I eat...and NOT if it's tasteless...in general I eat it only if it's home-cooked. haha! She's busy preparing it while we eat the plantain and a coupla BBQed dates that were wrapped in bacon...she tells us it's her son Jesse's original concoction and he told her to give it to us to try.

Eventually she brings out the two bowls of steaming noodles...incredibly fragrant and tasting even better than it looked! While we're slurping away she makes us Vietnamese ice tea...with her special cooked sugar solution and after we're done, brings out a tray of banana-pumpkin cake....thankfully she puts that into bags for us to take away because there was no way (delicious as everything was) we could've fit anything else in. Her generosity astounds me...firstly, I'd only just met her two days before...so really I am just a stranger; that she would open her house to us, and more than that, feed us a feast, made me feel ashamed of myself....so much for loving and caring for others....when I have always been so selective of who I allowed into my home. Shame on me...but it's okay, there's always new lessons to be learnt...the true question is what I'll do with what I've learnt :)

After lunch we drop in at Nancy's to check in on her...we ask her if she's got stuff she needs us to get rid of for her and pretty much today is the day we start making our daily 12noon visits to ask the hard questions and just be there for her. By the time all that is done, it's 3pm...we grab Hubert and all but hustle Faith into the car and head for Huntington Beach in Orange County. Traffic's pretty crazy though and it's already half-five by the time we get off the freeway and we're hungry again so we stop at Jack in the Box for a quick feed and jump back into the car with our oreo shakes!

A short drive later, we arrive on the coast and after some minor parking dramas, find ourselves out on a rather large expanse of sand that is Huntington Beach...the famous jetty that I've seen in numerous surf DVDs is on our right and I have to say, everything about that moment seemed so surreal...I'll blame it on the fact that although the sun was shining, cold winds were blowing and there was a strange glare in the air...we took loads of photos so check out the Huntington Beach album.

What had been thus far a really relaxing and rewarding day came to an abrupt end when while on the freeway, a police car behind us started flashing its lights to pull us over and this being the first time any of us had ever encountered such a situation in the states, Jade wasn't sure where she should pull over (she was in the car pool lane on the extreme left - in america slow traffic is on the far right). Faith and Hubert were asleep in the backseat and while we were discussing if he was in fact pulling us over and if so where to do so Faith woke up and as she did so the officer gave the instruction for us to go over to the extreme right and pull over.

When we eventually crossed the 4 lanes to get there and stop, the officer came running up to Jade's door in a frenzy and when he came near enough, I realised he was holding his gun out and as he approached Jade's window he had it raised and for a moment there I just though "he's not really a cop and he's going to shoot us"...and there was also the shock of actually seeing a gun and having it a meter away from me (can't imagine how Jade would've felt with it right in her face!). So anyway, the officer's name is WONG (on his tag), he's chinese...and actually is a cop but one with a few screws loose...he thought Jade was being kidnapped (by me) and said he thought that was why we were driving "so fast" but we weren't all that fast being in the car pool lane with cars in front of us....plus it was 7pm and traffic towards downtown LA wasn't exactly in ideal conditions for racing along! Oh that and the fact that I think he's forgotten he's actually chinese or something coz he tried to pull a "I don't know which country you got your drivers' instruction from..." at Jade, and threatened to arrest her on the spot and etc. Eventually he calmed down and took her license and car rego papers and went back to his car. He came back about 18 minutes later (I know this be because the photos I took were time-stamped) and gave her a ticket with two charges...one for speeding over 85mph (but he had no radar or anything to show it) and also for crossing the double yellow line onto the Car Pool Lane...which although she did cross into it right at the end of the permissable area, it was still before the double yellow lines started. What was proposterous was the fact that he hadn't mentioned that at all earlier and must've just decided to stick it in because he knew that without a radar and with the fact that we actually weren't speeding, his claim of us doing over 85mph would not stick. So anyway, Jade's really bummed and Faith is ringing her Dad who used to be in the police force or something and we're just all ticked off about his horrible attitude.

We drop Hubert off at Westwood and then Faith at the DC and Tim meets us there and we go in Jade's car to Blowfish (a very expensive japanese restaurant) where Melanie, Ryan and Leanna are waiting. I have to say that dinner was a pretty sad affair...for one the food portions were incredibly small with very very large price tags on them and furthermore, we'd received some bad news that evening and that being discussed at the dinner kindda ruined the evening really. So yeah...a nice day gone all wrong...hahah!

Tuesday (15/5) - Greatly overshadowed by monday's turn of events, I can't actually remember what happened tuesday, I know morning we were doing masters stuff and then I think in the afternoon Angel, Jade and I went to get lunch at the coffee table and then sometime in the arvo and then we go to Westwood to hang with Hubert before flew out that night, we had pink berry then when we got back I trained his bulldog (named Biggy - short for Mr Bigglesworth) to do a "drop" (lie down) while Jade helped him pack his bags - why I don't have any photos of his apartment or the dog, I'm not quite sure....I think I must've been too sleepy.

But anyway that evening we went to the airport coz Jade was picking Michelle up and I tried to get my tickets re-issued for the new dates that I'd booked but that was too dramatic (and tedious to explain)....suffice to say that after an hour, nothing got done and I left the airport really unappreciative of how rude and unhelpful the staff of United were. And then when we got back to the DC we dropped Mich off and picked Ryan and Leanna and headed to VONS to get Mexican for dinner at the Taco Truck...I had a very yummy and cheap Burrito and had Horchata...some mexican rice drink with cinnamon.

Wednesday (16/5) - We have a really eartly start this morning prepping the Filipino Chapel for the All Campus Staff Meeting. I think we woke up at 7:30am and did everything from carting the muffins/pastries down from Justin's office to getting the coffee and water from the kitchen and getting the banner up on stage and also getting more chairs out etc. Justin's mum Jeanne Mayo was in town and so she was scheduled to speak that morning, I think everyone was rather excited...haha!

Jade and Chad were doing games and they'd come up with something caled the something something ice cream bonanza...which basically involved dividing the room into two groups down the middle and after handing out a spoon to each person, gave the command for a 10ltr bucket of vanilla ice cream as well as two bottles of chocolate and caramel sauce to be passed around and consumed...the group that finished first would win. It was chaos!! It was so funny...some guys like just ripped off the caps off the sauce bottles and started gulping it down..and in contrast there were gals kindda squeezing the sauce out onto their spoon, gently eezing it into their mouths and all but gagging at its overwhelming sweetness and quickly passing the bottle on lest they be asked to have another spoonful.

When all the ice cream is finished and somewhere in some tummy there must be a whole lot of churning, we clear off the spoons, buckets and bottles as Justin introduces his mum and she goes up to speak. It was a pretty cool lesson and she further illustrated the reminder through a dramatised story about the frog-prince. More laughter ensued....she got four guys on stage and had costumes transforming them into a prince, princess, wicked witch and eventually for the frog when he changed from a prince. The last dude was a dancing star...and onstage too there was the um...costume hand for the day...Abby! :p

After all that, in the afternoon we go visit Nancy and find she's been sober for 2 days, which is a GREAT achievement for her and so we celebrate by heading out to Macdonalds...haha! Apple pies are 2 for 50cents in the states...crazy huh..but they're kindda small though, not like the ones we have in Sg and Oz. Also, while waiting for the food we just HAD TO take a photo together coz our babe looked so good and happy sober...we were immensely proud of her!

Instead of taking the bus, Jade's driving to the service this week...so we hop into her car with Bethany and Whitney i think and make a stop at Starbucks before going to Bethany. After rehearsing, they give us a huge BBQ feed and soonafter (as though they hadn't just eaten), Chase starts walking on the rails outside the church and Josh decides to jump off the wall and also decides he wants photos taken...I was oblivious to it coz I was standing at the back and Addrienne starts laughing like mad and eventually spits out "he's calling you Ma'am and like he's goin 'Ma'am, Ma'am can you take a photo for us?' and coz you didn't answer he's asking Jade 'what's her name? your friend's name?' " So yeah anyway...Ma'am agreed to take the photo and print it out for them later.

Thursday (17/5) - More running around today, esp with alot of the MC students working at the Microsoft Conference....Jade had to transport some of them there, so I just went along for the ride and got to see the stadium where the Lakers play (basketball). We pick Sharon up after school and stop by Chinatown to get some groceries...Jade was making chicken rice for dinner that night. After dinner we head over to Angelus Temple for service...then it's on to the Bourgeois Pig - which we'd decided was gonna be the regular after-thurs-service hangout...and while waiting for our car (which had been valet-parked), I was amazed to find that the sky that was kindda pretty bright for 10 at night was actually lit up by smog reflecting light back down. Ugh!

Friday (18/5) - Lunch was at Popeyes...my first taste of the "famous" chicken and biscuits here in the States. I'd tried it before at Changi Airport in SG but the biscuits were kindda hard and the chicken stale...so this was sorta like a treat! haha! Jade hadn't tried it before either so it was all fun anyway - I ordered a spicy strips combo that came with mash and a biscuit...the chicken was hot and crispy and the biscuit was yum! The mash ahd a funny gravy that took awhile to get used to I have to say.

I can't remember what happened in the afternoon but I have no photos so I was probably busy running around with Jade doing stuff. Oh I remember...we had lunch at Alcove with After we pick Sharon up, we go back to the DC coz some stuff was happening and Jade had to be back for awhile. That evening, Naynay and Janey join us when we head to The Grove and catch up with Nicole & Melanie there for dinner at the Farmers' Market where everyone had different stuff...Jade and I were gonna share...she was getting kebab stuff and I was to get the seafood...I got a seafood platter and chowder in a bread bowl. Very Yum!

I just realised I'm constanty describing all the great food I'm eating...hahaha! Oh well, at least you can chart the return of my double chin with each meal you're reading about! :D So anyway, after dinner we went to join the queue waiting for Shrek 3 (it just opened) and Melanie didn't wanna watch it so we returned her ticket. We were pretty much at the tail end of the line and Justin and his mum joined us there...but the girls managed to get in and save seats for all of us.

Saturday (19/5) - Instead of going out to Shelly's site today, I've talked Ryan and Leanna into coming out to do Random Acts of Kindness...a monthly thing they do where they go out into the community around the Dream Center and hand out free lollies, ice cream, water and lemonade and do even crazier things like paying for people's petrol at gas stations and doing free car washes. The goal: Just love em...love the people. Sharon decided to join us instead of heading out to the block with Jade too and so all four of us joined Jake and got assigned to the car wash.

It was hard work but alot of fun and it was good doing the service, seeing the shock on the car owners' faces when they were like "is it really free?" and when we say "yes!" and I guess for me it was a cool reminder to know that in this day and age when nothing is free...the church can still love for free. While waiting for the whole thing to start, Jake got a mini football thing out and everyone was mucking round with it...plus coppers pulled up twice and so there's a whole bunch of other photos you can check out in the Adopt-a-Block album.

We wait for Jade to finish with her block then we all (Jade, Ryan, Leanna, Sharon and I) head out to a Thai restaurant for lunch and Leanna and I decide to share for variety...between us we order a Pad Thai and Green Curry with a servce of brown rice. From there we go to Hollywood & Highland coz Sharon wants to make a jumper/hoodie at Neighbourhoodies...a shop that lets you pick your design and words and either press or stitch them on while you wait. It's a cool concept, but pretty expensive.

At Sat Nite Redefined that evening, Pstr Matthew gets a coupla people up on stage to do a burping comp...Bradley won HANDS DOWN...it was sick! (vid's too big for youtube. I'll try to cut it down and feature it later) hahaha! I mean that in a cool way....whatever that means! :D After service we head to Toast and Sharon has this really pretty serve of french toast with mixed berries and I have corn chowder with an omelette while Jade gets a mushroom barley soup and a wrap of sorts. Ryan and Leanna feed off the free bread with a tasty garlicky pesto dip...hahha! :p

Sunday (20/5) - After church we spend forever deciding we're gonna eat at In-and-Out Burger (coz I haven't been and apparantly it's Oh-So-LA and so I have to try it) only to come of Angelus Temple to find that there's a Cuban Fair going on at Echo Park so there's alot of food stalls and etc out there. Eventually though, the lunch posse splits half and half and our side stick with the original In-and-Out plan and the other half head for Cuban fare. I'd actually thought it was a Mexican Fair and also coz like

There's only five things on the menu at In-and-Out...there's a double-double (which is double meat and cheese), cheeseburger, hamburger, french fries and shakes...that's it. We all pretty much order the same combo...just that mine's without onions and salad and I order my fries "light"...and no it's not low-fat...it's just fried a little less so it's lighter coloured...but that's important is that it's nice and soggy...just the way I like my fries! hahah! Oh and I had it "animal-style" too...which means I get covered with cheese! Jade's burger was "protein-style" which meant that she had lettuce leaves instead of bread. Pretty cool huh? And then Jade asked for four hats and made us wear it all the way to Jake's house...that was pretty cool and had a HUGE 72inch screen that they were playing XBox on. And we subsequently watched Moulin Rouge on it too..haha! I'd developed abit of cough while watching it and they happily decided I'd had consumption - which I'd only just learnt right then, was another name for Tuberculosis.

Red Eye this week is at O'Hara's again - everyone starts playing random coin games on the tables and after eating Naoya asked if I could help him sort out some stuff with a car he'd just purchased so I went with him to the car park and checked the papers (not that I could help really coz I had no clue as to how car purchases were handled in LA)...but anyway, we get back to O'Hara's and everyone's gone (rapture??? hahah!) After ringing around, Ryan came out to get us and we joined the others at the carpark to play oversized badminton that was a whole lot of laughs and fun.

After Red Eye, we're up on the roof discussing what's going to happen and who takes who and whilst I snap some night photos of the Westwood skyline, it was decided that Jade takes Sharon home and Naoya was going to take Ryan, Leanna and I back to the DC and I was gonna get a solid night's sleep so as to not fall completely sick coz my intial "dry throat" was developing into a cough proper. Before we left though, I wanted Diddy Riese so we drove around for like 20 minutes trying to find parking (coz the car park we were at was closing in like 15 mins) and eventually got parking and went down to get out ice cream cookie sandwiches (I think they tasted that much better just coz of the wait!)

So, I promised a better description of Diddy Riese...here it is. What it is, is a little stall that serves up cheap but good ice cream and cookies. An ice-cream sandwich costs only $1.25!! So the deal is you get to pick whichever flavour cookies you want and then the flavour of the ice cream that goes into it...my favourite cookie would be the chocolate chocolate chip with walnuts with the cinnamon sugar coming a close second...ice-cream flavour would be peanut-butter-cup....hahaha! What can I say? I'm addicted! So yeah that night was fun, with it being Ryan and Naoya's first time there too! The only thing is we get lost on the way back and get on and off the freeway a number of times and drive round LA a fair bit before we eventually get home...haha! Poor Naoya!

LA Wk1 : 7 - 13 May

2007-06-05T02:41:00.000-07:00

Monday (7/5) - Designated "off" day on my internship (as it is with any church or Christian organisation), we spent the day hanging out at a pad that Mich was housesitting for....the appeal was the pool on a warm sunny day. There was a big smelly slobbery dog at the house, but his looks more than made up for the drool...and to be honest I spent alot of that afternoon indoors trying to finish up on a project I'd been working on. To top off a wonderful afternoon, the girls made beef chilli and brought back soft tortillas, sour cream, cheese and other wonderful things for lunch!

That evening Jade, Chase and I went to The Grove to check it out and had initially planned to eat at Farmers' Market but it was closed by the time we got there so we skipped the food and went straight to Hollywood Gelato on Hilhurst where Chase was amazingly sweet and shouted for our gelatos...it was probably coz we were taking forever and had each tried about 4 or 5 different flavours and still remained undecided...haha! I got chocolate and green tea in a waffle cone eventually.

Tuesday (8/5) - I don't really remember what we did on Tuesday, except I know it was the day I "Officially" started the internship with the Masters Commission students and so that meant prayer at 9am at the filipino chapel followed by scriptures or devotion and then a whole bunch of running around coz Jade is always busy with something and my job was just to assist her in all that. That evening we had pizza at Lamonica's and Diddy Riese (my first time) with Hubert, Wheeler, Brian and another John...I have better photos of Diddy Riese's cookie sandwiches from a later visit so I'll talk more about them later.

Wednesday (9/5) - My first glimpse of church service in a whole new way. One of the things Masters Commission does is to put together services and then take them out to various churches in the area, they do these on wednesdays or saturdays mostly I think. Anyway, pretty much from straight after lunch Jade is running the rehearsals so I'm watching, learning and just helping with whatever I could. At 2:15pm the bus leaves the church and everyone piles in...we pull up at Bethel Christian Fellowship and I witness a fusion of media, drama, dance, fashion, sport, music that presents the word in a fresh package that without a doubt would capture the attention of the world.

Thursday (10/5) - After prayer and devo, did a Dream Center tour with a pair of sisters who were Angel's friends...they had family in LA but one lived in Singapore and the other in Dubai. We got to hear some amazing testimonies from Discipleship guys and teens and also from the students at the DC Academy - the private school run at the Dream Center. Also made my first trip to the Lord's Gym...a full gym open to public with trainers and all that...even a pilates instructor..haha!

Got blown away by the Dream Center Studios, which is pretty much the domain of Press Play, the Dream Center/Angelus Temple worship band. The equipment worth millions were all donated or purchased through the sale of other donations...such as Madonna's and other famous artistes sound boards which are then aucitoned off and the money used to purchase the equipment they needed.

Thurs evening service followed by a visit to the Bourgeois Pig, a little cafe with cozy seating and very yummy drinks. Jade, Angel and Pete had hot and iced chocolates while I indulged with a choc milkshake and Sharon had a strawberry and banana smoothie...haha almost couldda been a chocaholics-annonymous session right there!

Friday (11/5) - Had my first and last taste of the DC Diner's Friday Special - Cheeseburger - whilst sitting in at the Red Eye Leaders' Meet and then did my first official "counselling" here at the DC. Jade just asked if I was up for it and I said "yeah sure, whatever" and I hopped into the car with her and the girl joined us and and maybe like 45minutes into the drive I realised I was smack in the middle of a divine appointment - God is amazing. We were on our way to get Katie from school and then home to get changed and then back to the DC and we spent that time talking and agreed to find some time to pray together before she left LA.

We picked Hubert up and at some point Angel joined us too and we had dinner at Roscoe's - house of chicken and waffles, by that I mean very tasty fried chicken with fresh waffles...weird combination right? But hey I'm in America...anything goes...haha! It was really really tasty and incredibly filling! After dinner, we went to The Grove and I browsed the incredibly expensive things at Nordstroms with Angel while Jade, Hubert and Katie were at Abercrombie & Fitch. We got stuck at the bag section when Angel had her eyes set on a Chloe bag...and while it was cool, nice, soft leather and all, I would NEVER pay USD1700 for a bag...yes, you read right, NEVER.

So I get bored and amble off to GAP on my own after Jade and Katie join Angel, I buy a coupla tees & a 3/4 brown pants and whilst browsing the sales rack of very cool and cheap things, Katie waltzes in with her brand-spankin-new purchase of a pink Juice Couture bag...that cost US$200!!! Did I say she was 11years old? Yes, well...insane huh. But anyway, we thought it hilarious to take a photo of me with the very pink and un-me bag...I 'm sure you'd enjoy this photo too! Oh and I mustn't forget to mention that Hubert's going insane at the A&F store all this while and returns with a huge bag full of goodies!

Saturday (12/5) - We slept over at Katie's place the night before so early saturday morning we head back to the DC for Adopt-A-Block, where we check up on Jose and Caesar - who had last week wanted to come into Discipleship to deal with his drinking problem...but they weren't in. We drop in on Nancy too and she's doing fine and we said we'd come back to get her to church later that evening. Andy and Vince from the next door down are from the band Societys Parasites and Vince gives us copies of their demo album...they're leaving the following day on a two week promo tour so Jade gives em a tube of vegemite and tell them how to eat it with bread. haha!

We then pop down the bottom to see Eric, Eric and Erica....but only Grandpa Eric's in...we spend some time chatting about his family and dog and etc and snap a photo before I go. I meet Mama Dang for the first time...her name is Sheila Dang and she's vietnamese and her and her husband have been in the states for a loooong time...all her three children were born and raised in california. She invites us back on Monday to try her Pho - vietnamese beef noodles.

We went to get Katie after that and I spent the afternoon teaching her mandarin...haha a litte bit anyway! After SNR that evening, we went to the gym where Jake had organised a volleyball thinggy for college students and Jade got into it right away :) After they switched teams, we headed to Dusty's for dinner with Bernyce and some of her friends and I had a yummy french-onion soup.

Sunday (13/5) - Mother's Day...service was so sweet with a special song item at offering time (is that song called Mama?) and competitions to honour the oldest and youngest mothers in the congregation as well as the mother with the most children, mother with the most children in church that sunday and a whole host of other things. After a message on Desperate Housewives, all the ladies got a rose as we left the building. Awww.... :)

We rush to Pasa Dena's Rose Bowl (stadium) for a monthly flea market and I witness Jade and Angel go mad and try and then buy lots of stuff. There were stalls aplenty with a portion of furniture and a whole area with used shoes, clothing, army surplus stuff, bags and anything else you could imagine. The girls bought dresses, bags and shoes...and since I'd paid $7 for entrance, I tried to buy something to justify spending thats seven and got myself a pair of reef thongs (they are flip-flops!!) for ten bucks.

After picking Hubert up, we have a very late lunch that was probably dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I had the lunch special meatloaf...YUM!!! Look at the photo...need I say more? We head to The Grove soonafter coz for Red Eye this week we were gonna watch Spiderman III - not entirely excited. So yeah the movie wasn't amazing...in fact, the way he turned "emo" was so laughably rubbishy! After the movie we go to Urth Cafe and I try the highly-recommended green tea latte...and it did not disappoint (you have to check out the photo of it). It was Josh's birthday and I also met Naoya, a dude from Yokohama who was here for Acting School...and for some reason, we went into a photo-taking frenzy before leaving.

a very quick one

2007-05-28T19:24:00.001-07:00

So I'm flying out of LA in under 5hours...it's still the 28th here but by the time I arrive in Fiji it's gonna be the 30th...I'll lose an entire day on the plane! Anyway...so I have three weeks of a crazy crazy time here in LA to catch up on but I'm sure I'l find some time while basking on the white sand beaches of Fiji to do that..

later!!!

Katie speaks mandarin

2007-05-22T17:16:00.000-07:00

Katie's one of the girls I've gotten to know whilst here in LA...we spent the whole day together one saturday and by the end of it I had her speaking bits of chinese! Alot of credit goes to her for being interested and really trying...coz she's pretty much got the pitch and tone down! And for those of us knowing ones, that's the real hard part of it all! Excuse my mad laughter....she was just too cute!

First Weekend in LA : 5-6 May

2007-05-17T01:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday (5/5) - Started the morning with prayer meeting at 9:15am at the gym for Adopt A Block, and then at 10am everyone heads out. I'm going with Jade and she's on Shelly's site so that's where I am too! It's just a coupla blocks away so not too far...but we drive anyway, and I meet Shelly (head of the site), Tim and Faith (other Masters Commission interns), Dennis, James, Lulu, Brian, and a bunch of other people who serve this particular site. Jade has her "own" street on Kent and Bonnie Brae and so we grab bags of wet and dry food and head out with flyers and love. It's my first time so it's kindda like just smiling, shaking hands and trying to remember names and faces.

In a nutshell, Adopt A Block is about knocking on doors at various sites...each site has it's own leader and each leader develops a strategy unique to their site. For Shelly's site, he hits the food truck and prepares bags of food that we hand out at our block...each household gets one bag of dry produce and one bag of fresh veggies and/or fruit etc. He stresses though, that priority goes to knocking on doors and talking about services and inviting them to church and not the food...but Shelly is just awesome..he's been doing the block for eight years and his commitment and faithfulness deserves more than mere mention.

I tag along to Jade's block which is a little section on the corner of Kent and Bonnie Brae and I am amazed within the first three doors we knock on, at her capacity to connect with others. I mean sure she's been knocking those doors for a coupla months now...but the thing is, she is genuine about her interaction with those who live behind those doors, there is nothing lethargic or routine about her conversations with them and I am thankful for the opportunity that I have to be a part of this incredible ministry; to be inspired by it and to learn from it...and hopefully, to capture the essence of the love and heart that the dream center and angelus temple have for the community.

We left Adopt A Block at about 1pm and head to the supermarket to get food for the Hillsong green room....the team is flying in that night and will be at Angelus Temple (the dream center church) the following morning at 6am and Jade is in charge of the room and their brekkie. We buy fruits, eggs, bagels, bread, yoghurt, milk, granola and a whole bunch of other stuff and then stop by to drop everything off in the fridge. Can't remember what else we did in the afternoon.

SNR: Saturday Night Redefined is the youth service at Angelus Temple and that starts at 7pm but at 6pm we go back to the block to see if we can get Nancy, Jose or Caesar to come to service. Service was amazing...nothing beats being in the house of God...except for living in the presence of God obviously...haha! It's kindda funny to know that in the time I'll be here, attending an average of 4 services a week, I'll catch up with all the Sunday's where I've missed church whilst travelling. hahah!

After service we go prep the green room up and by the time we leave it's looking v spiffy! It's rather late by the time we're done and all the girls pop into Miri's car and we drive through El Pollo Loco (i think that's what it's called) to get takeaway mexican (think Taco Bell but better) then head back to the dream center and everyone spreads out on the floor in Lyn's office to eat.

Sunday (6/5) - Service in the morning at 10am, Hillsong is here...kindda weird that I'm all the way in America and Hillsong is here too, can't escape from them! haha! Matthew Barnett spoke after that...good word! After church, Angel and I help the others clean and pack up the green room then we head to "Alcove" for lunch and I meet more new people...namely Chad, Chase (brothers) and amother guy I think his name was Anthony. The food there was SO GOOD and the portions were huge...I had this molten lava chocolate cake and ordered fries and chips to share...go take a look at the photo album, it was huge!!!

So yes I do know that these two days were eons ago and I'm way behind in blogging but I'll catch up soon I promise. In the meantime, I am very well and looking forward to Fiji - and graduating from Harvest West when I get back to Perth..YAYY!!! :D

LA Update

2007-05-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

Time is flying by so quickly and I haven't had access to the internet thus the lack of new blog entries, I apologise. For those of you who have my itinerary, I'm supposed to be on the white sandy beaches somewhere on the Fijian coastline by now...but I'm not. I've rescheduled all my flights because I've decided to stay on in LA a little longer and I'm here till the 28th of May then I head out to Fiji. Even though I said "No" to Jade when she recommended I stay to finish logging my internship hours at the Dream Center on the 4th of May, enough doors were opening and things falling in place by the 6th of May so that by 7pm I'd rescheduled my remaining three flights on my Star Alliance round-the-world ticket. But yeah, logging 150hrs in 3 and a half weeks is no joke and ministry here at the Dream Center never stops so time's just been flying back and I'm learning heaps, meeting loads of people, and even without internet access, I've hardly had time to sit down at my laptop to journal or sort photos out. So I've only got brief outlines for what's been going on...

I will get an entry on my first weekend in LA published soon...and then will try to fill you in on my first week here when I can. In the meantime, I've uploaded three new albums to the Photo Gallery to amuse you while I try to find time to write. Ta!

Me catching a tiny lil wave in Samara

2007-05-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Not great I know..but it's the only vid I got...haha!

Happy Birthday Jade - LA, California

2007-05-13T00:31:00.001-07:00

My flight was due to arrive at 11:30pm thursday night but by the time I got out into the Arrivals area it was already half past midnight, making it Friday, 4th May and Jade's Birthday!!! :D It was pretty crazy flying into LA and seeing all those city lights and a full moon from up there as we made our descent...I think all those flights to small obscure airports round europe and then the last month traveling in incredibly crammed mini-busses and busses have kindda reconditioned me to be "surprised" at seeing such huge cities from the sky!

Anyway, got out at terminal 3, the LACSA terminal - which was not good, considering I'd told Jade I was flying in on United so she would've been at another terminal, plus the flight had been delayed so she could've been waiting for me for an hour by then...and I didn't have her contact number and wasn't sure if she had mine (I'd emailed it to her in my last email) and after kindda walking around trying to find an info counter - there were several but they were just all closed or unattended - I just decided to walk outside and look for the United Terminal...and eventully found it to be at Terminal 6. And at the precise moment that I arrived there I received a text from Jade and rang her up right away and she'd only just parked (talk about perfect timing!!) and it was AWESOME to see her again (we worked out that we hadn't seen each other in a year! Because the last time we'd met was at her birthday party in Perth!!!

So we got into the car and drove straight to the Los Angeles Dreamcenter that's kindda in between downtown LA and Hollywood (we're yakking and catching up all the way). When we get in, she tells me I'm gonna be leaving my stuff in her room but sleeping in another room (same dorm) that has a spare bed and after showing me some really amazing presents she'd just been given - which included an amazing looking cake, she decided we were going to have birthday cake right there and then at 1:30am! Crazy girl eh? :D So eat cake we did and then yakked right on till about 3am then went to bed.

Oh I forgot to mention...on the way whilst in the car, she'd told me I should change my flights and stay for a month. I told her no, too much hassle and too crazy and I needed to get home.

Friday (4/5) - She got a leave of absence to do all her birthday stuff so our first stop was Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica where we had coffee and shopped at Victoria's Secret before picking up keys from Melanie to get the food for the party. Then we picked up Hubert (met him coupla years back in Perth when we went on the mission trip to Japan) who's here sussing out colleges now that he's finished NS in Singapore. After dropping the food off back at the DC (short for dreamcenter), Jade took us up to Justin's office and Hubert stayed with him while Jade and I went to Chinatown to have roast duck rice and get more meat for the BBQ at the party.

From there it was pretty much back to the Dreamcenter to grab all the food then straight to the house where the party was gonna be held, somewhere in Bel-Air...where the rich people live (I didn't know this before). So anyway we get there and we're in front of these huge gates and when they open it's just like a palace or castle inside. And then we go out back and there's tennis courts, swimming pool, hot tub, etc..AND inside the house is just as amazing, all the doors are like three times as tall as I am and just a really grand atmosphere in every room. The kitchen itself is my dream kitchen - there are two stoves on opposite sides of an island in the center of the kitchen...one was electric and one was gas..and on the back wall there were two ovens, a grill, a microwave and one that was a combination oven and microwave. Patrice - who owns the house, told us that she could take a frozen chicken and put it in and it would be defrosted and baked in 18minutes...how crazy is that!!! :D

Jade was busy running around getting lights, sound, decorations and other stuff sorted so I got busy in the kitchen making the two desserts of the evening: pavlova and trifle...how very aussie! hahah! They both turned out amazing and were finished like within 15 minutes of being brought out onto the table! I also did the marinades for the meat, getting creative with whatever we had brought and also what we could find in the spice cupboard. I did the chicken wings in soya sauce with sugar, beef steaks with black pepper and other sauces, chicken breast with paprika, tumeric and other hot spices, and Jade did the lamb with rosemary.

The party was in full swing by the time I emerged from the kitchen and went down to the BBQ pit where Michael and another guy were busy at work, Jade kindda asked me to check on the wings because they were coming up undercooked so Hubert and I just stayed down at the pit to help out for awhile - and largely coz it meant we had the first pickings of whatever was coming off the grill! We had some fun down there with crazy dramas of a huge fire and then sausages rolling into the coal and other random stuff like that.

After more food there was the cake-cutting and speeches and I think some presents were opened. I met so many people that night it was hard to remember everyone's names and stuff...but still pretty glad I managed to make it down for the party and got to spend her birthday with her and help out with the kitchen stuff. They'd put up a cloth on the balcony and were screening Audrey Hepburn movies because it was also her birthday...i think we watched breakfast at tiffany's and another one. I also met Angel, another Singaporean gal who had been living in LA for the last 7 years...and had just returned from there that very day to be at the party...what a friend eh? :)

It was getting pretty cold outside so most people were getting changed and gettng into the hot-rub which was steaming away and looking very inviting. I was too lazy to get changed and then have to shower and etc after so I just went into the house and sat down to chat with Patrice (i'm not even sure that's how her name is spelt) and later on we had hot chocolates with marshmallows, yum! haha! Not too long after that we started having to pack up, clear out and head back home. We crashed at Melanie's that night - I love her apartment, it's so cool! But yeah we pretty much got in, drank water, crashed, woke up in the morning and left. hahaha!

Samara Days 3 - 6

2007-05-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Sunday (29/4) - Walking back from Buena Vista in the superhot midday soon kindda made us really hungry so after dropping in at the internet cafe for like 10-15min, Lies (pronounced Liz) and I grabbed lunch at one of the restaurants in town. I grabbed a Chicken Casado that was oh so yummy and we kindda just sat there and waited for it to cool down abit before heading back to Brian's.

In the afternoon I went out for another surf at high tide and stayed in till about sunset then just sat on the beach chatting with Lies before she went completely insane and started doing somersaults and handstands and eventually just flopped down onto the sand. Watched some horses run down the beach being chased by dogs - there's a reason they call them hounds right? Everyone at the house went to town at about 7pm to watch Sean (saxophonist) and his band perform live jazz at Shake Joe's but I opted for a quiet night in.

Monday (30/1) - Lies, Sebastian and Anne Marie left at about 5am and then at about 11am Michael and Marney left too so that left just me and a an Aussie couple from Whitsunday's at the place so it was a pretty quiet morning and I kindda stayed in and lazed around and did some reading. Some time in the afternoon Brian came back with 3 more people from the bus station, two women stayed on and the other guy got dropped off back in town. Norma's from London but lives in France mostly and Thelma's from Israel and doesn't actually seem happy to be on the road - she reminds me alot of S from the gecko's days gone past. I spent the entire afternoon surfing with Erick till dark then came back in for dinner and settled in the couch to watch Double Jeopardy before calling it a night.

Tuesday (1/5) Labour Day - not much going on. I went to pick up my boards at the shop and found Erick moping around coz he'd (ingeniously) managed to stab a knife right through a can of beans he was trying to open and into the palm of his hand - and so he couldn't cook, couldn't surf, couldn't do a whole heap of stuff and was grumpy. But...it was his left hand and he was right-handed and he could still write so I gave him the task of writing out his gallopinto recipe for me - which was funny with him bringing out bits of stuff from the kitchen so I could translate them into english names...like cilantro was coriander and dulce something were red peppers etc.

High tide wasn't till 3:30pm so we just hung out with his dogs Pipo and Kira...and Kira's pup Thunder - whilst listening to Erick tell the story of how he "helped" her when she had her litter of 9 puppies! Then he spotted some howler monkeys in the tree outside and was telling me how they were "angry" at humans and so they always tried to defecate ON people as they walked by or at times would actually catch it in their arms and hurl it at passersby unfortunate enough to be within striking range. I didn't believe him at all but actually got to witness it whilst sitting out there so yeap, a true believer now!

Went in to surf with Sunrise after and stayed out till my tummy was growling too much coz I was hungry then went in for a feed but it started raining really heavily, a good solid monsoon storm for several hours..so I stayed in and Sandra and Brian were awesome to offer me some shrimp pasta they'd made - yum yum! Another early night in this oh-so-NOT-busy town of Samara.

Wednesday (2/5) - Woke up early and went into town for a walk, managed to catch the German bakery truck on its rounds and got myself a slice of chocolate cake and a custard donut. Brian said the guy moved to Costa Rica when he retired and swore he'd never bake again but after awhile he just couldn't stand the fact that he couldn't get proper bread and so he began baking small quantities but today he has about 20 trucks servicing the whole Guanacaste area with rye bread, sour dough, cakes, pastries and etc. I actually really needed that slice of cake because I think I was entering into withdrawal symptoms from not being able to find a decent bar of chocolate...I just need a good small chunk of proper dark chocolate and I'm sorted, but no, couldn't find a single normal bar of chocolate at all! No milka, no cadbury or even hersheys!!! But yes, german chocolate cake did the job for awhile :D

Surfed early arvo with Sunrise then she had a massage appointment and I considered going to get one myself but decided to head back and get some laundry done before I flew out the following day - needs time to dry. Then...in keeping with my trip tradition of a good celebratory meal on the last night in each place I visit, I headed out to town with Norma for a seafood dinner...and it was a feast! I started off with a watermelon milkshake - recommended by the dude who took our order, then a seafood soup that had crabs, mussels, clams, jumbo prawns, scallops, fish, octopus, calamari and shrimp in it (very tasty!!) and a good slab of freshly-caught and grilled fish with garlic. We actually managed to find room for dessert somehow and popped into Las Brasas across the road for coconut flan with fruit and ice cream.

Thursday (3/5) - So sad to be leaving Samara...it's been a great week here and I've met some great people too! I went to town to check my email for Jade's address quickly then Brian gave me a ride to Carillo Beach at about 9am to catch the little plane to San Jose at 9:45am. Hopefully, I'd pick up my backpack that I'd left in that guy's trunk and then spend the rest of the day waiting around at San Jose's Juan Santamaria Airport for my flight to Los Angeles at 6:05pm. Yay!

Single Again, Officially.

2007-05-09T01:07:00.001-07:00

--- this post has been removed because of the distress it's caused to ones i care about ---

I can only say that I held no malice at the time of writing and publishing of the post and maintain that it was my understanding of the situation. I sincerely apologise to those I've hurt and caused grief and distress to...it was never my intention; what that was will remain my story I suppose.

Playa Buena Vista

2007-05-08T01:15:00.000-07:00

Sunday (29/4) - Woke up in the morning and wanted to try to get to Nosara but after chatting with Brian I decided it was too much of a hike but decided to walk to Buena Vista instead. Playa Buena Vista is the next beach north of Samara and home to an ASVO turtle hatchery project and it's about a 45minute walk from Brian's. After some effort, I persuaded Liz to walk with me - instead of renting a bike or a horse (haha!) and we set off after dallying about the place for half an hour while she did her laundry and hunted her bikini down.

We walked up to town and decided to hitch a ride and it just so happened that the next car along was the "deathtrap" that we'd seen the night before and Adrian had introduced us to the guy who owned it, Alex aka Mamuchi. There was a gal, Jamie sitting up front and another dude, Renae, that we hadn't met before so introductions were made as we jumped in and it turned out that Renae was the coordinator at the turtle hatchery so they were on their way there. What was crazy though, was that when I passed Jamie my camera and asked her to take a photo of Liz, Renae and I at the back, Alex decided to leave the wheel - while the car was still cruising down the road - and come sit at the back for the photo too...MADNESS!!!

They were actually on a grocery run for the volunteers at the project so we stopped outside a store for awhile and I learnt a new spanish word "tranquillo" which means "relax" - which Alex kept saying to me because I wasn't sure why we were just stopped there and kept asking whether they were going to take us to Buena Vista or whether we should just get out and walk. Eventually we did get there...but where the car stopped, there was a river we had to wade across to get to the beach and numerous parties had cautioned us when we said we were heading that way, that there were crocs in the river at high tide, which was 2hrs away. We met the 6 or 7 volunteers sitting at the riverbank waiting for their groceries and also a german shepherd who lived there with them.

After a short walk down the beach - which had much bigger waves than Playa Samara, we arrived at the project and the first sight that greeted us was a turtle shell on the ground. One of the volunteers there explained that they'd found the turtle two nights ago washed up on the beach with a fishing hook stuck in it's cheek that had sewn its mouth shut - how irresponsible was that person who was fishing!!! AARGH! It was interesting talking to her about the volunteer work she'd done...I never knew you could do stuff like that...to travel and volunteer at animal projects, defo something I'd think about in the future.

We visited the little museum where they had photos of the different types of turtles and an explanation of the process of egg-laying, nesting and hatching as well as the dangers that hatchlings faced in their bid to return to the ocean. There were various jars of embryos in different phases of development - including an albino, as well as dried hatchlings.

At about 12:15 I told liz we should leave because we had to cross the river to get back and I didn't want to be doing that at high tide because of what we'd been told about the alligators. Bleah. We made our way back across the beach and the german shepherd followed us all the way...even when we got to the river, which had already risen considerably, he swam across with us and then led the way as we headed back towards Samara.

We passed various houses with cows and calves, roosters and hens, horses oh and I made a detour to visit THE house...

Samara - Days 1 & 2

2007-05-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

Bright and early in the morning on Friday (27/4), I shared an "aeroporto taxi" with Brad and Heidi to the airport - funnily enough we didn't get one of them, which we reqested (which would've cost $12 between us) - but instead got a "tourismo" van, another family or friend of the great costa rican link. Ah well, it got us there okay at double price but hey at least we got there...the driver was gonna drop me off at the Sansa Terminal and I asked if they could wait while I checked out of they had lockers there for me to leave my backpack coz the SANSA flight only allowed 12kg of baggage per passenger.

After some flurry, the guy asked me to pick up a public phone and I spoke to someone who said he'd come with me to the lockers at the international terminal, I told him I'd meet him there but he said he'd come in my taxi and Brad & Heidi kindly waited. Coupla minutes later, this guy walks up and says we "make a contract for the bag here" and then after some questions going back and forth, I gathered that he was going to take my bag with him, I would get it back at the airport when I returned and so the taxi didn't have to take me to the international terminal, so we hugged and said our goodbyes at the side of the van and suddenly the group was truly gone, the last remnant of us had split up too. It was so hilarious that I was signing this "contract" on the front of this dude's car and he just chucked my backpack into the boot and I just had to worry for a split-second if I was actually going to see it ever again!

Anyway...with only my little blue bag and little 10ltr backpack, I went in to check in and it was funny because not only do they weigh your check-in luggage, but they weighed me as well! I wonder...if someone was overweight what would they do? Charge them excess? Anyway, I got my boarding pass and settled in a seat to wait for my flight, catching sight of the little planes outside on the runway. Funnily enough, the flight that left before mine returned shortly after and its passengers said there had been an electrical fault and the plane was smoking so they did a loop and came back - not news I wanted to hear as I gazed out at the tiny little planes outside.

Eventually my flight was called and I got on with about 5 other people and we took off without any hassles whatsoever. It was a really light craft so pressure drops and winds impacted the plane quite abit....but because we only flew quite low, I had plenty of opportunity to take loads of photos. We were going to make a brief stop somewhere before heading on to Carillo Beach/Samara and spotted some whales as we were turning in to make our landing on a little dirt strip with a thatched hut for the terminal, quite funny really! The runway at Carillo was even less of a track with just a shed for an airport - all in all, a pretty cool experience!

Video of the takeoff from San Jose:

Carillo beach looked amazing, very very unspoilt and not many people in sight at all, in fact nobody in sight apart from Brian (owner of the place where I'd be housed for the next 6 nights) who had come to pick me up, and two girls in the truck who were also staying there...one was Liz from Holland and the other was Sunny from Canada, and funnily enough I actually remembered having met her before on the bus ride to Monteverde from San Jose - when the truck broke down on the road in front of us.

The house was pretty cool, with several hammocks strung up on the front yard and there was a sitting/eating area out front with a kitchen and fridge for our use. The dorm room had an adjoining bathroom and best of all was the fact that Brian (who first arrived at Samara 25 years ago and visited yearly and finally moved over 2 and half years ago) was a really cool guy who had alot of stories to tell from his life in the islands off the west coast of Canada - gathering wild mushrooms, working on fishing boats, picking octopus off the beach & lots more - and of course he had alot of local info on Samara too!

Shortly after getting there, I got a map and walked out to check the beach out - it was HEAVEN....beautiful beach, clean water, clear blue skies...what more could I ask for? I made the 10min walk to town, stopping at a surf school to enquire about board hire and find out about the tides etc, found the bank, supermarket and internet cafe in town then went back to Brian's to get changed for the beach.

Hired a board and headed out to try and catch a few - you have to know it's been quite a while since I last attempted to surf so it was a very special moment for me. hahhaha! Nah not really...but it was just nice to be in the ocean on a very beautiful beach with nice, surfable and yet gentle waves. I spent about an hour and a half in there before hunger pangs started and so I had to go in, dry off then head into town for lunch at the Restaurante Jardin Marino where I had casado con pescado - rice and beans with grilled fish, which was very tasty. Spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out on the hammock & reading alot of Acts before succumbing to mosquitoes and heading into the room for cover, went to bed pretty early.

Saturday (28/4) I woke early and found a huge platter of fresh pineapple, papaya, honeydew and thick slices of coconut for brekkie, courtesty of Casa Brian. It was fresh, tasty and healthy....yum yum! It was a cloudy day today and I went out to check the beach out but the tide was really low so I came back in and did more reading and sorted some photos out as well as caught up with blog entries.

Went and hired a board at about 10:30...spent an hour out but wasn't reading the waves well at all, decided to do a lesson, met Erick....the instructor, a local dude who turned out to be born in 81 as well. He was pretty sullen, but a good teacher :D Spent another hour or so out and then decided to head in for lunch...but when I got back to Brian's, Liverpool was playing Chelsea and I wanted to watch it and Brian kindly said I could help myself to the food Sandra made for their lunch...rice, beans and a veggie & shrimp stir-fry in a coconut cream sauce. Yum! But unfortunately, we got beat 1-0 and I also found out it was a repeat telecast of the Champions League first leg.

Sunny had left that morning and so that left Liz an I in the dorm at that point, and Liz insisted that since it was a Saturday night, we had to go into town for at least once drink because Saturday was meant to be the only night stuff happened in town, I obliged. The "hooch" dress came out again and we walked into town with Brian's recommendations of two bars, actually the only bars in town. We found the first - on the beach - pretty easily but there wasn't much happening so we headed for the second, which was completely empty! But we'd picked up Michael, Marney (who were staying at Brian's as well) and another guy Kent at the first bar and we all decided to stay at la Gondolas for at least a drink.

When we walked in, a guy sitting outside asked if we would play pool and he came in and started setting the balls up so we started a doubles game...Him and Liz vs Me and Michael. After we got thrashed we sat down and had a round of drinks, then a Jamaican old man rocked up and started talking to us about happiness and about respect and we named him "the Godfather of Happiness" - but his real name is Jimmy. He provided alot of laughs for awhile :D

We were left on our own for awhile and then I think Michael met a guy at the bar when he went to get another round of drinks and brought him over and introduced him as Adrian who is a local Samara-ian but grew up in California. He turned out to be a really funny guy who then decided to walk with Liz and I when we decided to go check out the first place again; Kent left with us as well but he turned off a the end of the main street to head off to bed.

Adrian took us down the beach to this other bar but out the front of it there were some people with a BBQ going and two big pots so I asked him what they were cooking and he said we should check out out; and check it out we did. It turned out to be pork crackle - which was really still lard at that point but I guess by the time it was finished frying it would be crackle...pretty gross looking...and on the BBQ were different types of meat. It turned out that the guy doing the BBQ-ing was the boss of all them dudes around and he owned or managed a Sugarcane processing factory where they made sugar, lollies and rum.

Liz and I got given free beer and tortillas stuffed with BBQ meat and then suddenly all these random dudes were coming up to stand beside us to take photos, quite bizarre! But I guess it was novelty to have a photo with blonde and chinese chicks round here. We also met a very sweet 12yo named Anthony who came and chatted with us and a very sad lWhen we left there we bumped into the rest of the group from Brian's and Liz decided to join them and head for another bar but I walked up the beach and back to Brian's calling it a night...and while the very sweet Adrian wanted to walk me back, I insisted he leave me as we walked past the "city" gates.

Epic Tales from Samara

2007-05-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

Currently chilling and surfing on the beaches of Samara, Carillo and Buena Vista on the North-west coast of Costa Rica - small town, not much going on so it's given me all the time I need to catch up with my blogging and photo processing so I've just published three epic entries from La Fortuna, Cahuita and Puerto Viejo - where the tour group parted ways. Internet access is really slow here...so it took all of 3 hours to publish those entries...you would probably need the same amount of time to read it! haha! Enjoy...

Puerto Viejo & Goodbyes

2007-05-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

Wed (25/4) - I woke up early and after packing my bags, headed out to town with Baz and Col to grab some snapshots of "downtown" Cahuita since I hadn't managed to get any after my first night's wipeout and the second day spent resting. We met some rastafarians sitting outside the restaurant where it all went down and they offered us weed but we just aked to take a photo of them instead.

Took more photos around town then stopped for breakfast - still on strict orders of eating healthy and complete meals, I had the Plate Grande....a very generous platter of scrambled eggs, ham, cheese, salad (which I don't eat), butter and pineapple jam, fruits and a serve of homemade bread. I ate as much as I could and shared the remaining eggs, ham and cheese with a little kitty that probably had its luckiest day! When we got back to the hotel everyone was settling their bills and then we hung around waiting because only one of two "pre-aranged" taxis arrived.

The second taxi arrived eventually and everyone just piled in and it was a short 30min drive to our next hotel. Funnily enough, the second taxi hadn't been told where it was meant to be taking its passengers and it was up to us tourists to show the driver a leaflet of the hotel and eventually he got them there. Another great job we can attribute to E-cole Travel....oh I think I may not have mentioned this before, that's the name of the company Ivonne works for, a company for whom Geckos' trips are very minor clients - which might perhaps explain why the guide doesn't seem to esteem the clients with due respect. Definitely not a company I will be travelling with anytime soon, and definitely a company I will be writing to Geckos about, requesting for them to reconsider their use of the company's service.

Anyway, Deb's asked to still share rooms with Helen and I and because I am completely empathetic to her situation rooming with S - who is actually 'R' I found out not long ago...but for our purposes she will remain S - and so yeah Ivonne had apparently organised a triple-sharing room for us at this hotel (owned by her friend, who joined us at that incredibly expensive and average-tasting pizzeria at Monteverde). Congruous to her ways, we found the third bed was actually not sleepable on, in fact I don't even think it's meant to take any weight on it whatsoever, because I sat down and heard cracking beneath me (and really, I could feel the bed slats biting into my still-bruised bum) and when I got up to take a look, there were bits of wood there. I tried lying down and it felt so terrible and every turn I made caused more wood to crumble to the ground....so I gave up and went over to the front area of the next block where the others were sitting and chilled there for awhile, sorting photos and blogging.

Helen and Deb went off bike riding, some headed for the beach and I ended up having a rather luxurious nap till sometime in the middle of the afternoon before heading for the beach to watch Paul, Jim, Joe and Helen bodysurfing - or trying to anyway. After lounging in a little patio area out front with Brad and Heidi on bamboo swings and hammocks (I almost tipped a lady we didn't even know out of one) - I headed off to move my stuff to Col's room after gaining his permission to occupy the spare bed in his room because mine in the room below was just a complete joke of a bed, if you could even call it that.

Dinner that night was a mad affair that saw tempers flare for several reasons:
1. Some of us were told there was no chicken and had to re-order other things, yet others who had ordered the rice and chicken got it (I got my casados con pollo)
2. Brad and Heidi had their orders arrive completely wrong and yet the waitress insisted it was what they'd ordered and all but refused to take them back
3. Baz ordered a meal and was told they didn't have it, ordered a second meal and was subsequently told they didn't have that either so he just gave up and decided not to eat
4. Everyone was practically finished with their meals but Col and I still hadn't been served...but hey at least I got a placemate and cutlery! :D
5. Everyone was annoyed at the fact that once again, a hotel that knew they were going to have 14 people coming in didn't have food prepped up in the kitchen
6. The guide, on the group's last night, had gone to town with some of the others and was nowhere to be found to rectify all the wrong orders (i suppose this wasn't really a bad thing, gave everyone the opportunity to discuss how much we weren't tipping...a tip in the negative? haha! The best suggestion was to give her a list of tips in an envelope, saying things like "value your clients" & etc)

More drinks followed after dinner and everyone relaxed again and it was good to go round the table with each of us listing our highest and lowest points on the trip - the lowest point for me was probably the 5th night in the room with S after 4 nights of incredulously unending snoring and with her attempting to poke at my bum the day before because the wetsuit I'd been given by the dive shop had a hole in it - and subsequently trying to explain to her that it was unacceptable to touch me, and more importantly, that it wasn't funny, at all. Coupla highlights for moi (not in order of preference):

1. Roatan Island...diving, seeing the turtles and fishes followed by dinner with the mob + Tasha at Patricia's Place (go back and read that entry and watch the video if you want) and I guess it was the fact that it was big enough for me to spend a coupla days on my own walking to various parts of the island, basking on the beach and just chilling out.
2. Getting to know the "cool" crew - not what I expected but quite possibly the best bunch of people I could ever ask to travel with, even though everyone was getting rather narky at the end, it was still such a blast!
3. Granada...I had a below-the-belt blow delivered that friday the 13th but it also turned into something beautiful in the very picturesque spanish-styled town. Oh I didn't mention the abuse I took from the lips of the guide (will write more on this another time), but then I also got to sleep for the first night here in a long long time.
4. Favourite country in central america....Guatemala. Although I didn't learn much about the places we visited because our guide had never been to the places where we went, I really enjoyed the volcano trek that killed my shoes, boat ride on the lake where we picked up pumice stone in the middle of it, the afternoon at the restaurant with Ernesto when we were stuck there because of heavy rain, beautiful and bright colours of the markets, lovely lovely locals that I met who made the effort to show me their side of the world. Mucho Gracias. :D

It was a long night spent round that table, with loads of laughs for all and somehow up sprung a plan for us to gather in Darwin for a tour that Col promises will be the best 4 days of our lives, much more exciting than the last 26 days for me and 33 or 46 for the others. Not entirely sure if this will eventuate but if so, we're looking at doing this some time in June after I get back to Perth. Sounds pretty appealing to me actually, considering I am now without the commitment I initially had, so I'm thinking I'll fly to Adelaide then train up on the Ghan, stopping at Alice Springs to visit Ayers Rock and then continue on the Darwin and after the weekend there with the others, fly out to Exmouth and from there hire a car and drive back to Perth. Or if I skip the train, to fly from Adelaide to Sydney to visit some friends and then on to Brisbane to catch up with Brad and Heidi and then together fly to Darwin - but no I might spoil their honeymooners flight story. haha! Anyway, all in the pipeline.

Thurs (26/5) - It was an early start for those of us who were catching the 6:30 shuttle back to San Jose, allow me to state that our tour apparantly only pays for us to take a local bus to San Jose, where we'd end up at the bus station and have to take a taxi to wherever we were going and so Ivonne returned the US$8 that was the cost of the bus and convinced us all it would be a better option to take the tourist shuttle that was air-conditioned, comfy and fast...at the price of US$29 per person. One really has to start wondering, considering I paid AU$2830 and the additional US$300 on arrival at Antigua, bringing it to about US$2700 for 26 days, with NO MEALS included whatsoever and double rooms throughout the trip with each room at maximum of US60 divided by two, that would still leave almost 2grand....WHERE HAS MY MONEY GONE? WHAT ON EARTH HAVE I PAID FOR??? Considering we haven't had the local guides promised by Geckos, in fact not had much information given on any of the places we've been, been ripped off at local tour operators' offices (in fact directed there by our guide)...and for me personally, withstood the abuse lavished on me by the Costa Rican guide.

Anyway, enough of that for now...back to the morning where our bags littered the little porch. Coffee was ready and waiting so everyone helped themselves...and to our amazement, Ivonne actually woke up and sashayed down to say good morning - presumably looking for a tip, and understandably she got none. Our van arrived soon enough and we piled in, leaving Barry and Collin waiting for their taxi to the Panama border. Several kilometers from the hotel, a passing car informed our driver that he had a flat...we pulled into a nearby garage and eventually found that there was a screw stuck in the tyre and they removed it and patched it up...we were on the side of the road for only 20minutes this time.

Hours later, thinking we were making good time, our van slowed considerably and all these huge trucks were overtaking us and suddenly with a loud "pop" the van stopped and a cloud of vapour whoosed into the van from the left side. We all piled out onto the side of the road while the driver inspected the engine that looked completely splattered with engine oil which was also leaking in every direction from beneath the van.

He couldn't tell us what was wrong and we couldn't ask him what was up because he spoke very little english and we spoke even less spanish - another reason why the guide should've remained with the group till its end point, in San Jose (note: not that I missed her though :p) He did call someone to come and pick us up though, but about 40 minutes later another bus on the way up to San Jose stopped to ask what happened and in the end the 5 of us going back to Hotel Rincon got into this bus and left Mark and Ann by the side of the road - very sad moment, very tragic way to say goodbye. So we did make it back to our hotel eventually and it was nice to just get in and feel rather settled, Deb and I even got given the room where I'd first been roomed in with Helen when we got to San Jose. This was it, the official end of the Geckos Central America tour....from Guatemala, through Honduras and Nicaragua, and finally to Costa Rica.

Cahuita & the Collapse

2007-05-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

Mon (23/4) - We arrived at the hotel at about 1pm and I was very very delighted to find that not only did we have a large pool outside, but that the beach was just across the road. Helen and I had a spare bed in our room and so Deb moved in to get away from our snoring friend. We each had three hibiscus flowers on our bed and Helen was most aghast to find we had the electrical nightmare showerhead with wires sticking out of it again.

I quickly changed and headed for the beach, joined by Helen and Deb...after awhile Brad, Heidi, Jim, Joe and Patrick joined us as well and what was meant to be a quick dip turned out to be a lazy afternoon spent in the very warm caribbean waters of Playa Negro. I did get out briefly to see if I could go tan on one of the deck chairs by the pool but it was all shady there so I headed back to the pool again. At some point while we were out there on the beach we were told that the boys were ditching the girls for a drink that night so the girls were gonna get together and do our own thing as well.

The plan was simply to meet at 4pm at the hotel poolside bar, have a couple, walk towards town, stop in at a restaurant/bar and have another, maybe stay for dinner or if not keep walking in and eventually have dinner somewhere and then later on meet the guys at about 8pm to check out the local calpyso band at Coco's. Because my life is constantly threatened by the powers that be, the simple plan wasn't a simple night. It started out simply enough, 4 girls at the bar, a fruit punch for Helen, a something monkey for Deb and two capirinas for Heidi and I made by the lovely Lus (not sure how it's spelt) with her large lemons and machete.

From there we walked in to the second bar and although we decided we weren't eating there, we sat down at the bar and ordered four rum and pineapple juice mixes. After we'd paid up we moved into the heart of "town" and found a restaurant that looked like it could serve up a mean feed...we even stopped for a nice photo by the menu board out front! When we'd sat down and started to order, we were told they weren't serving drinks and for Heidi, no grog meant no feed so Helen and Deb stayed at this restaurant while we went across the road to the next restaurant.

We laughed about whether we should be worried because we were the only customers but after the dude who was serving us assured us we could have whatever drink we wanted, we browsed the menu and quickly ordered 2 more capirinas and I ordered the garlic shrimp. Still chatting away and laughing at all sorts of random things, I got up to go to the toilet and I have to state that at this point I was feeling completely fine, happy and not the slightest bit affected by the two drinks I'd had at this point.

This is where it got complicated. I don't remember the fall...apparantly the first of three times that I would come to pass out that evening. The following story will be a narrative from bits I remember as well as pieces that the others around me told me the following day. From where Heidi was sitting, she saw me just collapse backwards onto my back on the floor and initially she'd thought I'd pulled the door out, hit my head and thus concussed, fallen backwards. She then tried to rouse me and I actually remember being conscious for abit and hearing her asking me loads of questions and I remember asking "what happened?" and she said "you fell!" and I said "oh...really? I'm fine now." [took this photo 2 days later - that little strip on the left of the photo is where the corridor to the bathroom was...and that was where I was sprawled]

And that was probably when I passed out again the second time; from then on I couldn't open my eyes, couldn't speak - though I was trying - and moved in and out of consciousness several times, this I know because I kept hearing disjointed conversation around me and knew that time had elapsed between the last bit of conversation I heard. I felt safe knowing I was in good hands, and it was very reassuring that Heidi kept saying I was okay, everything would be okay - I just have to say that although she would probably have wished I hadn't come with her to the other restaurant, I could not pick a better person to have this drama with.

Bits of conversation I heard included Heidi saying "gringos at bar on left side" and also asking me to squeeze her hand to acknowledge if I could hear her - which was great because at that point in time I was very worried that I couldn't communicate, that in my head I was speaking but it was obvious that I wasn't doing so audibly - I heard the names "bradley and barry". And then another black hole, then something about the food we'd ordered not having been cooked yet, then another black hole then suddenly I was being lifted and then pushed into a taxi - don't remember who was in the taxi, but heard that we passed mark along the way.

And then Ann was there, I think she was shining a torch into my eyes, I don't remember much, but she said she couldn't see properly and asked for me to be carried out of the taxi. After being laid on the ground Ann was asking me questions for me to respond by squeezing her finger once for yes and twice for no. I responded "No" to whether I was drunk and "No" again for "is this the same as the incident in France?" - which was another story altogether but it was pretty funny hearing Brad tell Ann the story of how Paul said that when I was in Paris and I'd collapsed and had to be airlifted and flown home to Singapore where I was hospitalised for three weeks and subsequently discharged with no diagnosis. This NEVER happened...those of you who've been following my blog from when I was in Paris would remember the sudden high fever that beseiged me but yes, it was to Liverpool that I flew to for rest and recuperation..sans hospitalisation! Anyway so that was a bizarre thing and something I couldn't actually refute given I wasn't able to speak!

At some point while lying on the driveway, conscious but unable to open my eyes or speak, I could hear Heidi telling Ann what had happened and re-stating that I had been fine, wasn't drunk, had been "perky as" - in her words...haha! :D And then discussing how she'd been watching the drinks being made and not much chance for spiking, etc...and then someone started slapping my face rather hard saying "hey baby (russel peters style - if you can imagine) you gotta wake up! Eh? Baby? Baby! Wake up!" - this turned out to be the manager of the hotel, what an idiot! I wanted to wake up just to tell him to stop hitting me but really I was awake I just couldn't let them know! I heard some ruckus calling for Ivonne to get my passport details, and then some questions about whether my passport was in my bag (i actually had a copy in there) and then back into the cab with Barry and Ann on each side and I think Ivonne in the front. Ann was getting Baz to pour water on some cloth or tissue and then sponging me down...it was kindda nice and cool.

When we got to the clinic, I was put in a wheelchair and wheeled in and hoisted onto a gurney of sorts and then was some drama about how only one person could come in with me and Ann initially insisted she would stay but subsequently (and to my dismay) she had to go and Ivonne came instead, supposedly for translation purposes - she wasn't really useful as a translator I have to say, because they started putting needles into me and attaching some stuff to me and gave me two big zaps (like electric kinda shocks) and all this while I was stressing about what they were doing to me but not once did she say a word to me about what was being done. Amidst her extremely loud and annoyingly-pitched spanish I kept hearing "tequilla", "vodka" and "beracha" repeated - and funnily enough it was just hours ago that Helen had checked her phrase book and told us that beracha (not sure if this is how it's spelt) was the spanish word for "drunk".

I was pretty annoyed considering I knew I wasn't drunk and I didn't want to be treated for something I didn't have and not know what were all these needles and zaps they were giving me. I managed to start waving my hand and started mumbling "ann" - it was the only word I could muster at that point and then was suddenly pushed down in the bed by Ivonne who all but yelled at me "stop moving you!" And I was too weak to struggle so I left it and just prayed and later on when I could hear (through the silence) that Ivonned had left, I asked again for Ann and after the doctor came back, realised I was now able to speak, asked me a coupla questions and then allowed Ann back in.

It was good to feel that I was in safe hands again then and Ann explained what the doctor and paramedics had done was exactly the same as what they would've done in Australia, and I'd been hooked up to a state of the art ECG and that they'd done a cardiogram (not entirely sure what that is), taken my blood to test sugars or something, and also that because my blood pressure was realy low (60/40) when I arrived, was kindda getting this squeezey thing happening to boost it periodically. She also said that Mark, her, Baz, Brad, Heidi and Ivonne had come and I apologised profusely for ruining what was meant to be a great night at Coco's and was chided for being silly but then because I was going to be kept there for another hour or two I asked them to go back first because they hadn't had dinner yet either...asked to pick a remaining companion, I said the couples should go back and have romantic evenings and if Barry didn't mind it would be good if he could stay, and stay he did, and unfortunately they left Ivonne behind too.

I'm not sure how much time passed but subsequently the whole IV bag had been transferred into me and I was ready to leave...oh and I didn't say earlier, while I was there, a baby was delivered in the next room, pretty cool huh! haha! So yeah I still couldn't really open my eyes or hold myself up but Ivonne came in and yelled "hurry up you need to move because there are really sick people who need the bed" - reinforcing my understanding of the fact that she didn't actually think I was ill, merely drunk - which I wasn't and even the doctor affirmed it. And the others told me the next day that when she'd gone out from the room, they'd tried to tell her to convey some information to the doctor but she just threw her hands up and said "nope, don't know this, only know what the doctors said and that's it" and then proceeded to collapse into a chair wailing "why me? this has never happened to me before..." and etc. My thoughts? I understood now why she and the roomie S had gotten on so well, because the world revolved around them singularly, and everything was about them, so that even though I had collapsed and remained rather unconcscious, it was all about her. Crazy.

So anyway, they brought a wheelchair and I was wheeled out into the taxi and as it pulled into town, Ivonne got the driver to stop outside Coco's, said "okay so i'm happy there is nothing wrong with Rowenna" and then told Barry "you pay the driver because you make him to wait for you" and then hopped out into the bar - excellent job as a guide don't you think? Didn't even bother to see me back to the hotel, ensure I got into my room and what not. But of course, couldn't expect that from her. Barry got me out of the cab and to a nearby chair at the reception where I kindda just fell into it and crashed on the table while he went to see if there was anyone in my room and found Deb so eventually got me in there. Ann dropped round and gave strict instructions for me to drink some gastrolyte (it smells like urine, tastes worse!!) and I went to bed really early. Except for the weird dude breathing outside at about midnight and then really really heavy rain at about 1am, the rest of the night was good.

Tues (24/4) - I woke in the morning and had a hearty Costa Rican brekkie at the hotel, consisting of eggs, gallopinto, toast and fruit and had a laugh listening to everyone involved recount the incident from the night before. Two things were especially funny...the first being how the dude from the restaurant where Heidi and I were at, when asked to go across the road to get the guys over, strolled across and asked the dudes if they wanted to have some beer! And then when Heidi sent him back the second time they actually asked him how much and he told them 750 for an Imperial and so they said nah it was cheaper where they were and then he said there was a blonde lady there so they thought he was pimping or something and said they weren't interested...and all this while I was out on the ground! It was on his third go that he mentioned there was another lady on the floor then they kindda worked out something was wrong.

The other funny thing was that although the guy said we didn't have to pay for dinner because they hadn't started yet, he told Heidi to pay for drinks because they'd already been made and what's more...told her rather pointedly that she could have hers (whilst cradling my head in her arms....and freaking out and trying to get the guys to come over...) hahah! :D But what a star eh? Like I said, I could not pick a better person to be with....Many many many thanks to Heidi and also to Brad, Barry, Ann and Mark, for turning what could've been a horrible horrible catastrophe into alot of laughs and smiles. :D All I could offer in thanks was a bottle of rum that I had to force Barry to go out and buy for me the following day coz I was in "rest-mode" all the next day and kindda confined to the hotel. I should probably mention the fact that my wonderful guide at this point had chosen to cease being my guide after I "ruined" her night the night before and not only did she not even ask me how I was doing that morning, she chose to not speak to me from that point on.

So yeah anyway, apart from resting loads, I had a swim, lounged by the pool and had a healthy lunch of veggie stir-fry and not-so-healthy fried yuca and had a full body massage an hour later (and found a little bright green poisonous walk when I came out) then returned to the room to rest again. We'd organised to do a BBQ at the hotel that night...Ivonne had actually said it would be a private party and the pool would be sealed off for our use only but of course she was crapping once again and there was another group having a BBQ as well.

At about 7pm Helen and I headed out to the pool and joined the rest for a coupla drinks (I didn't have any!!) before the food was served. When food was indeed served, it was AWESOME! There was BBQ fish fillets, beef steak and chicken breast served up with rice, beans, lots of steamed broccoli and cauliflower, fried yuca and chips and salad as well! To top it all off there was freshly baked banana cake with balls of coconut to go along with it. More drinks followed after dinner and it turned out that the bottle of rum I got was a "trick" bottle and could not be opened...hahah! Nah...it did eventually get opened, just took ALOT of effort and tricks! It was kindda sad that by the time the night ended we kindda ended up in two groups, one on each side of the pool. Oh well.

La Fortuna

2007-05-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Sat (21/4) - Once again, another bad start to the day...I suppose in the scheme of things it wasn't really that bad; afterall, it was merely that our bus didn't show up. haha :D We all sat around the balcony while Ivonned ranted and raved on her mobile phone somewhere in the parking lot and eventually she managed to secure another bus for us that arrived 45min after the time we were meant to have set off. Her reason for the no-show was "nobody knows where the bus that we booked is" - yeap. whatever. it's funny how all these things that were pre-booked months before suddenly don't eventuate, even things like hotel rooms (Ometepe Island). Coupla hours later we stop off for some photos along the way with Volcan Arenal (the reason we're going to la Fortuna) looking in the distance.

After a quick stop at the supermarket in town (2km from the hotel we've been put up at), we arrive at Eco Arenal...our hotel. Its rooms are amazingly large, with even larger bathrooms but hey no complains...the room is painted blue, air-conditioned and we each have our own little balcony area...even though being on the ground floor takes away the special balcony feel. Oh and it has a pool too! :D

We only had about an hour from the time we checked in till the time we had to meet again for our "trek" of Volcan Arenal. I say "trek" because what it turned out to be was a bus ride to a path..known as Silencio, walking around the jungle at the foot of the volcano and then getting back on the bus and heading to a riverbank for views of the volcano spitting rock out at night. We saw a coupla red-hot rocks rolling down the slope of the volcano as well as a rather colourful sunset.

It was when we piled back into the mini-bus that our transport misadventures from the day before continued....probably about halfway through, the front-left tyre went bust and we all got off and stood around at the side of the road (and brad proved to be sumptious dinner for a nest of ants) while the flat tyre was removed and the spare put on. It probably took only half and hour or so and eventually when we all got on the bus, busted tyre included...everyone gave a cheer as we rolled on.

After awhile we started thinking that the spare was sounding funny and within 2 minutes of this discussion ensuing, it went 'pop' and we were stuck again at the side of the road - this time without a spare. Amazingly enough, this flat spare looked even worse than the first and really nobody could be blamed for dropping into foul moods with curses and swearing aplenty. What a day. Ivonne made more irate calls and eventually someone came and picked us up and took us back. In the space of an hour we'd encountered Costa Rica Transport Misadventure no. 4 and 5.

Sun (22/4) - Bright and early at 7:15am we were picked up at the reception of our hotel by a bus provided by Adventuras Arenal, the tour company where we booked to do a river tour of Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge. It was an hour and a half on the coach to Rio Frio where we transferred onto the boat - with a quick stop somewhere in the middle to take a look at loads of big, fat, juicy (not) iguanas lounging on top of some trees above a river.

The first of animals we saw were some caymans in the river beneath some tree branches, looking quite identical to logs. For those of you who might (like me) be ignorant of what caymans are, they are relatives of the croc...very little relatives....most that we saw that day were about a meter long (at the most).

We then had a very close encounter with a Howler Monkey in a branch above the boat...and that was pretty cool, it looked kindda cute - in a hungry and leaf-eating sorta way. We saw more monkeys on other trees, loads of different birds, more cayman, a basilisk - a lizard also known as the Jesus Christ lizard because it's said to be able to walk on water, and some tortoises sunbathing too!

When we got off the boat we were taken to a nearby restaurant/souvenir store stop-off and served a pretty huge lunch of Arroz con Pollo with refried beans, coleslaw and tortilla chips - I had seconds!! haha! It was pretty yum....as was the nice juice slice of pineapple that came round after - yes I did help myself to another slice as well.

After spending the rest of the afternoon lounging by the pool, Deb, Helen and I walked into town, stopping to take photos of the "sleeping giant" - a mountain range thus named by the locals beacuse from afar they resembled a man at rest on his back....Ivonne very excitedly pointed out that he was having a very happy sleep with good dreams. Hmmm...

After a quick walk round town, we dropped in at the internet cafe for the quick blog entry I posted on that day saying I was well and alive then we caught up with Baz, Col, Brad and Heidi at Don Rufino's where I ordered a "shiver coffee" - a marvellous concoction of coffee, oreos, chocolate and ice cream. YUM! We adjourned to a nearby soda for dinner, I had casados con tilapia - the fish was very fresh and tasty and the whole platter came with carbs aplenty, what with a portion of rice, mashed potatoes, pasta, a serve of beans and a fried plantain! Before we headed back, we stopped at the local supermarket (super cristian #2) and Helen and I amused ourselves with a photoshoot when we found a rack of machetes being sold beside the nappy section.

Mon (23/4) - Transport had been sorted and at early that morning we all piled into a mini-bus and headed for the Caribbean Coast. We hadn't been driving long when the driver kindda slowed to a halt and made a turn into a little street and we were told there was a sloth up on a tree. Not sure if it was randomly spotted but if it was, it was kindda bizarre that he would've spotted it from a tree in the garden of a house about 50m up the street from where our bus turned and furthermore, that the owner of the house happily opened the gates and allowed us all in to have a closer look. So yeah, it is probably this sloth was a family pet and had lived there for some time now. Still cool that we got to see one though!

We were making pretty good time and we arrived at Sarapiqui (not sure how you spell this) River at about 9:15am and stoppped in for a coffee. Not particularly desirous of spending more money on coffee, I opted to go out and scramble amidst rocks to get to the water's edge, realising there was a bridge across the river not far from where we were and also that there were little fish everywhere in the pools of water collected between the rocks.

We made another stop at a roadside stall selling (amongst other things) plantains, fruit and local snacks, including "peh-hee-wa-li" - not sure how this is spelt, but Ivonne brought us there just to see it, they looked like little coconuts but were yellow and red and were boiled before they could be eaten. When cooked, the skin could easily be peeled off and the inside flesh was orange and fibrous, literally the colour of sweet potato with the texture of tapioca (yuca) - what's more, if you cracked the seed inside, it revealed a little nut of coconut-meat-like flesh, looked like it and tasted like it too!

Monteverde

2007-04-26T16:56:00.000-07:00

Thursday (19/4) - The day started alright for me but really badly for Patrick, who somehow managed to get left behind at the hotel when we all piled into two minibusses that took us to the local bus station where we transferred onto a local bus bound for Monteverde. The mistake was realised in the nick of time though and he managed to cab down to the station and join us on the bus before we left. I'd managed all the other long bus rides quite well so far and thought this would be the same but for some reason, whether it was the seat, heat or whatever else at play, my back seemed to be constantly on the brink of seizing up that morning, threatening to cramp up and go into spasm if I didn't move or stretch every 5 minutes (not comfortable at all). What compounded the trip was that a third of the journey was on unpaved road (read that as incredibly bumpy and rocky road) and not long after we hit that portion of the road that was a loud bang and our driver got off and had a look on the left side but got on the bus saying everything was fine. We plodded on and didn't noticed anything because the roads were that bumpy anyway...however we later found that almost half of the tyre's re-thread had been ripped off!

There was also a guy on the bus who had his bag stolen whilst we made a toilet stop so that wasn't good news for him considering all his money, passport and airline tickets were in the bag - we were actually warned about how the bus was notorious for having such incidents where people would walk up and just grab bags and nobody would noticed. About 8km before we arrived at Monteverde, the bus came to a halt and we were told that a truck in front had broken down and because the roads were so narrow and winding, no overtaking could be done. Thus began almost an hour of adventure by the side of the road, spent initially waiting for the truck to get fixed and eventually for two minibusses that Ivonne had managed to get dispatched from Monteverde to come pick us up.

The hotel itself, Clara de Luna, was a nice cosy lodge (maybe too cosy because form our room upstairs we could smell everything that was being cooked below and also hear the conversation from the boys' room next door) with 3 storeys of rooms including a kitchen, eating area and a porch. The highlight was probably the fact that we all got two kissing swans laid out on our beds - complete with a rose and bouganvilla sprinkled across the towels, or actually ti was the fact that they had a 4yr old husky Apollo on the premises - Wheeee!!!!!!

It was Debbie's birthday that day and so we (at Ivonne's insistent recommendation) had dinner at Johnny's Pizzeria (owned by the very same Johnny who owned the hotel we were at) and unfortunately it kindda pissed everyone off because the food was only average but expensive - I had bacon and mushroom pizza and you'd think you couldn't go wrong with that but the crust was tasteless and really the whole pizza was very bland! Plus it didn't help that Ivonne (the guide) started drinking (trying to anyway) flaming Sambuccas before dinner and continued her intake throughout the meal. I think eventually the last straw came when our bills that were already taking forever to be prepared arrived sans the 10% discount Ivonned promised and also Debbie had a ridiculously expensive bill that they couldn't quite explain and so we kindda wondered of the cake Ivonne had organised ended up being paid for by Debbie herself.

On the way back we had abit of an incident in our taxi when there was a truck speeding up and our driver kindda swerved to turn away from him while he just ploughed on, made and maintained contact with the left side of our vehicle as he raced by and didn't stop. Our driver was very disgruntled and he stopped the minibus behind the bend and turning all his lights off, got out to inspect the damage while all of us in the back of the van started panicking that without lights on, we were sitting ducks waiting for a car to come speeding round the bend and smack right into the back of us. Eventually, Mark got out and turned the headlights on (simultaneously discovering that his hazards weren't even working) and after we all had seen that it was mild panel damage on the side of the van, we all got back in but I guess by then, it had been 3 stops at the side of the road in one day and everyone just wanted to get back to bed.

Friday (20/4) - An 8am start took us to Selvatura Park where we had the option of doing the Canyon Zip Line - where you were attached (via a harness around your waist and thighs) to a wire cable and sent zipping down it (around a total of 15 platforms all above treetops of the rainforest) as well as a walk across some pretty amazing suspension swing bridges across the rainforest...the first cost USD40 and the second was 20 but if you did both it was 55. I opted to do just the first one....I'd come all this way and never done it before so now - as as good a time as any! It turned out to be really really fun and I'd definitely recommend doing it - not necessarily in Monteverde because there are others elsewhere. Enjoy the video of me on the tarzan swing:

It was about 12 when I got back to the hotel and all I had for my lunch option was nachos and Col appeared with his much-revered and greatly-desired cup noodles. After sitting around doing nothing for long enough, I ambled into town with Baz & Col, for coffee but couldn't get any because there'd been a power cut again so we settled for a slice of dry chocolate cake and meatless-meat pie :D

When we got back to the hotel, Deb, Helen and I went to the stables at the back and the horse trainer gave us the grand tour of the stables and a demonstration of the "dancing" spanish horse. There was a white stallion and about 6 or 7 other horses in there..including a little one that had its mane cut so short it looked like a zebra! I had alot of fun pulling off the tufts of hair off Apollo and just playing with him whilst Deb checked out the horses.

Dinner was at Los Amigos, a dingy restaurant and bar in town where I had a yummy chicken fajita. Determined to lose the PP nickname, I stuck to water while we waited for the band to set up (live music every friday) and we all witnessed an almost-fight that didn't eventuate but provided good entertainment for awhile with loud shouts and grown men running around what later became the dance floor. I walked back to the hotel with Deb so didn't get to hear the band but those who did said it was alright...what was great was the locals dancing salsa throughout the night :D

Saturday (21/4) - The hotel provided four breakfast options for USD5 but not wanting to spend that much, Deb, Barry and I took Mark's recommendation and went across the road to Le Amistad for "typical" brekkie....I had Gallopinto with Salchicha, which is rice and beans with sausage...complete with fresh mango juice and a tortilla! After breakfast we were meant to leave for La Fortuna but had abit of a problem because our bus didn't arrive and Ivonne said nobody knew where it was...but she eventually got us another bus and driver and we were on our way in good Costa Rican time...40min behind schedule.

San Jose

2007-04-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

Day 1 in San Jose was really just Night 1 considering everyone just had dinner then went to bed. For me, the moment I had been waiting for had finally arrived, I was getting a new roomie! Her name is Helen and she's from London...and after 11 days of sleepless nights, locking and unlocking my bags everytime I got anything out, dreading to return to my room for fear of overwhelming suffocation by chatter, I decided right away that she was surely a god-send! :) It would suffice to say that I had the best sleep that night in a loooong time! (Thanks Papa)

Wednesday (18/4) - Complimentary breakfast was provided by the hotel courtesy of ECole travel...the Costa Rican tour company that was in charge of this leg of the trip (had been since the days of Ivonne really). At breakfast everyone got to meet everyone and our five new people were Helen, Jim and Joe from London, Debbie (former Melbournite now living in the states), and Patrick, a french Canadian. Shortly after breakfast everyone kindda just started heading out for a walk around the city. Our first stop was the National Theatre of Costa Rica at the central park but unfortunately they were having rehearsals so we couldn't go in.

We followed that up with a visit to the Gold Museum...which included various exhibitions as we made our way there, including one detailing the history of Costa Rica's Campaigns (wars really), an art gallery area that invited visitors to draw or paint (easels provided) in the area, and weaved into the pre-columbian gold exhibition was the tale of Costa Rica's indigenous people and their way of life. I doubt I've ever seen that much gold in my life, have to say I'm not really a fan of yellow gold anyway....but it was pretty amazing how intricate the little figurines and designs on discs were (for their date).

From there it was a short walk on Avenida Centrale with a brief pause at the statue of the "Fat Woman" along the way where we paused for some photos before continuing to the Mercado Centrale that was a mixture of fresh fruit, flowers, cooked and raw food, natural medicines, souvenirs and really anything you could think of selling you could probably find there.

Lunch was procured at a bakery we passed as we made our way to the National Gallery - by this time it was just Helen and I (very peacefully so) and it was interesting to find an exhibition where "famous" people had been represented with various objects like fruit, food and misc objects. There were also galleries of contemporary art and a room of paintings of colours and textures found in plants and our last stop was at space exhibiting mobiles of various, shapes, sizes and colour - which I have to say I really liked! (Visit the photo gallery for more images of the exhibitions)

We headed back to the hotel after that - it was getting really warm out - and after writing some postcards and having a cool-down-time, I headed out to the post office to send them off (for only 360 colonnes - it's 500 to a dollar so you work that out) and eventually the whole group met for dinner at Cafe Mundo across the street`and I had a really healthy meal of grilled chicken breast with herb butter - served with rice, broccoli and some other horse food that I couldn't eat (disease!!)

Finished the night packing because we were leaving early the next morning for Monteverde - home of the cloud forest that we never got to visit but that's another story for later. I was leaving my backpack behind at the hotel because some of the group were coming back to it after the trip ended and Deb very kindly offered for me to bunk in....so for those of you who have been following Ted's travels, that'll be empty for the next 7 nights as he sits (squashed) in the big backpack.

Ometepe Island

2007-04-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

Sunday (15/4) - It started nicely enough, an hour's drive to the docks and then we hopped onto a ferry. Ferry was no drama...apart from the fact that we sat up top and got roasted in the sun while they piled on cars and motorbikes onto the boat...it was a short enough trip at 2hrs and as the captain pulled a wonderful 4-point-reverse of the ferry into the jetty, we noticed pigs along the waterfront. I also found to my dismay that once I arrived at the island I had lost my mobile signal and couldn't ring my lil bro to wish him HAPPY 20th!!! Bah!!!

From there it was a 40min ride on a minibus to our hotel, slated to be the best on the island. It wasn't a resort by any means, but we all got chalets that were decent sized and had a bunch of rocking chairs and hammocks out the front. Two chalets had waterfront views (or "bews" as Ivonne pronounced it) and the rest were kindda vertically aligned to the beach so missed out. There wasn't anything to do nearby and nowhere to go really so right from our arrival at lunch till past dinner that night, everyone was kindda hanging around the restaurant/bar for lunch, snacks, dinner and a whole load of drinks. There were alot of margheritas and beers going round but my poison of the evening was tequilla (Paul brought the remaining half of the bottle and said it was my half you see, so I had to do something about it!) and this time it landed me in a hammock in a chalet closest to the bar where I woke up at about 3am, freezing because a very strong breeze had come up!

Monday (16/4) - Everyone woke up in their own time and took as long as they needed to fully rouse themselves and have breakfast and at about 10am we set off for a nearby waterhole, having been told it had clean and refreshing water. This was supposed to be a US$11 tour where you go there and back on horseback, but we opted to walk and paid only the $1 entrance fee at the front of a little wooden gate with a sign that said "Entrada - the eye of the water". It was a much larger "hole" than we expected and the water was very refreshingly clean and clear! Everyone had abit of a swim before a lorry full of europeans arrived followed closely by another truckload of locals...which eventually signalled the time of our departure.

Back at the hotel, everyone settled back at the restaurant for lunch and I had a seafood soup that had loads of prawns, large fillet of fish and a lobster in it...the seafood was good but I have the say the soup was pretty average. A nice long shower ensued and I spent the rest of the afternoon slacking on the hammock. At about 5 everyone sorta gathered round the restaurant/bar again and several rounds of drinks passed before the entourage having the private "bew"party arrived and we started with dinner - I'd decided finishing the bottle was enough and I have to say the garlic shrip was excellent!

I opted again to spend the night outside of my rather snorey room and Ann had offered the views from the front of their room - they had two hammocks and a long comfy couch! So I grabbed my pillow and silk blanket from the room and went out there to camp for the night. At about 1:30am though, it started to rain and because the wind was still going I was getting drenched on the hammock! So I got up and moved inside on the couch and kindda hid myself under the blanket and by the time I woke up again at about 6am, sunrise had painted the skies red and everything had dried off.

Tuesday (17/4) - This was the day it all went abit mad. We left the hotel at about 10am and discovered at the docks that this time we were on a much smaller boat rather than the ferry. Our bags were thrown on the deck and everyone just sorta found somewhere to sit...some people just had to sit around the bags because there really wasn't anywhere else. It was when a coffin got loaded on the boat and was lowered below deck that we should've known something was about to happen, but no we weren't that bright. We pulled off into very choppy waters and several times our boat kinda leaned over so much to the side that we got thrown off our seats, eskies were sliding across the deck and it did seem as though we wouldn't right ourselves...but thankfully, we always did. We were told that the coffin was sliding around all over below and people were walking up to it, lifting the lid and having a look and etc and also the locals said that because the coffin was on board the lake was angry or something like that...but we later found out that actually the Volcano Concepcion on Ometepe had had a minor eruption and so there were tremors that caused the choppiness.

We got dropped off at a bus station where we'd hop on a bus that would take us (over the next 7hrs) across the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border and then into San Jose. Getting seated alone proved to be enough of a task with several of us having been allocated seat numbers that weren't actually on the bus, but we all got seated round the back of the bus anyway (beside the toilet) and thus began a long and ardous journey. I did make a little friend at the Nicaraguan border though...his name is Alex and he was trying very hard to get us to buy some chewing gum! Apart from the two stops we made at the Nicaragua and then Costarica Customs Border, we ploughed on towards San Jose and about 15minutes before we arrived at the bus station, the bus was completely filled with the very pungent smell of urine and crap from the toilet - I mean it'd been stinky all along, like everytime anyone went in or came out we'd all have to hold our breaths but at the end it seemed like something had burst and the whole bus just stank!! I actually had to get some perfume to spray on my wrist and keep sniffing at it continuously just to survive!

It was a long day...and we'd relaxed enough on Ometepe Island for two days so we were ready for Costa Rica and all the excitement it promised to bring. We arrived at our hotel shortly before 10pm and everyone popped across the road to Cafe Mundo for dinner and we did discuss the arrival of the "newbies" because Ivonne had told us that 5 new people would be joining the group the following day.

Still Alive

2007-04-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

Only got 6 minutes here at the internet cafe...just a quick one to say im still going. The keyboard is abit weird so excuse bad punctuation....haha. Or bad english altogether. Been in Costa Rica for awhile now...been in San Jose, Monteverde and am currently in La Fortuna. Adventures aplenty as usual..including a chunk of the tyre on our bus flying off and then a truck breaking down that left us stranded behind it on the road, a run in on our mini bus with a truck driving by...yes a sort of collision...but it wasnt so bad, it couldve been worse. And then two flat tyres on a bus while returning from the volcano yesterday. so yes its been quite exciting. haha. ive been blogging on my notebook so dont worry you will get the full details soon.

I have to say though...for all you readers in Singapore, M1 rocks. I am trying to find the exclamation mark but i cant seem to get it. so anyway thats three exclamation marks for M1. I emailed them telling them im supposed to be roaming here in Costa Rica and their roaming partner ...ICE...has coverage but my phone says no access to network and so I cant connect. Within 48hrs, I got this email from them:

Dear Ms Yeo

Thank you for your e-mail of 20 April 2007.

Ms Yeo, we have investigated this matter with our roaming partner - Costa Rica (I.C.E), and confirm that there was intermittent connection with the I.C.E International gateway. Nevertheless, the problem has been rectified. You may power off/on your handset and try again. Please do not hesitate to contact us if the problem persists.

So yes...I have powered off and on my mobile and finally, I am connected again on my mobile. Yay...exclamation mark.....because where we are we have no internet and wont be having it for awhile yet until I return to san jose i think.

anyway. gotta run. later...

Just so you know...

2007-04-17T23:55:00.000-07:00

After 12hrs of travel, I've arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica - changed roomie...YAY! Helen, who's 23 and from London, is my new roomie and as far as I'm concerned...she rocks! I haven't had internet access since Saturday nor mobile coverage once I got to Ometepe Island and no coverage here in Costa Rica for M1 roaming too it would seem.

Anyway, I am very well and very tired too so I need to get some rest. I've just published an entry on Granada, Nicaragua and I'll write about Ometepe tmrw maybe and get the photos ready to go online too. :)

2 days on the road and eventually 1 border crossing

2007-04-17T23:23:00.000-07:00

Wednesday (11/4) - We left Roatan Island early in the morning on the 11th of April and got on the ferry to la Ceiba...a quick crap breakfast at the supermarket there, and many hours on a bus later, we arrived at San Pedro Sula and had an equally crap lunch at the cafe at the bus station then back on the bus for another 4hrs and then a transfer on a minivan to our hotel at Tegucigalpa. When we got to our hotel, we were told it wasn't safe to go out so everyone headed down to the hotel snack bar for dinner....it turned to be a huge drama because there was ONE burger and everyone else had to have sandwiches. I just stayed in the room, watched CSI Miami then went to bed.

Thursday (12/4) Woke up at 4am and we had two busses for the day to get us across the Honduras-Nicaragua border and to Managua. The first bus was about 2hrs and the second was about 8hrs!!! Although when we got on the second bus we got given a breakfast that was pretty decent - a ham and cheese croissant, banana muffin and a cup of mixed fruit. At the border one of our guides got stuck and they wouldn't let him in so he had to wait for the next bus back to Tegucigalpa - lucky him. Not envious.

We arrived at our hotel in Granada at about 4pm and thankfully it was a pretty decent hotel with a pool and loads of rocking chairs everywhere - actually this was all over the whole town. Went out for a walk around the plaza with Paul and we ate the local "treat" called bikurong - or something like that not sure how it's spelt, which was basically pork crackle on boiled tapioca with salad on top. Some of the others went on a short trip to Masaya Markets for the evening, lured by colourful markets, live music and local food for dinner. I had an early and quiet night enjoying the room to myself while it started pouring cats and dogs outside.

Friday (13/4) - The group got together at 9:30am for a walking tour of the city with a local guide, Walter. We visited about a thousand churches before ending it at the old fortress. The guide was fairly knowledgeable and gave us alot of history on the town...it was really sunny and humid though, didn't make for a very pleasurable 3hr walk. After the walk, i think the effects of Friday the 13th kicked in and the day just took a real sharp downhill turn in an instant.

That night I joined the rest of the crew for dinner at Jimmy "three fingers", apparantly on the top3 list of restaurants in Granada and even before I ordered my incredibly tasty and tender BBQ chicken, I started in on drinks. Everyone was having a few that night and after we got back to our hotel we were sitting on those incredibly relaxing rocking chairs out the front of the hotel and somewhere in the course of the night we decided to get a bottle of tequilla - that pretty much summed up the rest of the night. Suffice it to say, i ended the night with a new nickname - Pol Pot's sister......piss pot! (really not that funny!)

Saturday (14/4) - The majority of the group went on a 7hr daytrip to the nearby volcano, market and islands but I decided I had enough of travelling around after our 2day endurance test to get to Granada so I just had abit of a sleep in till close to noon then went out to try and get some money changed to local currency, and found out they only accept US dollars...but not aussie. Oh well. 2 hours later, still no luck anywhere and my stomach had all but eaten itself, I went back to our hotel and Barry said there was an ATM that dispensed US dollars so he brought me there. Scatterbrain that I seem to have become, we arrived on the steps of the bank and I realised I didn't have my card on me. Had to walk all the way back and then back to the bank again and finally i got some cold hard cash that would be accepted here in Nicaragua. First stop...grub at Kathy's Waffle House....I had bacon pancakes with Ice Chocolate. Not entirely yum but it was food, couldn't say no! A very very lucky street dog ambled up and got a very large chunk of the meal. I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around in the hotel and had a nap.

Asked Barry to come out for a walk so I could get some gelato at about half four but couldn't find the one I'd gone to on the first day so we tried another one near the plaza - not good at all. Bumped into Shelley on the way out of the place and she said that everyone had just come back from the tour so we headed back to see what everyone was doing. Everyone eventually gathered round the front on rocking chairs and started in on beers and cashew nuts before deciding to head to the Tapas Bar for dinner roundabout 7pm. It was another big drinking night with red wines, sangria and beers coming out quite quickly. Mark and Barry handled the food orders and there were about 14 little plates of food including a tuna salad, croquettes, chicken in cream sauce with tapioca chips, and lots of other nice and tasty little bits.

The next morning we were meeting at 8:30am to cross Lake Nicaragua to Ometepe Island...not quite sure what to expect...all I know is that there are two volcanoes on it and climbing to the summit of each one would take about 6 to 8 hrs...so I don't think I'd be doing any of that....too much work! haha!

Oh what bliss internet brings

2007-04-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe I've gone without the internet for almost a week! Anyway, today we've crossed the border into Nicaragua and I'm now in the city of Granada where I'm all wired up again (for the next three nights anyway). Just published two blog entries from Roatan Island and another one from the day before I got there...put up new photos and dive photos too, so check out the photo gallery.

Here's a video clip so you can have a glimpse of what I have to put up with every night...it's a glimpse coz it's not all that loud on the vid coz I was using zoom, not really that up close to her - but believe me it's loud:

[PS: uploaded new videos so make sure you check out my video gallery link on the right from time to time!]

Roatan Island, Honduras

2007-04-12T19:36:00.000-07:00

On Sunday (8/4), we watched the sun set while we were on the ferry heading over to Roatan Island and subsequently arrived at our hotel at around 8pm. Earlier that morning, our new guide Ivonne had said it wasn't possible to a secure single room for me...which led to the realisation that I was stuck with roomie for the next 17 nights. Although, I received news later on that we pick up some new people in Costa Rica so hopefully that'll mean I get to change roomies. Anyway...that led me to have a conversation with said roomie, about ensuring the room door is always locked if she isn't in the room - which includes the times she's in the shower...coz the night before I'd found the room dar ajar and walked in to an empty room - I had a panic attack and thought someone had broken in and grabbed my gear and left then realised she was in the toilet. So we had the conversation, I said it only took a minute for someone to get in and walk out with my stuff and she said "or less than that"...and she assured me it was her normal practice to lock the door and that night had been a one-off so I left it at that and everyone heads out for dinner and drinks while I opt to stay in coz I'm planning to wake at 6am the following day to sort out some diving.

Monday (9/4) - I wake up at 6am and go for a walk down the beach to West Bay; it's about an hour's walk both ways and I sit around the dive shop waiting for it to open after I get back. Eventually it does and I find it's much more economical to dive more than two dives (it's a $10 saving off each dive that way) so I decide to do 3 dives at $25 each, which is not bad at all considering it's all inclusive. So anyway, I rock up for the dive and we head out on the boat and I end up having a 48min, 29m max depth dive which included highlights like king crabs, lobsters and three turtles (photo courtesy of nani-chan)! It was a brilliant dive and I so wished I had an underwater case for my camera - I asked the divemaster about it when I got out and found out I could hire one...so I'm going to do that tomorrow.

We get back from the dive at about 11ish and I decide to skip the next dive and do two tomorrow (with the camera) instead. I head back to the room and apply a new layer of sunscreen before heading out to try and get a water taxi to Paya Bay - that fails and so in the end I go back to West Bay and spent about an hour just relaxing on the beach with a book. This part of the island is so "touristy"...deck chairs and brollies spread across the sand and in a somewhat bali-reminiscent manner, women walk up and down asking if you'd like to have your hair braided or enjoy a massage...but the white sand beaches with crystal-clear turquoise waters are to die for :D

I walk back to the hotel and find out at reception that my roomie's in the room already as the key isn't at the desk. I go to my room, turn the door knob and to my horror find her again NOT in the room. She walks out of the toilet a minute later and I said "you left the door unlocked again." She goes "oh! did you mean even when I was in the toilet too? I thought you meant when I was having a shower..." AAARRRGHHHHHHH! How specific do I have to be?!!?! And then she goes on to ask if I've had bad experiences and she thought Singapore was safe so why was I so paranoid & etc. I explain that Singapore is indeed very safe...but the reality is that we are NOT in Singapore are we? We are in Honduras with very poor people everywhere and my very expensive laptop in the room. I explain politely that I'd rather not take chances and just be a little paranoid that way...and she says "well I'm the kind of person that prefers to catch them in the act"....and like you know what? I almost lost it then. Seriously. Because like if she had her own room and it was just her stuff and she had this thing for catching people in the act of stealing her stuff, great and good for her...but the fact is, she is sharing the room and there is my stuff there and quite frankly I have much more valuable stuff than she does and I'm just thinking "you gotta be joking!" because I'd rather nobody get a sniff at my gear than she have the chance to catch someone trying to - and probably failing in the pursuit. It's all about consideration isn't it. Yes...you're beginning to see how its going to be a very loooong remaining 7 nights for me.

Anyway, after she leaves I enjoy a nice long shower before heading out to walk along the beach waiting for sunset. It does come eventually and it is beautiful! I stay out on the jetties yakking to Jem on the phone till my battery runs out and then I walk around trying to find some dinner. I get some cheap but good grub and feeling satisfied, head back to the room to call it a night.

Tuesday (10/4) Straight out of bed and I get prepped for more diving...I did two dives today, the first was a 42min deep dive at Half Moon Bay wall, reaching a max depth of 34m and the second was a 50min dive with max depth at 21m. What can I say? I must be the most blessed girl in the world...getting to enjoy clear blue skies and sunshine whilst diving in warmth water amidst the second-largest reef in the world. Saw loads of turtles, several large fish, and loads of other beautiful fish and vibrant coral life. You have to see it to believe it so drop into the Roatan Dives Album to see for yourself.

By the time I got back from diving I was starving! I wanted to try the BBQ chicken place that was packed the first night we got here but it wasn't opened yet (only opens at 3pm) and since I didn't want to hang around wasting away for another hour, I head up the main street on West End and have a look at what's on offer. Eventually I deicde to stop at the "Hot Chilli Restaurant" and order a lobster burrito (sans onions). I got 2 big flour tortillas stuffed to the brink of explosion with tender lobster pieces cooked in a tasty salsa cream sauce. I ate slowly and took in the view of the ocean together with the taste of lobster...yum yum!

I thought of walking to this place about an hour away to watch to dolphin show (and to work off the incredibly rich meal I just ate) butabout 30minutes into the walk I decided it was too hot and I couldn't be bothered (plus I wouldn't be able to make it back to West End on time to pay for my dives before the shop closed at 5pm). On the way back I stopped at Half Moon Bay for a swim because I was way too hot from walking all that way for nothing then bought a gallon of water at the grocery store before heading back to shower.

Stayed in till about 7pm then Collin, Barry & Paul knocked on the door as they were heading out to dinner...we found Brad and Heidi at "Patricia Place", a little cafe with BBQ chicken and pork on specials and they'd just finished their feed and strongly recommended it so we sat down. It was abit of a wait but very very worth it...the BBQ meat was soooo tasty and it was served up with rice, tortillas and a cup of chilli beans. Veeeery Yum. Also, there was a fair bit of entertainment going because our waitress for the evening was completely drunk and hyper-ish, plus we were at war with a table full of americans behind us (they ask to turn the music down, we ask to turn it up)...oh did I meantion it was country music? HAHA! Heidi, Brad and Collin were loving it! And so was the nearby table of locals...it got to a point where they were on repeat-one on "when did you stop loving me" and it got a little too much so we decided to NOT clap after the song finished for the third time...then they switched songs. Anyway, they were all going strong with their rum & cokes when Paul and I left and I heard the next morning that Tasha was completely hammered by the time they left and on top of it, the tip they gave her wasn't even enough to cover her bill that night - which happened to be her first (and last - we suspect) night on the job.

S was asleep by the time I got back (it was only 8ish) and since she had her eye-mask and earplugs in I asked if it was okay if I kept the light on to pack. I was thinking of packing quickly and then heading out to watch TV but after about 15minutes she was snoring so loudly she had to be sound asleep so I left the light on and starting sorting out my photos from the dives earlier that day. After about an hour, S snorts and wakes herself up, lifts her eye patch, mutters and curses under her breath - all I could make out was "jesus **)@#* christ"- and I was thinking she wasn't too happy about the lights being on, so I asked her if she wanted me to turn out the lights but she doesn't reply and turns over and dramatically pulls the covers over her head. FOr goodness sake...she has one of those eye patches (from planes) on, ear plugs in and you've been snoring for an hour non-stop, don't tell me it was the light that woke her up! And did she not have the common courtesy to just ask politely if I could turn off the light rather than to mutter and curse under her breath and ignore me when I enquire? Afterall, the night before I'd said she could turn out the light when she wanted to go to bed but she said she had the eyemask and so it should be alright, maybe yesterday it was and today it wasn't...how was I supposed to know that? So anyway I turn out the lights and go to bed...but lie awake for over an hour because she's snoring away like nobody's business. I haven't had proper sleep in the last 4 nights and it's getting to a stage where it's not funny - even with my ear plugs in I can still hear her snore!

Wednesday 11/4 - I wake at 4:50 and by the time I come out of the bathroom she's up and gives me a cheery "morning!"....I return the greeting and say nothing further. I think I'm losing my patience...it's hard to take myself off the edge when the cause of my lack of sleep is staring me in he the face and will continue to do so for the next 16 days. I don't know if I said this before but I'll say it again because I am so excited and can't wait...in Costa Rica (only 5 nights away) 1 guy, a couple and two gals will be joining our group and so I'll be switching roomies then. Can't wait. I need sleep! PS: I know Jesus loves her too and that I'm meant to love her too....and believe me that's on the forefront of my mind, and I'm trying; plus I'm learning endurance and patience right?

Anyway, we're on the ferry at 7am, stop for crappy breakfast at the supermarket while waiting for our 10am bus and then it's back on the bus for 3hrs and then another crappy lunch (I had a pollo empanada and a slice of cake that I can't work out if it was meant to be sweet or savoury) at the bus station cafetaria and then back on the bus again - where I'm writing from at the moment. This bus ride is a 4hr one and from the bus station we should have taxis waiting to take us to our hotel at Tegucigulpa, the capital of Honduras - where we'll spend the evening and a very short night before meeting at 4am to make our way across the border to Nicaragua's Granada.

Roatan was great. Strongly Recommended. Once again, remember Geckos Adventure Tours is strongly NOT recommended!

What is spanish for one #!@% up after another?

2007-04-12T19:22:00.000-07:00

That was a question one of the guys on this tour asked a coupla days ago in the midst of the anonymous hotel situation. Somehow I think the question may still apply today...I'm sitting at some ferry terminal in La Ceiba on the Caribbean coast of Honduras typing this entry - why you ask? Because I've been waiting close to two hours for a ferry that will take us across to Roatan Island...and that ferry at 4pm has been rescheduled to 5:15pm...so still another 2 hours to sit and wait for....patience is definitely something I'm coming to learn on this trip - or at least the mask of it anyway :D

Anyway I woke up at about 4am this morning and everyone met at 4:30am and hoisted ourselves into a pickup that brought us to the bus station to catch our 5:15am bus...funnily enough we arrived at the station at 4:32am and even funnier was the fact that the station wasn't even open yet! More great planning by this wonderful Geckos Adventure Tours that I assure all my loyal and faithful blog readers that I DO NOT recommend...I repeat...I DON'T RECOMMEND GECKO'S!!!

At least our proper guide for the remainder of the trip has arrived and she seems to be rather efficient - her name is Ivonne and she is from Costa Rica; it turns out Ronaldo is her cousin and he is being trained...we're not entirely sure if the company is paying him to be trained or if he's free-loading...the group reckon it's the latter. But back to the trip...so eventually we got on the bus at 5:15am and it was a 3hr ride to San Pedro Sula where we had breakfast at the restaurant in a hotel close to where the bus station was - I had waffles with sausages.

Then it was back on the bus at 10:30am for another 3hrs and we arrived at La Ceiba at 1:30pm and everyone dropped into the supermarket across the street to pick up water, snacks and whatever necessities we needed (coz apparently everything's really expensive on the island) then jumped into 3 taxis to take us to the fery terminal; where we sit and wait...surrounded by alot of locals noisily chattering away - somewhat resemblant of a chinese restaurant...haha!

Since I'm waiting and there's nothing else to do, I guess now would be a good time to put in writing the thoughts that've been tumbling around in my mind for the last coupla days:

In the past eight days I have seen poverty similar to that which is often visible in many asian undeveloped and parts of developing countries; I have seen entire communities currently existing with tourism and its income at the centre of its everyday process - perhaps I would even go as far as to say its negative effects as commercialisation. I have learnt that in these said communities, before tourism ever arrived on its shores, they used to barter...money was never an issue and they existed in harmony; one trade with another...embroidered clothing for fish or meat, wood for oil, etc...

But as I have seen (and you too have witnessed through the perusal of my blog and photo gallery), these communities now exist on sales of the material they weave, dye and embroider, or on woodcraft. These sales to us tourists; tourists who hate being ripped off by "tourist prices", tourists who can well afford the additional $10 but don't see the need of giving that same amount in the value of 70 quetzales to the locals...the same amount which would mean maybe two-thirds of a meal to us back home and yet could easily feed a family of five for several days, tourists who will haggle a price down to very lowest we can and walk away with a sense of conquest and achievement. We discuss prices with one another express exuberance when we find out we've paid the lowest price for the one item that others have purchase - do we think about having shaved off 10 meals off a family's dinner table?

Don't get me wrong...I'm not pointing fingers at anyone - if anything I am the most guilty of all because I hardly even shop and definitely appreciate a good bargain because I'm travelling on a budget. Of course we can't be guilty of not providing food for others because that's not our responsibility, but what we could easily be charged with is this: undervaluing a beautifully hand-woven piece of fabric that was lovingly and painstakenly emboidered by a mother who has such a strong love for her faimly that she does it all day and night to put food on the table; to go even further the charge would be that we fail to see that it is desperation for that same food-providing money that causes her to drop her prices drastically and NOT coming to the realisation that she can't bluff us "tourists".

Heavy I know - but this indeed is what has been on my mind. When did we, people who are successful in every sense of life and living, from other countries fortunate enough to enjoy the luxury of travel start to think like this...where does it come from and is it ever excusable? Here's my disclaimer for a start - this is not academically proven not have they even been tested...these are just my observations and subsequent thoughts. I say it comes from two places...one of superiority and another of ignorance (although the former often comes also from the place of the latter). Somewhere inside our minds we have managed to elevate ourselves above the state of these people we see in various communities across the world; whether it's because we don't have to sit on the mud and sell things, don't have to send our children out on the streets to sell or beg from the age of three, or because we can afford a nice house and a car...whatever our reason is, we've done it...given ourselves a class status superior to them.

Ignorance is less harsh...because we say that what we don't know we can't be held accountable to. We can be ignorant of the fact that we have the "superior syndrome" or we could be ignorant of the day-to-day state of affairs of the people we see parading their goods before us. At this point we could move from ignorance to negligence because now we know we could still choose to ignore it; ignore the fact that it was us who first brought this great need for money - having necessitated its value should we not know better??

Anyway...enough time has passed and I need to pack up my laptop now so enough deep thoughts for now. Feel free to comment if you agree or disagree or in fact remain nonchalant and ambivalent.

Is it ever excusable? I think not.

Copan

2007-04-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

12 km west of the Guatemala-Honduras border lies Copan, a city of Mayan ruins - Honduras' most famous and impressive attraction. The nearby town of Copan Ruinas is west of the ruins and we arrived at 1pm after a 7hr journey in the afore-mentioned-on-several-occasions incredibly cramped minibus and to everyone's horror, discovered that Ernesto did not know which hotel we were supposed to be at because his bosses had not told him; furthermore, the guide we were supposed to meet, Yvonne, was not answering her mobile phone.

After driving around to various hotels and ringing up several hotels in town, Ernesto dropped us off at a hotel and bought everyone a round of drinks (on geckos) while he went off to the site of the ruins to look for Yvonne. He returned about an hour later with no Yvonne but had found out which hotel we were meant to be at and also with information that Yvonne wasn't there and the guide we were meeting was called ROnaldo.

We arrived at Yaragua Hotel by the town plaza at about 3pm and met Ronaldo who gave us our room keys and everyone settled in relatively quickly then headed out. On the street right outside the hotel, there were these massive colourful pieces of art on the floor - for the easter procession, they looked like coloured bits of sawdust laid out carefully, just their size alone was impressive.

Around the plaza there was the church, municipal palace and a little fountain. I bought some kebabs and tortillas off a street vendor and sat down to eat them in the plaza - I shared it with a local dog and a boy who asked for a tortilla.

While I was reading in the plaza, two boys came up to me and gave me two bouganvillas...I thought they wanted money or something but they didn't...they wanted me to put it in my hair! In any case, with my nada spanish and their nada english, i managed to ask them to pose for a photo and we proceeded to play tag for awhile. I returned to the hotel in the evening and didn't reappear for the rest of the night.

Saturday morning began at the crack of dawn with everyone gathering at 7am to head for the site of the Mayan Ruins - the reason we were here in Copan. It was within walking distance of the down and although we got there a little earlier than our guide, it was a beautiful morning.

We entered the site through the Macaw Gates where bightly-coloured macaws sat waiting and sorta showing off their beautiful colours. Our first stop was at the Plaza of the Stelae (column carvings of kings and glyphs) - these estela are what Copan is famous for; their intricate detail and high-relief that sustained their detail through erosion.

I learnt loads at the site from our very knowledgeable guide - and believe it or not, all the stuff he was telling us about the Maya people and society helped me put Mel Gibson's recent film "Apocalypto" in perspective. We stopped off at the Hieroglyphic Stairway - 63 steps of the longest known text of hieroglyphic writing in the americas; intricately carved with thousands of inscriptions depicting the genealogy of Copan rulers and the city's history.

When we stopped off at the ball court, I learnt about a ball game they mayans played (apparantly whenever things were bad...like they had no food, were hit by plagues or diseases etc) which evolved around the belief that beneath the ballcourt was the gate to the underworld and dropping the ball on the ground woke the god beneath. The person who dropped the ball was then ritualistically and sacrificially decapitated in the belief that he would go and appease the gods and bring back order into the city.

Earlier on on Guatemala's San Antonio I had learnt about the book of Kakchiguel where the story is told of how first man was created by mud but disintegrated when it rained, subsequently man was created out of wood but couldn't move and so the gods attached string to them - I can't remember what they were made of finally but that in its final form the gods breathed into their nostrils (from the creation story I believe in, where God breathes the breath of life into Adam). But anyway, I digress...I learnt today that in the Mayan bible, the people were created from corn - how funny...I guess it's believable because at that time they had great cornfields everywhere and that's what they ate and sustained them.

Anyway...from the site we went to the nearby museum that housed a full-sized replica of the Rosalila - a temple discovered beneath the currently existing Temple 16 which was protected by a layer of stucco and also featured four very decorative, bright and colourful sides. The famous Altar Q encircled by the likenesses of the 16 elaborately-costumed governers of ancient Copan was also kept there.

By the time we got back to our hotel, it was almost noon and I was really hungry so I wandered the streets for some cheap and good local food and found a little eatery called El Pijazo that was packed with honduran locals. It's basic menu listed Empanadas with various stuffings to choose from and coffee (either black or with milk). I had a chicken one and it arrived with a serve of sliced cabbage and cauliflower with beetroot - wouldn't normally have eaten any of the side dishes but because I felt like I hadn't had vegetables in a long while, I picked out the cauliflower and ate it!

Was going to go explore nearby caves that are meant to be pretty cool but the guide Ronaldo advised everyone to take it easy and have a relaxed evening because we're leaving here tomorrow morning at 4:30am. Hmm...not looking forward to that.....BUT, we're heading for Roatan Island on the caribbean coast now and I've been looking forward to this part of the trip so bring it on!!

Loads of photos from the Mayan Ruins in my photo gallery so make sure you click in there and have a look!

Chichicastenango and Guatemala City

2007-04-06T21:26:00.000-07:00

Thursday (4th Apr) - the group meets at the lobby of Hotel Monterrey at 8am and after some dramas loading the minibus with our bags and what not, we head off for Chichicastenango, famous for its Sunday and Thursday markets, and the region's indegena strain of Catholicism. This being Easter weekend, there as some sort of procession going on which involved statues of "jesus" and "mary" being carried on people's backs and miscellaneous song, dance and prayer as they made their way around the city starting from the church.

THere were lots of stalls and mostly selling the stuff we'd already seen in the last coupla days. THere was a difference though; I actually bought stuff at this market. Because this was our last day in Guatemela and pretty much our last chance to buy stuff, I got two scarves, booties for baby Kaela and a headband for moi...not that I really wanted it; it's just that we were badgered by kids selling them whilst sitting down having a drink and I felt bad so I bought one.

We were at the market for about 3 and a half hours...during which I took in numerous items on sale, such as marimbas, hackey sacks, strange beanies (and normal ones), fresh food being cooked like tortillas, and the usual fruit and veg stalls as well as a coconut one ( i had one of them). What'll stick however, aren't the brightly coloured weavings or embroidery...rather, it is the little children who run around carrying items for sale and some carrying their little baby brothers or sisters on their back. Talk about a hard life.

From "ChiChi" as the area is lovingly called, we got back on the bus and headed for Guatemala City where we would spend the night. According to our itinerary we're meant to be heading back to Antigua, but for some reason, we are not...the generic consensus amongst the group is that the wonderful geckos didn't want to pay top dollar for hotel rooms at Antigua this particular weekend (because it's Easter and Antigua is the capital for all the religious processions currently going on in the country). But..more on that later. The wonderful geckos that is.

Somewhere between 5pm and 6pm, we arrive at Hotel Los Reyes which is behind a huge secure gate with barbed wire all over. Upon entry, it seems more like a zoo than a hotel, with 3 clothed schnauzers, three big cages of parrots (about 6 of them i think), a big black dog and roosters...they were all making their respective sounds of either greeting or protest as we entered, and unfortunately for them, due to the fact that we'd been on the cramped minibus for hours, nobody was pleased to see or hear them.

The room made up for it though...I had a room on the third floor with my own double bed and ensuite bathroom. There was a desk and wardrobe as well as cable TV - with remote...what more could you ask for? Oh yes...hot water showers!!! haha! I liked the wooden panels that made up for one side of the wall and the ceiling of the room. Gave it sorta like a country-living kindda feeling...haha! Anyway, had a long shower and most of us ordered El Comporo's fried chicken and chips in for dinner.

At about 8pm, I asked Ernesto to accompany me out to downtown's central park to take some photos...so we walked out to get a taxi and saw a huge accident scene. Not good...fire engines, an ambulance and police where everywhere...we crossed the road to take a closer look and then I wished I hadn't. There was an overturned car with a body pinned beneath it as well as a body lying nearby covered in white cloth. Apparantly the car had ben driving quite fast and one of its tyres had burst and when that happened, either the driver or passenger got flung out of the car and after the car finished skidding it eventually stopped upside-down on the person who had been flung out.

We hopped into a taxi soon enough and made our way downtown; when we arrived, the plaza looked as beautiful all lighted up as I expected...especially the fountain! Also I think because of the numerous events going on at the church this weekend in particular, the stalls in the park are open late and I get to try some Buavelo - kindda like a cream puff but without the cream, and then they put it into a bowl with some honey-sauce (and realised that there were quite alot of queens in guatemela city).

Ernesto had some tacos from a stall outside the church while I snapped away in the surrounding area. There were beautiful purple flags flying and colourful candles being sold on the steps of the church amidst the numerous food vendors gathered there to take advantage of the high density crowd this weekend. I had a corn on cob with lime and salt (as opposed to the usual butter and salt) and found it to be rather tasty...I might even develop this new taste as a habit! We popped into a bar for a drink then got a cab back to the hotel...passing the accident scene again and it looked exactly the same...not much progress had been made whilst we were downtown. Hmm.

Couldn't sleep when I got in...watched Gilmore Girls and Ally Mcbeal on tv before eventually drifing off. Woke up at 2ish when the birds were going berzerk downstairs and eventually drifted off again and woke at 5am. We were meeting at 6am for our border-crossing 5hr drive to Honduras.