Back In Singapore

The last day in Brisbane went quite well, despite my luggage being overweight and having to remove a few of my items. I threw all my shoes, some toiletries, the blue lamp and my blue Reebok bag to Shio and Tomo. Thank goodness they were there with me! It would have been such a waste to dump the stuff into the rubbish bin. Stupid SIA is so strict these days and I had to be served by two grumpy, unfriendly Asian staff at the check-in counter. How annoying!!! After I had settled the check-in luggage, I had to worry about my hand-carry ones. SIA apparently only allows each passenger to bring in 1 hand-carry luggage with maximum weight at 7 kg. I had 2 bags and one already weighed 6 kg. Hence I was stressing about how I was going to enter the gate without being forced to remove one bag. Fortunately, the guy at the start of the immigration counter did not check my bags or question me about them. However, the two Asian girls came down to the boarding gate to help out and again I had to worry about whether they would recognise me as the girl who was trying to bring too many things onboard their precious airlines. When I finally got to my seat without any further incident, I realised that my flight was pretty empy. There were only about half the seats full and quite a few rows were totally empty. This pissed me off because obviously the plane would have been able to take much more luggage but no, they had to make me remove 8 kg worth of stuff. Idiots!!

The flight was good and I watched so many movies. I was glued to the screen for 7 hours and managed to catch these shows:

1. The Guardian
2. The Departed
3. Open Season
4. Accepted
5. Some HK comedy
6. Some Korean horror movie

My mum and dad picked me up at the airport with the new car (well it's about a year old but I've never seen it before) and I was asking why my sister wasn't there with them. She did promise to come along and pick me but at least without her, there was more space for my suitcases. When I got home, I was quite tired. I wanted to take my time to unpack and wash up but my dad kept nagging me to put my luggage in my new room. So I did as I was told and when I opened the door and turned on the light, I saw a huge group of people inside waiting to surprise me. This was so unexpected and I was really grateful that they took the time to come down to see me. No wonder there was so much food on the table and I assumed that my mum wanted to fatten me up. Seeing these people was bittersweet. I loved that they made an effort to come down and it meant so much to me. At the same time, they reminded me that I was going to be stuck here, in Singapore, for at least 3 years. I was still sad about leaving home and it was hard putting on a brave face and entertain them. It was worse when someone I didn't want to see turned up. No one could be blamed for this except me. So we sat, they ate, we chatted and then they went home. Now it was time for me to get a closer look at my new room and settle in.

I love the new room. My mum and dad painted it a light apple green when it was pink before (one reason why I didn't want to move into this room long long ago). I have a new (well actually it's old because my dad handed it down to me) desk and my bed was already in there. I just needed to move my stuff in and start making the room my own.

Farewell Brisbane

Oh yes, it's time to leave and I can't bear it. I've made my home in Brisbane for the past two years. I've found dear friends, family and myself. I've changed and grown so much. I love my life here but now I have to start over and make a whole new home. It will take much getting used to. I think, no, I will fall into depression when I get back. For now, the feeling has yet to hit me but it will slap me in the face once I land in Changi Airport. I think it's been hard on my family, hearing me tell them that I don't want to return. I never thought I would become like so many of my generation who experience Australia and want to stay there for good. I must admit, I have fallen in love with Brisbane. Then again, it could also be because I found my real self down here. I grew up and matured down here. Of course, I'll bring all the memories back, though I am afraid that once I leave, I will go back to being the old me, adapting to the Singapore lifestyle. I don't want to change and yet, I change so easily. How scary this is! Lets' all wait and see. But for now, leave me alone...

I'll feel better on my own.

The Start of 2007

I can't say that the first day of 2007 was an eventful or memorable day. It is just a regular day like any other, with chores to carry out and meals to cook. The only difference is that all the shops are closed. No shopping can be done. Hence I spent most of the time at home sleeping, cleaning and slacking.

The last day of 2006 is a whole different story. I stayed over at Milo's place on Saturday night and prepared banana chocolate bread only because I managed to find cheap bananas at $3.99 per kilo (usually bananas go for $10-12 per kilo). We were supposed to stay over and watch this Hong Kong comedy but the DVD player wasn't working. So Mag, Steph and I ended up watching a French comedy on tv which was damn old ( you could tell from their clothes and hairstyles) but was so damn funny. It was basically about a son who comes from a strange family with 2 guys as his parents but one of them was a sissy or a fag as mentioned in the film. The son wanted to get married and the girl was the daughter of a conservative family with the father involved in politics. Hence the family goes crazy trying to pretend to be a normal family with a normal butler (who happens to be a transvestite and usually goes around the house wearing pink mini-shorts and no shoes). The sissy ends up dressing up as a female on the day the two families meet but all hell breaks loose when the paparazzi turns up and the real mother of the boy comes to the dinner. Heh...hilarious!!! Did I mention that this weird family owns a nightclub for transvestites and they stay just above it? In case you're interested, the title of this film is "La Cage Aux Folles".

The next day all of us woke up late, had lunch at home before heading out to Gold Coast at 2 pm. We took a while to find a nice beach with minimum people. The beaches were quite full considering it was a Sunday and also New Year's Eve. Then we proceeded to have lots of fun playing in the sand, enjoying the waves and clear salty water and of course eating snacks. We managed to squeeze in another video emulating the reality program Survivor but I won't be showing it to any old person. Mag is going to edit it first and I'll see how it turns out first.

The beach was great although I would have liked a little more sun because I'm trying to get a tan. I guess there'll be plenty of time to tan while I'm at the Australian Open for five days in a row anyway. We showered and took some time taking photos at the beach before driving back up to Surfer's Paradise to try to get some dinner. Parking was such a nightmare. We drove round and round and took about 1 hour to get a decent free lot but still had to walk about 15 minutes to get to the centre of Surfer's. Still the weather was so good, windy and cooling. It almost felt like winter. What a wonderful way to end 2006 and start 2007!!!

We walked around, hungry as hell and planning to eat dinner, have coffee and finish off with ice cream for dessert. We decided to have dinner at Billy Baxter's and it was a good thing the food came fast. The food was pretty good or maybe we were just too hungry. Anyway we were really full after that but we each still ordered a cup of coffee from Starbucks and Coffee Club. Those who know me will know that I don't usually go for coffee because I react to strong coffee. But I was tired and sleepy after swimming at the beach and eating the heavy meal. Without the coffee I would not have been able to stay awake for the countdown. In the end, getting a caffe mocha made me really high. We had to wait for about 50 minutes for the countdown and for the fireworks to start so while waiting, the deejay was playing super retro MTVs but the crowd seemed to enjoy it. We just went along and sang if we knew the words while Steph and Mag entertained themselves by shouting stupid things such as, "You never wear underwear!" or "Stop going around naked!". It was quite interesting to watch the crowd do stupid things as well. We were standing just before the first aid tent so we saw a few girls who were too drunk to stand on their own get sent to the tent. I must say, the first aiders were doing good business that night. I believe the police would also be making tons of money from all the fines they could issue to people who were either drinking or drunk in public.

The countdown was pretty spectacular. I think the fireworks went on for about 15 minutes and they were just gorgeous. There was lots of smoke and pieces of burnt paper flying around but it was all part of the atmosphere. Mag said that the fireworks we saw were much better than the ones they did in S'pore and I'm sure they were. I just had to remember to keep my mouth closed or I would be eating ashes. After the fireworks the crowd slowly dissipated but I think many were probably heading to pubs and bars to continue partying. As we walked around, lots of strangers (mainly guys) were wishing us 'Happy New Year' and there was even this guy who asked to take a photo with us. I guess we were just too charming as a group, heh heh heh!!! Finding a toilet was a problem and the one we went to was quite disgusting. I think one of the toilet bowls was spewing water and the floor was flooded. Still, it wasn't as bad as some of the toilets I've seen in Malaysia and the S'pore hawker centres. The Aussie girls were complaining about this toilet but they haven't seen the worst yet.

We were all pretty tired after the whole day and I was feeling nauseous from the coffee. So we walked back to the car and proceeded to drive home. I got home around 2.30 am and promptly fell asleep after washing up. I have to say, the start of 2007 was super!!! I just hope the rest of it goes well too.