arrival

My flight from London to Kyiv was the first time I’d ever flown Wizzair…I think it’s Spanish, but I don’t really know…it’s a budget airline, which I most definitely needed…(getting from western Australia to Kyiv is NOT direct, to say the least, especially when you want to do it cheap as)…I flew from London’s Luton airport, which is easy to get to, but somewhat chaotic once you get there…the line for security took a lot longer than I expected…then I sat in the lounge for ages…they don’t give a gate number there until the plane is ready to be boarded…everyone just sits in the lounge, staring at the departures screen, waiting for the magic “go to gate ….. “ to appear next to their flight number…then you race to the gate, where a queue has formed…I stood in that queue for another while…then the gate agents checked our boarding passes, and we went outside, and stood for another while…we could see the plane, but apparently it wasn’t quite ready for boarding…it was frustrating to move, then stand around for so long, several times…eventually, we were able to board…it was just a cattle call, no assigned seats…I like the idea of first come first served, but it’s an annoying system when families insist on being together, which then means someone else has to move, which isn’t fair to that person…we finally took off, over an hour late…at least the flight was normal, people even clapped when we landed…I can’t remember the last time I’ve been on a plane when that has happened…ages ago I’m sure…

The late takeoff meant I arrived late into Kyiv’s Zhulyany airport…it’s the older of Kyiv’s two airports, which is obvious immediately upon landing…I don’t know when it was built, but it probably hasn’t been improved since…it’s not unusual to walk a little on a tarmac to get inside the airport, so that didn’t bother me…the first door we entered led us directly into the immigration room…3 booths were set up…and they really looked like booths…each booth had two sides, so theoretically there were 6 queues…howeva, one booth was for diplomats and crew, another for foreigners, and the third for Ukrainians…there seemed to be just one giant mass of people, instead of orderly queues…I’ve associated this sort of lack of queueing with india and china, I wasn’t expecting it in eastern Europe…not at all…I got into the mass headed for the foreigner booth…after shuffling forward for a while, I found myself near the front, and got ready to step up to the next available immigration agent…and then someone jumped queue and went straight in front of me!! Argh…I’d already watched this happen a few times, but was really frustrated to have it happen right in front of me…as far as I was concerned, we were all in a hurry to get through immigration, and out of the airport in general…argh…

I got through immigration without saying a word to the immigration agent…I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the wall with an arrow directing people toward baggage…which was where I had my second prehistoric airport experience…there were two sets of steel shelves and an empty room behind them with a large door leading outside…after a couple minutes, two guys drove with with a baggage cart on their truck…one guy got out of the truck, unhooked the baggage cart, the other drove the truck out, and then the first guy and another started lifting baggage off the cart…sometimes they put the baggage pieces on the shelves, sometimes on the floor…and sometimes straight into the arms of the old ladies who’d walked behind the shelves to direct the guys toward the exact baggage piece they wanted…again, there was no queue of any sort…nor any limitation on where you should or should not go…my pack finally came in the fourth load of baggage driven in…

After picking up my pack, I walked through customs, (there was no difference between nothing to declare and goods to declare) and through a door…I figured that door would take me into a room where people meet those picking them up…instead, it took me outside to where people meet those picking them up…what happens in winter when it’s cold as, and people don’t really want to wait outside? I suppose that’s the only choice! Almost immediately I spotted a sign with my name on it, written in English, thank goodness.  I already knew how to read my first name when it’s written in the Cyrillic alphabet, but I wouldn’t have known my last name…violetta gave me a big hug and said welcome to Kyiv…it turned out she’d been waiting for quite some time, wondering if I’d made it…she didn’t have any idea what I looked like, and she only knew that the flight was about an hour late in arrival…we got into a taxi, which started driving through town…after a few minutes, she realized I had no Ukrainian money…(the currency is called the grivna – I’m not sure how it’s spelled in English – abbreviated UAH in English)…she told the taxi to turn around, and take me back to the airport…I wasn’t thrilled about exchanging money in an airport, as I’ve always associated airport exchange counters with obscene rates…I’d check the exchange rate ahead of time, and was really surprised to see that the rates at this airport were plenty reasonable…woo hoo!! We got back in the taxi, took off again, this time to a supermarket…violetta told me I’d be staying in a short term flat until I found a flat to live in permanently…this short term flat had furniture, but no food, so I needed to get some of that…I ended up with bread, cheese, a few apples, milk, water (tap water isn’t drinkable here) and yogurt…not exactly a balanced diet, but I didn’t know how long I’d be in the flat, so I didn’t want to stock up…

Violetta also found a machine where I could buy a SIM card for my phone…I’d bought my phone in New Zealand a few years ago, knowing that I’d be able to use it in just about any country, as long as I bought a local SIM card…unlike US phones which don’t usually work well outside the US, this was a ‘quad band’ phone, so it works on any type of network…I’ve used it in New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia…SIM cards here are really cheap, only about $1.25…there are a few different networks, and of course it’s cheapest to stay within one network when calling or texting your friends…apparently a lot of people have several SIM cards/phones, with different networks…when you give out your phone number, you always tell people which network it’s with, so they know how to call you…

The taxi then took us to the short term flat, where someone was waiting for us…apparently that lady wasn’t thrilled at our arrival, she’d been waiting for quite a while…I felt bad, but knew it wasn’t my fault…I checked out what I could of the flat, and didn’t see any glaring problems…I gave her money for two nights of me staying there, then both violetta and she left…I set up the internet, checked email, and went to bed…

The flat was a two room flat…one living room/bedroom and a kitchen…(and a bathroom)…after living in a single room in Korea, this place seemed really nice…I’m guessing that having doors doesn’t mean much to most people reading this, but after not having them for so long, I was thrilled…my bed was a fold out couch, I found sheets and a comforter in the closet…

The next morning I was up pretty early, and just wasted time online until my boss (director of my school) called me and set up our meeting…she’d wanted to pick me up from the airport, but had a lot of other work to do…this was about the time I found out she’d been working crazy hours all summer, doing whateva it is you do when you’re setting up a new school…coordinating contractors, figuring out supplies to be ordered, hiring teachers and other staff, etc…and interviewing/accepting applications from parents/students…she told me which station was closest to the office of the school, and decided on a time…she’d already set up a couple appointments for me to go see potential flats…

Our meeting went well, though one of the appointments for visiting a flat was cancelled…the other one was good though, violetta came along to translate everything…at that point I knew I’d likely be living with another of the teachers at the school, the French teacher…she hadn’t arrived yet, but had given me authorization to look around and make the decision if needed…the first flat I saw was what Ukrainians call a two room flat…Americans would call it a one bedroom flat…a larger living room area, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom…off the living room was a balcony, I’m assuming it is mostly to be used for laundry and such…if my flattie and I were to live there, one of us would essentially be using the living room as both a living room and a bedroom…after having that situation a couple times (while working for my first school) in Korea, I wasn’t thrilled about doing it again…I can deal with living in a small space, only one room…but when you have a flattie, I think it’s necessary to have a space that is communal…I think it’s necessary for each of us to have our own bedroom, a place where we can completely get away…I wanted both of us to be able to get away completely from anyone else…it was a nice flat though, and the price was great…

A few days later, after some mishaps with my phone and missing appointments I didn’t know about, I saw another flat…a three room flat (two bedroom) this time…I loved it, but I didn’t love the price…they wanted me to put some money down as a deposit, but I didn’t have that kind of money on me, and I wasn’t completely sure…in the end though, this was the flat in which we now live…it’s a 20 minute walk to the nearest subway station, which won’t be great in winter, but at the same time I like the forced exercise…the flat is in a massive residential area, filled with giant apartment blocks…it screams typical east European housing to me…it’s not the fanciest place, but compared to my housing in Korea, it’s a palace…I can’t wait to decorate somehow, and make it feel like home

london

The day I traveled to London was stressful, to say the least…one of the most stressful travel days I’ve had in a long time…I was flying air asia, and they’ve recently set up online check in, as well as check in kiosks at the LCC terminal in Kuala lumpur…howeva, when you check in online, they send you one of those barcodey looking squares…you can have it sent to your phone, or to your email, which I guess you’re then supposed to print…not very helpful if you don’t have a phone, or access to a printer…anywho, I was checked in…I got to the airport and discovered that the kiosks would only work to print boarding passes for people already checked in if you had that barcodey thing to put in front of the laser…obviously, I didn’t…what kind of kiosk doesn’t let you search by name, or flight number, or something along those lines? Argh…so I got in line…

The lady at the check in counter wanted proof that I had plans to leave the UK before allowing me to check my bag and get my boarding pass…never mind that I was already officially checked in…this whole system of showing proof of planning to leave is the dumbest thing ever…just because I bought a ticket doesn’t mean I will actually leave, and if you allow people to check in online, there doesn’t have to be proof of anything…so those of us who can’t do it properly online are more likely to overstay a visa in the UK? Argh…anywho, I had a ticket purchased, but I didn’t have it printed out… (isn’t one of the reasons for e-tickets is to save the environment and stop printing out so many sheets of paper?)…she insisted, so I had to go hunting for an internet connection…I had a laptop, and the airport has free wifi, but I needed to print…there was a VIP lounge area, and it had internet…for the obscene price of $8 for half an hour!!! Can you imagine? Not surprisingly, I didn’t have that much money left in my wallet…I’m leaving the country for goodness sake, why would I keep that much money in a currency I won’t need? The guys running the desk of that lounge were quite insistent that that was the price, though by that point I was crying…my thought process was this: seriously, you’re not going to let me print, and even though I’m already checked in, I won’t be able to leave the country because I can’t pay $8 to print one sheet of paper? Really? You can’t make any exceptions? Aaaaaaaargh… I had some money, just not that much…I was really lucky that some gentlemen who had paid the fee took pity on me and let me print my one sheet of paper…

Then I went back to the check in lady who looked at my ticket to leave the UK as if it were in another language completely…she looked at it, put it down, looked at it again, read her way down the page using her finger, etc…then asked what it said…if you’re working a computer system at an international airport, I presume you can read English, why is it so hard to read my ticket? Argh…finally, she took my baggage and gave me my boarding pass…the flight left over an hour late, but was smooth and easy…

Because of the late arrival of the flight into London’s stansted airport, I was able to catch a bus into the city, but I was too late to take the tube…so I had to catch a cab…it’s London, so that wasn’t cheap…at all…my friend brie had said I could stay at her place, even though she was out of town, traveling for work at the time…so her flattie lynsey greeted me, after explain to the cabbie exactly where to go…at that point I was thrilled to finally be in London, but not thrilled with how my day had been…expensive and stressful…argh…sometimes I hate traveling…

I ended up staying up most of the night due to jet lag, my body clock was completely screwed up…this same thing had happened the last time I flew this particular flight, so I wasn’t keen on the next day…only two or three hours of sleep wasn’t my idea of fun, especially since I hadn’t had tons of sleep lately anywho…

I got up the next day, wasted more time online, then finally walked out of the flat…the last time I flew to London from asia, I didn’t see much of the city…by that point in that trip, I was completely traveled out, and didn’t care if I saw nothing…this time I wanted to see something, even if it wasn’t much…especially as I’d bought a London guidebook…I found my way to the tube, and made my way to the area the book calls “the city”…

My first stop was st paul’s cathedral…it’s huge, an Anglican church…not only is the church huge, so is the entrance fee…argh…but I wanted to see it, so I paid…almost as soon as I walked in, I knew I’d never want to get married in that type of church…(not that I’d be eligible to do so…while members of the public can get married in Westminster abbey – provided you can afford it and follow their rules – you must have an OBE or be closely related to someone who does in order to get married at st paul’s…at least, that’s what I was told)…it’s beautiful, but it’s also really complicated…there is all sorts of stuff going on…amazing decoration, really intricate…you could spend a day walking around, and not see all the decoration…part of that is because it’s a cathedral, and huge…your eyes can’t see the tiny details that far away…which is a shame…you’re not allowed to take photos inside…I have mixed feelings about that, but I followed the rule…it was crazy crowded with tourists, I haven’t felt that crushed in a long while…there were free audio guides, I listened to every track…in addition to the religious stuff, there were also tombs and memorials galore…since churches used to be a much bigger part of daily life, both life and death took place in the building…

One of the niftier aspects of the church is the whispering gallery…up top, it’s said that you can speak in a whisper to someone on the other side of the gallery, and they’ll hear you…as I was by myself, I didn’t have the option of trying this out…the view down was fun…there are plenty of stairs to get to that gallery…then, there are way more stairs to get up to the cupola (I can’t think of the right word, someone help me) on top of the church…when you get all the way up, you go outside, and you can see all across London, all the way around…way cool…heaps windy up there, but I liked it anywho…as I look at my London photos, I took a LOT of photos of st paul’s exterior…

From there I followed one of lonely planet’s walking tours, and proceeded to get lost…not all that surprising…but getting lost in London isn’t at all like getting lost in a country where I don’t speak the language or read…I figured out where I was not too much later…I ended up in front of what used to be the royal exchange I think…another imposing building, but I don’t think it was anything inside…I didn’t go inside, so I’m not all that sure…whoops…there is a memorial/tiny little park out front, I watched people for a little while…

From there I kept walking, back to st paul’s…I wanted to attend the daily evensong prayers…the service takes place every day, and anyone can attend…I was curious…it’s basically a church service w/out the singing or the sermon…short and sweet…around 15 minutes later, it was over…

On the way home, I picked up fruit…green grapes, strawberries and raspberries…a couple bananas as well…that was dinner, and I was thrilled with it…

I managed to keep myself awake until almost 2100, which was way better than the last time I’d flown to London from asia…that time, I kept falling asleep in the evening around 1900, which meant I woke up early early early in the morning (around 0400) and couldn’t get back to sleep, and had a really hard time adjusting to the new time…staying away till 2100 meant I slept until 0500 or so, and it felt good…still too early to be waking up, but at least it was a full night of sleep…

The next day I got up and to the tube to the “west end” of the city…the area full of places Americans have been hearing about all their lives, even if they haven’t been paying attention…parliament and big ben…Westminster abbey…Trafalgar square…downing street…Buckingham palace…Piccadilly circus…I saw them all…

I started my day by joining the ridiculously long queue for Westminster abbey…another huge Anglican church…the sight of William and Kate’s royal wedding, in case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past year…again, the entry fee was ridiculous, but again, I wanted to see the church, so I didn’t have a choice…the public entry fee is different from where Kate entered the church…again, there were audio guides, which was nice…the guide talks you through many of the tombs and memorials of the church, as well as some of the history and architecture of the church…just like st paul’s, I enjoyed walking around and looking, but I wouldn’t want to get married there…way too much going on in there that isn’t religious…when the current queen was crowned there yonks ago (next year is her diamond jubilee) they somehow managed to put in 6000 seats…(by comparison, the recent royal wedding had 1500 attendees I think? - which apparently was “small” - and it looked crowded on tv, you could see that most of the people there couldn’t see much of anything)…I ended up spending around two hours in the church…again, no photos are supposed to be taken inside…I saw a few people surreptitious (sp?) breaking that rule, but I followed it…

I continued my walk around a tiny little park with tents and political posters set up, I’m sure someone could tell me what that is all about…the signs seemed mostly to be about land…Korea claiming dokdo in particular…and I saw an aboriginal flag from aussie…

I kept walking, and saw a crowd gathered by a gate…I looked at my book, but there was nothing labeled at that point on the map…then I saw the street sign…downing street…10 downing street is the residence of the prime minister of great Britain, I suppose people were hoping for a glimpse…I only took a self portrait with the street sign in the background…more as proof that I was in London than anything else…I haven’t paid enough attention to British politics to know what the prime minister looks like now, though I know I should know…

I kept going and got to Trafalgar square…there is a very tall statue of (admiral) lord nelson (I think? Please correct me if I’m wrong)…it’s a wide open area, again great for people watching…I didn’t stay there though, as you can also see a huge gate entrance to st james’ park right there…this was the path followed by the royal couple after the wedding, on their way to Buckingham palace…gjillions of people were there (and even more gjillions watched the whole thing on tv) and there are still union jacks on every pole all down the street…

At the end of the street is a monument, and behind it, Buckingham palace…which, though it’s quite famous, it’s all that to see…it allegedly has 1500 rooms, or something along those lines…what on earth anyone needs all those rooms for is beyond me…I had my photo taken by one of the gates, and I took a photo of the first kiss balcony…architecturally, the outside of the palace isn’t very exciting…

From there I followed the street to the end of st james’ park, there is an area with military memorials for various countries of the commonwealth…Australia, New Zealand, India, etc…then I walked up Piccadilly…there is an area in the street called Piccadilly circus, it’s described as the times square of London…an open-ish area, with heaps of people…buildings on the edge have lots of signs and advertising…a fantastic place to people watch…also a fantastic place to be overwhelmed by the numbers of tourists…I thought I’d been some touristy places over the past few years, but none of them were like London…whoa…

I made my way to covent garden, watched a few of the street performers and bought some shampoo from lush…the shops there didn’t otherwise grab my attention…

A bit more walking, a few turns and I ended up along the river…I decided to cross the river, in order to get the southside view of parliament and big ben…lots of folks were doing the same thing…I walked past the London eye, a huge ferris wheel that was set up in 2000 (I think) and was supposed to be temporary…since London is set to host the Olympics next year, I guess it isn’t so temporary…I like walking along rivers…

That was the end of my sightseeing for the day…on the way home I stopped for more fruit, and takeaways…yum…

The next morning lynsey told me how to get to luton airport…I packed up, hopped on the bus, took the train, took the bus, and flew out of the country…security was a long line, but at least checking in was an easy processJ…where I was going, not only do american’s not need a visa, I didn’t have to provide proof of plans to leave…(which was a good thing, since I didn’t have any of those plans!)

brunei - bsb

My flight to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital city of Brunei Darussalam (usually just shortened to Brunei, and the capital name shortened to Bandar) was at 0645…that’s too early to catch a bus from kuala lumpur, so I spent the night at the airport…the LCC (low cost carrier) terminal isn’t a bad place to spend the night…coffee bean is open all night, what more could a girl want? I don’t know if any of the other food or drink places are open all night, but I’m guessing some of them are…after checking in, the flight left a little late, but it wasn’t at all full, which was nice…I got three seats to myself…since I hadn’t slept well at the airport I took the opportunity to nap…I don’t remember how long the flight was, but it was easy, and deplaning (I think that’s the word they use now?) went smoothly…when there aren’t many people on the flight, nothing takes very longJ…signs at the airport were in Arabic, malay and English…there were a couple information counters, both staffed with friendly ladies…

there is a bus into the center of the city, though there isn’t a specific place to catch it; there also isn’t a set timetable for when the bus will come by the airport…both information counters suggested I go upstairs and wait just outside the departures hall…the bus came along soon enough, and it was only $1!! (while I was there the US dollar got me 1.3 brunei dollars…

Brunei has plastic money, like Malaysia, Australia and new Zealand…I love it…

I found a guesthouse rather quickly after getting to the center of the city…since I hadn’t slept properly for a couple nights in a row, I laid down, just to rest for a while…I didn’t ever fall asleep, but I did get to that lovely almost asleep point…sooo relaxing…the aircon was going strong, it was actually pretty chilly in my room…the room itself was very plain…a big bed, one chair, a bedside table and a desk-ish table…nothing else…the window gave me a lovely view of the side of another building…

Sometime during the afternoon I decided I needed to go out…with only two full days in the country, I didn’t have a lot of time…(though, according to the guidebook, you don’t need a lot of time to see the country)…

My walk took me along a very flat set of streets…if there are hills in brunei, they’re not in the city…at least, not that I could see…I walked past an amazingly green pitch, with stadium seating on both sides…there was a monument to brunei at one end, but all the gates to the area seemed closed…(the next day I found one open gate on one side, and one on the other end)…this ended up being the only real green I saw, as the capital city is more cement than anything else…

My next stop was a museum dedicated to the sultan of brunei…more specifically, it was dedicated to a few really important ceremonies of his life…it had a couple photos from when he was young, and from when he attended sandhurst military academy in England (I think that’s the same academy princes William and Harry attended?)…there was plenty of regalia from his wedding, and his coronation ceremony…complete with uniforms and a replica of the wedding seats/throne…there was also a lot of regalia from his silver jubilee (25 years on the throne) ceremony…they even built a replica of the float he rode through town...more like a chariot of sorts…complete with all the soldiers and citizens walking with it, and those watching along the parade route…it seemed that a lot of world leaders gave him gifts for this ceremony, and most of the gifts were models of something in their lands…artistic and such, but what’s the point of giving someone a model of your best mosque? Maybe I didn’t appreciate it because I’m  not a world leader…there were lots of these gifts on display…when you walk into the museum, you’re directed to put your belongings into a locker for storage, you’re not supposed to walk around with anything…no pictures allowed in most of the museum…I looked at most everything, but I was rather annoyed by the large Chinese group that came in not long after me, and was quite noisy…there were three kids with that group running all over the place…why do people allow their children to do that?...i ended up just standing in one place for a while, and letting the group pass me…it’s easy to walk through the entire museum and know you aren’t missing anything…it’s been set up quite well for ease of visiting…I was absolutely freezing the entire time I was inside, they must have outreageous power bills from the air conditioning in that building!!

After walking back outside and briefly enjoying the heat (you know when you’re freezing and walk into warmth, how good it feels until it becomes uncomfortable again?) I walked toward the mosque that is basically the centerpiece of the city…all white out the outside, gold domes on top…beautiful…at that point, the sky wasn’t particularly beautiful, so my photos didn’t turn out so nicely…oh well…as I approached the main gates, I could see a sign…when I got close enough, I read that since it was the holy month of Ramadan, the mosque and it’s grounds were closed to non-muslims…fair enough, though I would’ve liked to see the inside, howeva briefly…

I continued walking around the outer fence of the mosque, and soon came to the beginning of an area called kampong ayer…the water village…houses are built on stilts, with boardwalks to get from house to house…the water was low as I was walking around, so you could see (and smell) the muck underneath…you could also see soooo much rubbish…yuck…the houses weren’t airtight, but with the breezes along the river, that’s probably a very good thing…it doesn’t ever get truly cold in brunei (the idea of cold is a very relative idea, I’ve learned) so air coming through your house is never going to be a bad thing…I don’t think these houses had air con, so it was actually a very good thing to allow breezes through…howeva, the houses were very old, and in many cases, looked as though they would fall down very soon…very old looking wood…no railings along the boardwalks…lots of colours had been painted on the houses over the years, none of it looked new…but I bet the constant humidity does a number on any household decoration…

There was a bridge over to the other side of the river, and from that bridge I was able to take a couple photos I really liked…the interesting contrast of the beautiful clean, white mosque in the background, the old-ish, poor looking houses in the foreground…brunei might be an oil rich sultanate, but it doesn’t have the flashy appearance you associate with places like dubai…it doesn’t have that super modern appearance…

I walked through a bit of the water village, than back around the backside of the mosque…3/4 of the mosque is surrounded by a moat/lake, and in that lake is kept the royal barge…why brunei has this, I don’t know…I don’t know that I would’ve been able to get any closer to the barge, even if I’d been able to go on the grounds of the mosque…

From there I kept going to a giant shopping mall, one of several in the city…according to the guidebook, Bruneians, love to shop…this particular mall seemed mostly empty…shops moving premises…not much going on…but I did find a place that sold nerds, and I hadn’t had those in ages…I also found a Jollibee, which is where I had dinner…since it was Ramadan, there were very few people eating…at that point I really realized how few people I’d seen eating while walking around…not that you’d normally see people eating while walking in the streets, but restaurants and such were all empty…(during Ramadan, Muslim’s fast during daylight, as a measure of devotion to Allah)…not everyone in Brunei is Muslim, there is freedom of religion, but the majority of the population is…

There are lots of water taxi drivers who want to take tourists on the river, through parts of the water village…I figured I’d already seen what I wanted to see, and the views while walking along the boardwalks were better than from the water taxis…plus, I had no idea what I should pay for a water taxi, and I’m not good at bargaining…(nor do I enjoy bargaining)…there was also a small monument along the waterfront, a gift from the people to their sultan, on his 60^th birthday…I don’t know how old he is now, but I found out I’d missed his birthday celebrations by just two weeks…darnit…

I walked back toward the guesthouse, and passed a coffee bean along the way…I adore coffee bean, and was even more thrilled to see a sign for free wifi there…woo hoo!!! I hurried to the hostel, grabbed my laptop and my day pack, and went back to the coffee bean…if you know me well, you know how I love that chain…having a chai latte from coffee bean takes me to a happy place…I blame my friend brooke for my love of coffee bean…when they make a chai latte, they use tea, milk and vanilla powder, as opposed to starbucks, which just adds flavoured syrup to steamed milk…in addition to my chai latte, I had a piece of white chocolate mousse cake…not as good as the choco mousse cake I fell in love with in Korea, but still pretty tasty…I proceeded to waste all sorts of time online…

When I decided I should get back to the guesthouse, it was raining…but not a lot…I figured I’d wait it out, then walk over to the mosque and try to take a few night photos before going back to the guesthouse…I’d seen postcards with night photos, and I liked them…I’m all about copying a good photo if I’m able to do so…the rain did let up, and I was able to get my photos…lovely…

The next day I slept in late, knowing there wasn’t much left for me to see in the city…the city isn’t filled with landmarks…I first went to a small market, filled with fruits and vegetables…if I’d had the facilities to cook for myself I’d have been in heaven…I love fresh fruit and veggies…

The market was close to a Chinese temple…at this point, I’m totally over Chinese temples…I’ve seen way too many of them over the past few years…I love all the colours, mainly red, but the designs aren’t anything I haven’t seen before…wandering through the temple didn’t take long, it wasn’t big…the Chinese are everywhere in asia…China has been around for a long time, and you can see it’s influence in a lot of other countries…

From there I went back to the mall for more nerds…YUM…and postcards…lots of postcards…

After returning to my guesthouse, and writing some of the postcards, I returned to the coffee bean…another chai latte, and a different cake…I don’t remember which cake…again, it was tasty, but not as good as the choco mousse cake…oh well…lots more time wasted online…

When I returned to the guesthouse that evening I packed up most of my stuff, so I wouldn’t have to do it in the morning…the next morning I got ready to travel, went back to the little bus station, and caught the bus back to the airport…it turned out I was pretty early…checkin wasn’t open yet, so I just sat there and watched people slowly drift in…some looked ready to travel, others not at all…as in, they had nothing with them…

Finally, checkin opened…just in case you ever go, brunei has a departure fee…I don’t remember what they call it, but that’s what it is…$12…it’s a good thing I hadn’t used all the money I’d pulled out of the atm…I wasn’t expecting that at all…I wish this sort of information was in guidebooks, or at guesthouses, etc…why aren’t departure fees ever mentioned until you get to the airport?

The flight back to Malaysia was full, and I had a middle seat…not fun, but the flight wasn’t long…

airport nights

toward the end of all this traveling (4.5 months worth of traveling) i spent a LOT of time in airports...sleeping in airports several nights...needless to say, some airports are better than others...the best airports are those with all night kiosks, though this isn't common...i've slept near baggage carousels, on seats, and in coffee shops...i've read gossip magazines, surfed the web (gotta love airports with free internet access) and shopped...more often than not, i eat too much when i'm killing time in an airport...
i saw this video a while ago, and it made me laugh...every time i sleep in an airport i think about what kind of trouble it's possible to get into, just to kill time...these guys are professional videographers, so obviously they made a good video, but it's still pretty funny...if i recall correctly, the airport where they did all this wasn't thrilled, and had to look into it's security measures:)

how to spend time in an airport

last days in freo

My flight from Brisbane back to perth took two hours longer than going the other way…yuck…the flight arrived at midnight, which was too late for public transport, so I slept at the airport…at first, I didn’t know where I could sleep, or if I could, but then I noticed a few people racked out near unused baggage carousels…I didn’t sleep well, but who does at an airport…the next morning I caught the bus back into the city, then took the train back to freo, and walked home…the whole process took about two hours…not too bad, and waaaaaaaaay cheaper than the shuttle or a taxi!!

I spent the rest of the day reading and watching tv, and generally doing nothing…nice…

My last day I was finally a little productive again…I did laundry, packed my stuff, bought some food, visited fremantle prison, visited the war memorial, booked a shuttle to the airport and cleaned a bit…not much, but a little…

The prison in fremantle has a long history…it was built by the convicts themselves, originally opening in 1855…the guide told us that convicts were those who were convicted of crimes in the UK, then shipped here for their hard labour punishments…they didn’t commit their crimes in Australia…when the convicts first arrived, the local authorities didn’t even know they were coming, the letter telling the authorities was on a different boat…so the convicts were originally housed in a warehouse, until the letter arrived…then they built the prison…if I remember correctly, it took about 7 years? I could be totally wrong on that…most of the prison is built from local limestone, which is really soft…you can see how it’s been clawed out in a few places…the "new" part of the prison was built out of limestone from another area, much harder, and you can easily see the difference when you're walking around the prison grounds...prison labour built not only the prison, but a few other places around town…according to the guide, having a job while you were in prison was a good thing, because otherwise you had nothing to do with your time…if you had a job, you went out of prison grounds every day to work...if not, they put you out into the yard, every single day…regardless of how you felt, or the weather…the tour takes you through all of the prison, I wouldn’t want to spend time there…it must’ve been soooo monotonous…after a bunch of years the prison started taking local prisoners as well, though the routines didn’t change…it was still maximum security, and the prisoners still lead very boring lives…according to the guide, from time to time old prisoners still come back to take the tour of the prison!!

We saw the punishment area, which had a gallows, as well as the spot where prisoners were whipped by the cat of nine tails…OUCH…the area where they had solitary confinement, and sensory deprivation…ugh…the area where prisoners who needed special care, or separation from other prisoners...I think I’ll stay on the right side of the law, thank you very much…the prison closed down for good in 1991, mainly due to safety concerns…there was a fire in 1988, and they realized that firetrucks couldn’t get into the prison because the gates were too small…that was something that couldn’t be fixed without essentially taking everything apart…there are a few different tours, I took just the basic one…there is another that shows you how prisoners tried to escape over the years, and some of the well known prisons…

The war memorial honours those who fought in several different wars, including Americans who fought in the area during WWII…ever since I first came to Australia in 2008 I’ve felt that aussies do a better job of honouring those who have fought…you see these memorials in lots of towns all over the country…and ANZAC day is one of the biggest holidays…

That night, my host and I had fish and chips…an appropriate dinner for my last dinner in Australia…loaded in salt, and perfectly yummy…I’m a sucker for fish and chips, especially when it comes wrapped in paper…I’m sure I’ll be back at some point, but it’ll probably be a while…it’s an expensive country in which to travel, and it’s not on the way to anywhere else…

the shuttle came to pick me up, and I said goodbye…then I spent the night at the airport…yippee skippee…

brisi (or is it brizzy? brissie? etc)

While I was in fremantle, I got in touch with a mate who lives on the other side of the country, in Brisbane…we worked out a few days that would be good for me to visit, and I booked the flights…though kimmie and I are both from Indiana originally, neither one of us has lived there in a long time, and we met when we both lived in garmisch…conveniently, another mate of ours from garmisch, who is aussie but lives in the states was planning to visit her hometown of Brisbane at the same time…yahoo!!

My flight was supposed to leave perth just after midnight, not exactly a convenient time of day…ugh…I landed in brisbane at 0715, only a few minutes later than scheduled…we left perth late, but had a great tailwind all the way to Brisbane…timing worked out perfectly, and I got outside just as kim drove up…woo hoo…

She drove us back to her house, both of us were chatting the entire way…it’d been three years since we’d seen each other, and there was a lot to talk about…the biggest thing to talk about was her partner, whom she met not too long after the last time we saw each other…they’ve been together just under three years now, and he’s the reason she lives in Brisbane…the house is in a suburb, though it’s really just a neighborhood not far from city centre…driving “into the city” only takes 15 minutes or so…the house is on top of a hill, which makes for great breezes…it also allowed them to avoid any of the flooding that hit the city, and parts of the state last year…alan’s son is almost 10, not long after kimmie and I arrived, alan drove him to school…while alan was out, kimmie fixed breakfast and coffee…she and alan both drink a lot of coffee…they have an espresso maker, a French press, and a regular drip coffee maker…my favourite was the espresso maker because it has a milk frother…I WANT A MILK FROTHER!! I loved adding milk to my teaJ…I do that normally, but it’s a lot more fun when it’s frothed milk…yes, I know that’s silly…

After breakfast, we took the dogs for a walk in the bushland across the street…ziggy is a poodle mix, and pepper is a black lab mix…ziggy is a couple years old, and therefore really calm…at least, in comparison to pepper, who never stops moving…taking the two of them for a walk is not easy and calm…they both like to move, and fast…pepper is still a puppy and doesn’t know better, ziggy likes to pee on every tree…it was fun to see them so excited…there are a number of trails through the bush, and it’s really easy to forget that you’re in a city of 2 million people…I got to hear my first cookaburra…apparently they don’t just sit in the old gum tree!!

Kim and alan both work as day traders on the Australian stock market…they had to work that morning, so I chilled out…I’d been doing that a lot lately, and was happy to keep doing it…the stock market opens at 10 each morning, I don’t remember when it closes…their home office looks as you would expect it to, with quite a few computer screens…while they were working, I didn’t really understand anything that was being said…stock names, shorting, dumping, bouncing, etc…it was one of the last days of the calm before the storm of the US credit rating being dropped…

That afternoon, kimmie took off work, and we went for a walk on the beaches of wynnum…(another “suburb”)…the weather had been cloudy, windy and rainy in freo for several weeks, in Brisbane it was all sun and blue skies…it’s hard to take a bad photo when you’ve got blue skies and blue water…from there we picked conor up at his school…I don’t know if all aussie primary school students wear uniforms, but he does…

That night we had dinner with an American friend of kim’s...she had a couple friends in town visiting from new York, and another chick was there as well…all six of us at the table were American, which doesn’t happen often…it was a restaurant for “Himalayan” food…good food, way tastier than what I ever had when I was trekking through the Himalayas…when kimmie and I rocked up, I must’ve looked like death warmed over, cause that’s how I felt…a combination of jet lag, a good but long day, car sickness and caffeine withdrawal meant I had a headache and was really nauseous…I couldn’t read the menu at all, I trusted others to decide for me…and they decided well…I started feeling better as soon as food was in my tummy…thank goodness…it’s never fun when you can barely look up because you feel so rotten…I was a much happier camper on the way home…

And I fell asleep fast not long after we got home…

The next day kimmie opened the day on the market, then we went into the city to meet up with chelise…chelise is originally from the Brisbane area, but now lives in vegas…she and her partner of 2.5 years had come to visit for a couple weeks…kim and I both met chelise in garmisch, it was fantastic for the three of us to see each other again, so far away in the world from where we first met…lots of catching up to do…chelise didn’t know I was coming, it was a fun surprise…good times…

From there, kimmie took us in the wrong direction on our way to the botanical gardens…as she puts it, she just wanted to take me on a tour of a boring part of the city…hee hee… we did eventually get to the gardens, and it was a lovely walk throughout…the gardens were completely under water during the floods, they’ve done a pretty good job rebuilding/replanting…I don’t know if it was the season, or what, but there wasn’t as much colour as I was expecting…maybe in spring? I loved walking on the boardwalk by the river…there is a lovely view of the city from the boardwalk…

When we got back to the  house, kim realized she didn’t have keys…whoops…she did figure out a way to break in, it was entertaining…lol…you had to be there, I’m not revealing how she did it…

Dinner that night was after alan brought conor home from footie practice…alan is the head coach of the team…alan cooked burgers, kim put together the rest of the meal…kim is a vegetarian, and prefers to avoid touching meat as well…I don’t blame her…I eat meat, but I don’t like touching raw meat…yuck…I’m a huge fan of home cooking…

Friday morning I went with kim to boot camp…it’s a fitness craze sweeping the world…classes are usually around 10 people, and meet at odd hours of the day…we started at 0530…(it was still dark outside, and this class was outside!)…the class lasts an hour, and is different each time…the idea is to keep people coming back, because they never get bored…and, because the class is only an hour, you can work hard without collapsing…kim has been going regularly for about 6 months, alan goes with her during the weeks they don’t have conor…in other words, kim is fit…I’m not…it’s embarrassing how unfit I am…I can run, but not quickly…I have no upper body strength or endurance, and that’s where I failed…ugh…we did some speed boxing, running, ropes, and situps…you know those ropes you see the contestants using on biggest loser? They’re heavy!! Anywho, we got home from that, and I fell asleep…ooops…while I was asleep, alan left for a conference in sydney, and kim drove conor to school…I feel like an old lady whose body is breaking down too fast!!

Kimberly worked the entire trading day, while I slept and read…a relaxing day…we picked up conor from school later…that night conor had one of his friends over for a sleepover…it’s funny to see how kids behave differently when they’re around each other, as opposed to just being around the adults in their lives…It can be exhausting, to say the least…dominos pizza for dinner that night…

Saturday morning max’s mom came to pick him up early, then we took conor to his last footie game of the season…since alan is the coach, he was especially gutted to have to miss the game because of his conference…I guess this league doesn’t keep score for kids of conor’s age, something about trying to teach them that there is more to playing the game than just winning and losing…I don’t know if that’s true or not, everyone seems to keep score in their heads anywho…I didn’t, of course…there were a lot of parents and other fans there, kim said it was way more than usual…watching the game helped me figure out a lot of how the game is played…granted, there is still heaps that I don’t know…

After we got home from the game, conor went over to the neighbor’s house, one of the kids over there is on conor’s team…apparently that house serves only healthy food…no processed sugar anywhere, ever!! The kids are all pretty skinny…kim and I hung out for a while, and when conor came back, his mom came to pick him up…she’d been on her honeymoon for a week, she’d gotten married the weekend before…a kiwi lady, quite nice…

After she picked up conor, we took the dogs to a beach…I’ve forgotten the name of the beach, but it seems to be a popular place to take dogs…there is a large area for the dogs to run around, and they don’t have to be on leashes…pepper went crazy, ziggy loved it too…I’m not sure if they’d ever been in that particular area previously? We got to the beach at high tide, I guess that isn’t the best time to visit…at low tide, you can wade out a little way to a sand bar…kim says ziggy doesn’t like to get wet, so it’s apparently quite entertaining to watch him try to avoid the water while still making his way out to the sand bar…lol…pepper doesn’t care…our feet got a bit mucky and wet, all in good fun…on the way home from the beach, we picked up alan at the airport, his conference didn’t last that long…when we got home, kim and alan washed the dogs, as they were both covered in sand, and a little mud…pepper then dried herself off on my bed…hee hee…

That night we went to an Indian place for dinner…as always, I loved it…indian food has to be really really really bad for me to be unhappy with it…after dinner, we thought about going to a movie, but the one that alan was most keen to see didn’t start for another hour and something, which would’ve been too late, as he was exhausted…instead, he suggested driving up mt coot-tha, and seeing the city lights…it took a while to find parking, but it was lovely up there…you can see the entire city, kim pointed out where they live, where we’d gone each day, etc…very nice…somehow, Alan and I got into a discussion about politics…we agree on everything, but it was interesting to see how passionate alan was on a few things…hmmm…kim doesn’t care so much, she stayed quiet…we got desserts up there, kim had her first vanilla slice…I don’t know how she’s managed to live in Australia for so long and never previously eat a vanilla slice…they’re great…but sweet, too sweet for a lot of people…

My last day in Brisbane was a slow starter, but that’s perfectly fine by me…after a bit of discussion, Kimberly and I decided to go to a place called lone pine koala sanctuary…according to their signs, it’s the first and largest koala sanctuary…they’ve got lots of koalas, kanagaroos, wallabies, a platypus, dingoes, Tasmanian devils, birds and bats…we loved them all…oh, and emus…emus get a scary look on their face, you think they’re going to peck at you with that enormous beak…eeeek…I’m pretty sure they’re able to move quickly (but not fly) though in this area they simply walked away if they wanted to move…big claw feet…the emus were where we started…it’s a large-ish enclosure, you walk in through a double set of gates…basically a giant lawn area, with emus and kangaroos hanging out…you can buy food for the kangaroos, but we didn’t…I was completely fascinated by the kangaroos in particular…since they’re only native to Australia, this was the first time I’d been able to get up close to them…like dogs, they love to be scratched on the chest, they sort of lean into it…we got to see a couple kangaroos with joeys in their pouches…at some point, the feet get to big to be in the pouch, so the feet are left hanging outside the pouch…hee hee…

we listened to an intro lecture about kangaroos, I learned a bit…In the wild, kangaroos live to be about 15 years old…in captivity, they live to 25…there are four teats in a mother kangaroo’s pouch, and when a joey first latches on, his/her mouth fuses to the teat…a kangaroo is pregnant for only 36 days at a time!  A joey stays with it’s mother for a total of around 2 years, though she usually kicks him out of the pouch after a year or so…

I had my picture taken with a koala, it was redic cute…koalas move very slowly, it isn’t difficult to take a good photo…I got to hold a 4 month old girl called yarula…LOVE IT!! The photo is an additional cost, but the money goes toward taking care of the animals in the reserve, so I didn’t mind…I wouldn’t do that all the time, but this time I thought it worth it…the reserve has a number of different tree areas set up for the koalas, for the old geezers, for the bachelors, for the ladies, etc…it’s fun…not that I’d be able to tell the difference between all of them…they all look the same to me…they eat a whole lot of leaves every day…a LOT…

We also listened to a lecture on the platypus…the reserve currently has one, but is looking for another…they swim, a lot…I hadn’t seen one before, at least not that I can recall…they don’t seem to stay still for long…

Eventually, we went back to the house…conor and alan arrived about the same time, they’d gone to the AFL game…the Brisbane lions lost to I forget who…quite the exciting game…kim made dinner, some kind of pasta…then they took me to the airport…my flight back to perth was 6 hours, ugh…