Author: Matt

It’s Fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!

I think Matt fell asleap!We are sitting at the FREE Internet terminal at the Singapore airpot, about to board our plane for Thailand and I thought it was appropriate to write a quick blog about how wondeful Singapore is. The streets are clean, the people are wonderful and the services are exceptional – where else can you get FREE Internet access.

Yesterday we thought we better venture out a little beyond Orchard Road and the Sim Lim Square (more on Sim Lim Square later); we decided to go to Santosa Island — A little island just south of mainland Singapore (a bit like Phillip Island cross with an amusement park). Santosa was great, we caught the cable-car from the mainland and explored the island on the free mono-rail. Our first stop was the Santosa beach, with it’s beutiful sand and clear water – we decided to relax for a few hours in an outdoor recliner with a few beers as we watched the sun go down. Second stop was the amazing sound and light show (apprently it cost 4 million to produce) – it was truely incredible, I could just imagine my nieces screaming with delight at the show!

Sim Lim Square is one of the many IT shopping centres, 6 floors of IT goodness! There were litterally hundreds of shops selling every gadget you could possibly imagine. I was in heaven!! After about the 5th hour of window shopping, Philippa mentioned to me that if we stayed for another minute she would jump over the edge of the 4th floor. I guess I was a bit selfish 😛

Our plane leaves in 20 mins, so I better scoot. Love you all heaps and will try and upload the pics of Santosa in Thailand!

Strange things are afoot, at the Circle K

I would like to make it clear that I’m not trying to claim that the Indonesian’s have developed a fantastic Time Machine hidden in a phone booth that can zoom us to any place or time in history, but where else in the world can you complain when you pay 40c for a bottle of coke (which is in a glass bottle, and requires a bottle opener to open) as it is to expensive. Bali is amazing, and not what I was expecting at all (pffft… Lonely Planet Guide… You SUCK!!).

Downtown America seems to find a place in every country!Last night we were invited to a “special school function” by Jimi Hendrix himself. Apparently some of the local school kids had put together a show of local Balanise dancing and Kung Fu. We were offered a lift by Jimi and were told that there was no cost (which obviously made us VERY suspicious). At anyrate, fearing for our lives we agreed… but weighing up the pros and cons we realised that there was little chance of anything happening as we knew that other westerners would be attending and also the fact that Jimi was pretty well known around town – he is the barber, taxi driver and music club teacher; fortunately we accepted the offer – we had a great time watching the four and five year olds perform. I hope that the photos (when we get a chance to upload them) do the evening justice, so far the highlight of the trip!

I decided to follow my big brother Miks lead and get a hair cut the following morning,… how many people can say they got their hair cut by the one and only Jimi Hendrix!

At 11.00AM our lift arrived and we headed towards Ubud, the trendy arts district of Bali (a bit like Daylesford or Montville). Thr trip took about 5 hours via the famous Bali volcanic hotsprings (*yawn*), waterfall, water temple and monkey forrest (which was soooooo cool). Philippa won’t let me get a pet monkey ;(

Off to McDonalds, umm, I mean Singapore tommorow. Looking forward to the Gin Sling and will try not to get arrested for ashing in public 😛 Miss you all heaps and can’t wait for my first bloody email (you slackers)!!