Hello everyone, welcome to our very first blog for our travel adventures across Asia and Australia. We have left our jobs, our home, and bought one way tickets for what we hope to be the experience of our lifetimes! The vague plan has been to fly to Singapore and then travel for 4 months, backpacking across various countries in South-East Asia. We are then heading on to Australia in the end of January on a 1 year working holiday visa for more lounging around in the sun, swimming on the beach and generally chilling out...ahem, no I mean, working hard and immersing ourselves in the culture...of the Aboriginal people...
We hope to update, inform and amuse you of all our discoveries and experiences along the way, so I hope you will enjoy it :-)
I am writing this first post in my brother's nicely air conditioned appartment in Singapore. The temperature is hot and sticky degrees, the food is spicy, the pool is huge! It is coming to the end of our second day here after landing in Singapore yesterday afternoon, and we are jet-lagged but happy and contented.... This is a country where rainforest meets highways, where you can buy bread in a vending machine, where chewing gum is illegal and the temperature rarely dips below 30 degrees.
Our journey at 20.30 on Tuesday 18th October began from Heathrow airport, flying BA for 13 hours straight to Singapore. The flight was ah, an experience and consisted of the usual attempts to convince yourself that you can sleep in an upright chair over the roar of the engines, eat unidentifiable food at random times in the middle of the night, and consume plenty of alcohol simply because it is free and it passes the time. The most eventful happening was probably Neil throwing wine on his trousers and shirt (red, of course) halfway through dinner; or possibly me clutching a paper bag, going pale in the face and fanning myself furiously in a desperate effort not to throw up as the plane attempted to land for half an hour whilst circling Singapore in, well, circles. I believe I can safely say that our plane was probably the oldest one still flying the skies as it rattled and bumped its way to our destination. From the moment we took off, the patient and long-suffering lady sat next to us had her tv screen on the back of the chair in front of her literally drop out of its fixture and onto her lap at most timely points of the journey without a moments notice, so it would land in her food, her gin 'n'tonic, her lap, her book... the entire way, no matter how hard myself, Neil and the stewardesses attempted to squeeze, whack, push and shove it back in place time and again.
So we landed in one piece at 16.30 local time on Wednesday (just about) retrieved our luggage without problems and were warmly met by my brother Nick at the airport. A half-an-hour taxi ride later and we arrived at the lovely apartment where Nick and his wife Gigi, and their sun Sasha live in Yishun, a district in the North of Singapore. The apartment is in a very nice condo called Yishun Sapphire where they have shared use of several pools, a jacuzzi, gym, tennis courts and lovely tropical foliage. Yes, very nice. We have eaten delicious food cooked by Gigi (she is Philippino), swam in their huge pool surrounded by leafy palms, played endless games with the Sasha, been to the mall, eaten at the food court and given a wide berth to a food place called 'Pig's Organs Soup'. Mmmmm. Neil has nearly choked on a mini-donut leaving him bright red and spluttering; meanwhile I have very nearly had poisonous red leaf-cutter ants in my pants as my absorbing attempts to capture them up-close on camera left me oblivious to the steady stream of them going up right my leg. I then did the silly screaming, stamping dancing thing in a circle in the middle of the park whilst Neil stood their laughing....
Well, it is well past midnight and well-past our bedtime. Neil's contribution to the blog = 0, mine 100% I'm keeping scores....
Good night and goodbye, and warm greetings from the lovely Singland.
x Phe and Neil
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