Here!

Well, we finally made it! As I’m writing this, I’m on the top bunk of the Tinbillys Hostel in Brisbane. This is the first time I have been able to get a minute to actually write something. So here goes!

I only had about an hour and a half sleep before waking up to go to the airport on Wednesday. My fault completely as I was still packing at around 3:30 am. I woke up to a mix of “Loca People”, my friend’s call and a another friend’s text only to find that I had no hot water. My boiler packed it in at the last possible moment. I had a hot shower about 3 hours before that so I wasn’t too fussed.

Carrying my 3 bags to the airport wasn’t fun. About 2 minutes down te road to the tube station I realised that my tennis bag was uncomfortable to hold in my hand. Which is probably why I never normally do so. I had to stop and swap hands every few metres because my knees were just hitting the bags and making it hard to walk.

Once I got to the station it was ok – I just needed to make one change at Earl’s Court and about an hour later I was at Terminal 3. I was there around 7:30 and since my travel buddy was running late, I bought a couple of travel tags to put on my luggage and weighed it all to see how heavy it all was. I came in at around 23kg which was fine and my hand luggage was also ok.

Once Sham got there – (an hour late)- we checked in and went to get something to eat upstairs. Porridge with jam in the morning is the one! After putting all my liquids into a plastic bag and saying goodbye to sham’s family, we went through immigration.

We were meant to look for a couple of kindles to buy in duty free but we noticed that our flight was closing so we legged it to the gate. I dont think they could have put the gate any further away from where we were, but we made it in time and boarded straight away.

We had 3 seats to ourselves so were able to use the middle seat to store all pillows and blankets that they gave us. It was a 12-13 hour flight to Singapore so we were hoping to get some sleep on the plane. That didn’t work out too well as I must have slept for about an hour in total. I watched a few eps of Terra Nova and then the new Johnny English film followed by Puss in Boots. Sham was watching The Warrior and shooting out during the film, because he was getting really into it.

The food was actually really good. I ant pretend to be a regular flyer but I have done a few long distance flights in the last year and I can safely say that Singapore Airlines food was the best I’ve had on a plane period. We had an amazing lamb curry, chicken, noodles and regular snacks. Drinks were also regular and we couldn’t have really asked for more.

After arriving in Singapore we went through immigration and left our bags in the Left Luggage area. Our checked in bags were going directly to Australia so we didn’t have to worry about that.

After getting changed in the toilets, we made our way to the MRT station – and caught a train to the City Hall. It was air conditioned and clean but packed and didn’t have enough handles to hold on to. We didn’t have any issues since being experts on the London Underground kinda prepares you for anything. We were also taller than 99% of people in Singapore so weren’t squashed against someone’s armpit or anything.

Once there, we started wandering around the city. Singapore has many rules and laws and breaching these leads to hefty fines. You can’t chew gum anywhere for example and you can’t eat or drink on public transport. You also can’t jaywalk apparently – when we saw the sign we joked that it meant you can’t walk at all. So we just stopped in our tracks. Which led a local guy to stop and ask us if we are lost.

We must have used an international sign of being lost so we said we were and he took us on a mini tour of the area and helped us with our bearings. He told us about the history of the place and it was great having someone help us navigate the map. He then said to call him and we could have lunch which we thought was a bit too far so we didn’t call him.

We went to Chinatown and took in the sights and the smells and bought Chinese drinks and food. It felt real and the closest we’ve been to a Chinatown in China. I had a Red Apple and Yakult juice and some chicken pastry thing. We decided to get some lunch and settled on a little food court area. There was a place specialising in frog, so in the true spirit of being travellers we decided to take the plunge. Dried chilli frog legs with rice was what we went for. It was spicy and the meat actually tasted nice but there wasn’t enough of it and we had to work hard to get it off the bone. It tasted a bit like chicken but softer.

We went to see a Buddhist temple before making our way to the City, with all the banks and people dressed in suits. There was a random promotion of a Transformers convention in the middle of the shopping mall and we took the opportunity to take some photos with Optimus Prime, Bumble Bee and Megatron.

I forgot to mention how hot it was. It was extremely humid, very sticky and quite difficult to walk around it. And since all we did was walk around, we felt really tired and sticky by the end of the day.

After catching a train to another area we walked around a few shopping malls, seeing mainly western shops around and checking out the food courts. We saw a news story about Fabio Cappello quitting which was weird since it must have all happened when we were in the air.

We were feeling pretty tired by that point so we started walking towards what we thought was the city. We had a picture taken with a ninja and filled in a questionnaire which asked if we would date someone ugly. We walked the wrong way, however, so had to come back before taking another train to the airport.

We badly needed a shower at that point so after going through immigration we went to a hotel and paid about £4 to use their shower facility. We also managed to use a gym which was actually pretty good and woke us up a bit.

We then met an Australian girl called Ashlea who was on her way back home to Adelaide after working in the UK. She told us there is shisha in Adelaide so we got her email address and will probably say hello if we are passing by.

Changi Airport in Singapore is actually really nice and has a butterfly garden and stuff. We were impressed.

We got on the plane and found our seats. We didn’t actually sit together this time round because we forgot to ask them when we were checking in in London. Wasn’t a particularly eventful flight and at 6:52 local time on Friday, we touched down in Brisbane.

The immigration queue was massive but we didn’t have any problems with the guy who wished us good luck on our trip. Our bags were all there and we came out of the airport to be met by my friend, Gino.

Gino took us to our hostel and we checked in and had a shower. We are sharing with an Irish guy called James (I think) and a South Korean called Han. We thought it was cool because it sounds like Han Solo. We are staying here for a week and most people only stay a couple of nights so we will probably meet a few more people.

We walked to Gino’s house to pick up my Australian sim card and went for a breakfast/lunch in Grill’d which serves the most amazing burgers. After walking through South Bank, with its rainforest and beach, and chilling out there for a while, we went across the river to the city. Sham opened a bank account at Westpac, I ordered my debit card into my branch of Conmonwealth Bank and we sorted our phones out.

We are both on the $30 Vodafone Cap which means that if you top up (or recharge as its known here) you get $450 worth of credit that can be used on calls, Internet etc and 500mb of data which has to be used within a month. So expect some calls home since we have a pretty decent plan over here.

We were really beginning to fade now but still went to meet Gino for some food. We walked to the Botanical Gardens and chilled there for a while before going back to the hostel. We were due to meet Gino and another friend for a night out but when we got back we just passed out and didn’t get up till the morning. We havnt slept in days and it felt amazing.

So, hopefully this brings you up to speed with what we have been up to. We are finally in Australia and now we have slept, the fun really begins!

Sham with his food on the plane