home or away

Adding photos

2008-06-18T13:21:00.001-07:00

There is hope yet for everyone who's been waiting for any photo that's ever been snapped on my camera since I got back to Singapore. Fresh snaps take priority coz I worked out that's the only way current stuff can be seen...but I'm working my way backwards so keep checking back on my picasa gallery and I'll fill in stuff right back to August 07 in due time! :)

Los Angeles: incoming!

2008-06-17T01:47:00.000-07:00

It was to be an 18hr flight from Singapore to Los Angeles with a brief 1hr stop at Taipei. Having skipped sleep the night before; I was happy to get onboard, curl up and go to sleep - however, I realised to my dismay that I had two kids behind me, one kicking and pounding on the back of my seat and the other screaming and yelling. Fantastic. Oh. Not to mention angry guy one seat away from me. I paused to thank the Lord for the space of one seat and the next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and angry guy had been replaced by smiley, dimple guy - When I managed to say awake for more than 5 minutes, I realised he was alot of fun.

So anyway...I was too tired...I fell asleep reading the Financial Times re. Wimbledon as the plan began to taxi on the runway and the next thing I knew we were well and truly airborne and they were serving dinner. I recall having some dinner and then the next thing I knew we were preparing for descent in Taipei. I stayed awake for all of the 20mins we had to get off and then back on the same aircraft and I woke up to watch Step Up 2 and then went back to sleep, waking only as we were descending into LAX airspace...it was a beautiful sunset.

Ryan's flight was arriving from Detroit at 9:15pm and my flight arrived at 8:20pm so I thought it'd be just nice if I factored in time for immigration and customs...but I got a text from him saying his flight was delayed - I checked the screen at T2 and it said i would arrive at 10:45pm so I found a cafe, had a drink and worked on some accounts stuff. Eventually his flight landed...he sidled up beside me where I was standing by the bag carousel and it was soooo good to see him again! We chatted, caught up and what not while waiting for his container to arrive and Leanna picked us up outside. We went straight to Denny's and downed the grand slam breakfast in honour of old memories and towards making new ones (she has those pictures). Ryan wasn't sure of the state of his apartment since he'd been away so I stayed at Leanna's instead...this couch and the lovely four-pronged light will be my bedroom for at least two nights.

Leanna with her new dog "Dromy" and Erin's 7-wk old kittens - the grey one is "greybear" and the white and black one is "panda"

16th June (Mon) started off with a 9am meeting with Bernice at the Dream Centre finalising some details and handing in of some forms and signing off on stuff...and the whole day was spent doing scheduling and meetings and sorting out finance stuff followed by an amazing Chai Latte at the Downbeat Cafe on Alvrado and Sunset Blvd. Leanna picked me up from there, we got home, walked and bathed Dromy and then drove somewhere because she was giving her cock-a-poo (cocker spaniel cross poodle) away. We eventually had dinner round 10pm at the El Pollo Loco round the corner and did some grocery shopping at Ralph's. You can see from the photo below that I enjoyed my dinner immensely!

The world within my reach

2008-06-02T05:27:00.000-07:00

a thousand reasons i'm glad to be home

sleepover at SGH

2008-05-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

if only it were as docile as it sounds... (hey prepare yourselves, this is a really long entry but there's a really good ending so don't give up halfway!!)

So. After a truly washed out monday night with no sleep whatsoever under my belt, I admit myself into Ward 63 and the Singapore General Hospital at 7am on a rainy Tuesday morning (27 May) - note: myself...because my darling cuz kindda overslept!! It got to be quite a drag because initially they told my my surgery was gonna be at 9:45am but then at 12 they still hadn't called and around 1pm they told me it'd be plus or minus 2 hrs from 5pm. Since there was nothing else to do and I was feeling fine, Jo and I headed downstairs for a walk so she could have lunch and I could pick the flowers/gift that Dad's church was gonna give me... haha. That's sunflower number one + happy monkey I've named "tohggy!"

While the flowers were getting done up and Jo had deserted me in her bid to "buy stuff" at Cheers, I got the call from the ward i/c to say that the operating theatre had called and they were sending a trolley to collect me - I wondered what kind of a trolley it'd be and my mind conjured up images of the cold storage kindda shopping trolleys. Anyway, we headed upstairs and got changed into the blue operating gown in a midst of frenzy and much laughs - according to the nurse, jo and i were "hyper". I thought the gown kindda made me look like a blue angel of sorts...haha! But yeah if you've always liked me smiling, enjoy this photo for as long as you can coz you don't see me smiling for a looooong time after I come out of recovery from the procedure.

While I'm waiting in the prep area outside the theatre where they put in the IV line and ask me a bunch of questions repeatedly about contact lenses, loose teeth, drug allergies and etc, my assigned young anesthetist asks about my occupation and when I say "youth pastor", he's the first one of all the form-fillers who doesn't grunt and ask "what's that" - so I took it that he was familiar with church and the concept of pastors and such. When he turns around, I check out the cross dangling from his neck and so I ask "what church do you go to?" He doesn't give me a direct answer but motions with his hands and semi-grunts "i go when i have the time - which is like..never??" I picked up something. But it wasn't clear. I waited. I won't record the rest of what happened, but yeah...i so wanna tell the dude he should come back to church, drop by sjsm for a visit and stuff.

We head in, I'm transfered to the table, the main (old/senior) anesthetist gets them to put an arm board for my left arm, tells them I'm cold so they give me some hot air to warm me up...they put the gas mask on, tell me it'll be sweet and that I'll feel a burning sensation heading up my arm and then I'll be out. I forgot to mention. Earlier Prof Tan Kok Chai came to meet me for the first time while I was in the prep area and he told me it was gonna be a straight-forward and quick 10-15min procedure to fix the displaced nasal plate and that I had nothing to worry about. Dr Leo - the doctor I'd been seeing at the specialist clinic who'd recommended and set up the surgery was also present. I heard some joke about how they shouldn't press the gas mask too hard otherwise it might crush my nose and then they wouldn't even have to do the op and it'd be a waste of the anesthesia...and then I was out.

[ brace yourself for photo below]

When I woke up, they told me not to panic because I couldn't breathe; they said my nose was packed and I should breathe from my mouth - they told me that already. They made sure I was breathing and then pulled out the stuff they'd used to intubate me for the op. I wasn't too sure what was going on...all I knew at that time was. PAIN. SCATHING, SEETHING, UNKIND, THOUGHTLESS, MINDBLOWING PAIN. I COULD NOT THINK. I COULD NOT CRY. I COULD NOT SPEAK. IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH. I think I passed out because of the pain. When I woke up again, I was in recovery - still in pain. Someone told me I had been given morphine but that it would take time. I waited while I sobbed - not at will and without sound, eternity elapsed and I was sure it wasn't kicking in...I asked for more. They got a doctor, I got another shot....waited some more...still in unbearable pain. I asked for more. And while they got someone else to give me another shot I asked them to get Wendy - who's also an anesthetist from our church...currently in the OT (i knew that because we spoke briefly earlier). By grace she just happened to have heard my voice and was heading in my direction right then (i think i heard her say that - i'd have to confirm) and it was SO FANTASTIC to have a familiar voice in my ear, hold my hand, listen to me rave about my pain...and really the fact that she believed I was in pain - the ones before seemed to think my claim dubious for whatever reasons - but yeah I explained that my pain threshold was really generally quite high and that what I was experiencing then was truly horrible. I think I had another 3 doses of morphine before I finally settled. It turns out I was in the theatre for over an hour and and at some point she said she had to leave...and I faded out again.

By the time I got wheeled back to the ward, it was past 7pm. Wendy was there waiting - ahhh the angel :) I don't actually remember exactly who was there, but I know furry was there too...and eve and mel and the rest of the wondergroup came. I think the first night was a blur mainly because of the effects of the anesthesia and morphine combined...plus the fact that my eyes were so swollen I could hardly open them. I do know that I'd received many more sunflowers - everyone was speculating if they were my favourite flowers - but really it's coz they're the only pretty flowers from the store downstairs! haha! But seriously, the flowers were beautiful and so was "tohggy" that you'd met earlier, and now in this photo my beautiful friend a me-to-you bear that's slightly confused in a husky suit - I've named him "Akejai" in memory of Ninjai and Akela :)

[happy snaps with cellkids & akejai - oh how i love my darlings
- who were all rather sedate when they first saw me..I guess it was the surreality of the fact i was silent and not bugging them to answer questions, read the bible or discuss stuff! haha :D]

Day 2 was hell. Literally - and all the more an incentive for me to not want to end up there. The grogginess of the anesthesia had well and truly worn off, as had the morphine. pain knew new heights again in this state of consciousness and as before, it was a task to convince the nursing personnel that I required higher doses of painkillers to manage the pain. My left eye was watering still - incredibly so, and getting very sore and red as a result. A steady stream of visitors kept me prayed over and the encouragement kept me looking forward. Dad had also given me 1 Thess 5:16-18 early that morning and it was a constant reminder through the tough times to look upwards when there seemed to be nothing to look forward to ahead - be joyful, thankful and always in prayer. My dad rocks - coz he couldn't be with me during this time, he woke up esp. early in Vietnam so that he could pray for me...and reminded me that my heavenly father was here with me all the time even though he wasn't.

I think at some point in the afternoon I actually thought I'd concede defeat and forget about trying to stay strong and happy for the world around me; looking up was becoming increasingly difficult too...because the kind of pain I was going through just didn't feel like I could punch through! At 6pm though - a huge bunch of colourful, massive and happy balloons came wafting into the room and brought so much cheer that I couldn't help but smile each time I looked at them dancing in the air waves of the air conditioner. They made me want to BE well, so that I could grab them, run along the corridor with them and take them out into the sunlight and release them into the air - watch them rise and feel my spirit lift as I watch them go...balloons have that effect on me. free. very free. [Thanks tim :)]

A whole host of other flowers and gift baskets arrived and my soft-toy-family was growing very rapidly too - i almost didn't have enough space to sleep left on my bed! Ken's orange daffodil and his note was the sweetest gift of the day :) And Ryan's teddy with words and a lil gift that will definitely outlast this ordeal will stay close to me.

Day 3 started well. Pain was either lessening or I had become accustomed to it. Dr Leo came in - finally - and I had a whole host of questions for him. He explained that they'd originally gone in just to fix the displaced nasal plate but once they were in they realised there was much further damage than the Xray showed. So. Fix no.1 was the left nasal plate causing obstruction...that was relocated in its right place, fix no.2 was having to straighten the septum (main nose bone) that had deviated or been warped by the impact - this required shaving off and chiselling he said and finally, fix no.3 was a mucosal hypertrophy in the right nostril - caused again by the impact on the left, and I'm not sure if they reduced it or removed it but it was basically a lump/clot that had formed as a result of the trauma. So yeah....it's good to know it's all dealt with and I'm thankful that God gave me the clear signs to proceed with the surgery - had I listened to my stubborn self, I would've opted not to - and the doc said these things would've gone unnoticed but caused alot of problems for me in the future. Once again. God is awesome, He rocks my socks off with the way He is TRULY OMNISCIENT and somehow finds a way to let my small little mind know what's good for me :)

It's probably worth mentioning that I started eating properly again in the evening of Day 3 - It's probably coz around that time was when my sense of taste came back. They pulled out all the dressing that had been packed into my nose during the procedure at about 11 in the morning - now THAT almost killed me again. You know on a side matter, it's quite amazing how much gauze can be stuffed into one's nose. The abrasion was painful and I was bleeding for awhile after the ordeal and was in dire need of cheering up....the rest of the day was pure gluttony starting with a sugar roll from Polar, followed by meatballs and a hot dog from IKEA and to top it all off, a pint of B&Js New York Super Fudge Chunk which I promptly DEVOURED while they went to get a dvd from some super dodge dvd rental place in AMK...hahha! [Check out how I'm smiling again!]

So anyway. It's early morning on Day 4, I couldn't quite sleep before because I'd slept so much of Day3 away - coz the pain was no longer waking me from my slumber...and so I thought I'd blog...so ahlyn and david can join me on this crazy experience. I so miss having you around to love on me and stuff...like boy if you were here you could chuck me down a hill on the wheelchair and into the thrash can....again. hahha!

I just wanna say thanks to a coupla people who really made a difference to me in this time of much pain. Jo - what can i say? your sacrifice leaves me without words, Tim - best gifts, biggest heart...defo a boat floater, Pearly & Daph - love that you rocked up...and with bird's nest to boot, Cellkids/ Wondergroup - you make me smile and you give me reasons to wanna get better real quick, Gerald T - v touched leh you made it down twice when you're like sick yourself, Ken my darling son - you continue to be a sweet sweet ray of sunshine in my life, Pene - your continuous presence is a real sight for my teary eyes...not to mention the wonderful food you've brought!, Laura - a thousand sms' just so I know you're there....it worked! Dad, Mum, Jan & Dave - you're all sending me your love from various corners of the earth,Vic - you kept coming out despite how busy and tired you were...i hope you know that you're truly loved and forgiven. Alice, Margaret, PK, Grace, Young (x2), Priscilla, Lydia who took time out from the busy work at SJSM to come say hi. So yeah....You've all played a significant part in getting this smile back on my face...your love is not wasted and I truly value you and want you to know that I am grateful and hope to someday return the love and affection you've shown me - hopefully not in such negative circumstances of course!

To everyone else who took the time out to send love my way either in physical presence, with gifts and cards, phonecalls or texts....THANK YOU. I do appreciate you and feel very loved. I thank God for you and pray a whole heap of blessings on you!!

Alrighty. I'm gonna grab a coupla hours of sleep and hopefully I'll be heading home by 11am! :)

the fragility of a face

2008-05-25T04:54:00.001-07:00

Time to sit and yet not feel compelled to do work; starbucks has that effect - coupled with the ridiculously annoying dropout rate of wireless@sg on my macbook. So that means I swop back to my trusty lil world-travelled vaio and hit the 5000++ photos that have yet to be sorted, edited and captioned before finding their way online somewhere...and with that, I thought I might as well hit the blog and give everyone the real story regarding the nose thing. It's best done with pictures...so enjoy...

the start of a very unfortunate event

the final blow...

the mayhem around me when everyone realised I had turned on the blood fountain

minutes later - after having washed off in the toilet

@ SGH's A&E waiting to see the doc - kotex icebag in place...

me with the guilty but very very forgiven one :D

So anyway...the photos should provide a good understanding and plenty of laughs :) It was truly a freak accident and I guess we learn that rules are there for a reason (ie: stay on the podiums when using jousting sticks. or, use provided helmets. or, don't mix two games together!) Still, it was all quite an experience and definitely one of those to be remembered for all time, ya know...one of those you tell your grandkids someday... :D

The experience? The smack of the rod itself wasn't actually painful...when I went down I was actually checking to see if any teeth had been knocked loose rather than whether my nose was in place. It was only after those gathered around started gasping in shock that I looked up and realised there was blood gushing from my nose - literally, it felt very...gushy. It was worse when I was washing up in the toilet and trying to ascertain if my nose was actually broken or if it was just a trauma bleed...for one, i had to cough up and blow out lumps of blood (ewwww!) and secondly, that's when the shock had worn of and the pain set in...and oh the throbbing!

Because of the pain - and mind you my pain threshold is...HIGH - we decided to head to SGH's A&E...

(oh no, I have to leave starbucks now, I'll finish up later. maybe)

Blog's Back in Business

2008-04-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

Sooo.....7 months of silence has finally broken!

Thank YOU for your patience and I'm sorry I didn't quite reply everyone's email regarding the "death" of the blog or the fact that I had been in Byron Bay for way toooo long! haha :D It isn't that it's taken me all this time to settle back into being home in Singapore...and at this stage it would suffice to say I've been busy! :) I'm gonna chuck a thumbnail grid - foretaste of the Brisbane, Airlie Beach, Hamilton Island, Cairns, Kuranda, and Cape Trib & Daintree Rainforest Albums! So yeah...check out the rest of my round-Australia trip that marked the end of my round the world trip, and then the rest of Singapore stuff will come be uploaded in bits and pieces and I'll be trying to blog consistently here on in!

Byron Bay

2007-10-08T04:54:00.000-07:00

I arrived at Byron Bay at about 9pm, got picked up by the hostel van and headed straight for the hostel. I was pretty drained by the long bus ride so I just settled in and read a book till I fell asleep.

18 Jul (Wed) - After brekkie I made my way to the beach, just a short 7 minute walk from my hostel. I was going to walk to the lighthouse but the beach was so pretty and the weather so perfect that I ended up just sitting and chilling on the sand, taking in the salty sea air for an hour. Eventually I stretched, got up and headed back into town.

Lunch was the agenda and after checking a few places out, I settled for Mongers' gourmet fish and chips - which was YUMMY! And considering it's price, freshness and most importantly, tasty-factor....it was truly gourmet food! haha! The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around town and stopping at a cafe for coffee whilst I read later on.

Sunset was on the beach and after it had set, I made my way up the little hill to get to the lighthouse. It was a pretty steep climb up and wasn't much fun as the mozzies settle in together with the dark of the night. However, having reached the top, the views of the coast on all sides was breathtaking, as was the lighthouse itself!

I spent the rest of the evening laughing like mad as I got to know Samara and Claire, discussing tennis, excellence, lies, stain-making, and as we drifted off to sleep, mohitos and an old man who looked really young. They were a blast, Byron Bay would not have been half as fun nor as memorable had I not been in the same room as them! I have to say though, THEY GOT EXTRA BLANKETS AND I DIDN'T!!! Pffffttt!!

19 Jul (Thu) - I woke bright and early and went surfing with Ben, we drove for about half an hour up or down the coast I don't know...but we found some swell at that beach and checked it out from the car park. It looked small but I swear it doubled as we got changed, waxed up and made our way down. It was not fun paddling out...although I experienced for the first time, running out amongst the rocks on one end of the bay and just jumping out right out the back and then just catching a wave in..WheeeEEeeEE!! :p Repeat the process a coupla times, add to it several mouthfuls of salt water and desperate gulps to avoid crashing waves overhead and that's pretty much my whole morning. Didn't bring my camera, so alas, no photos.

After a hot shower, Claire, Samara and I head out for a hot drink and lunch - the rest of the afternoon was spent recovering from the very tiring morning and also Samara was pretty sick so she slept the afternoon away. Late that evening, Claire and I went out to have dinner at Hog's Breath...hahahh been awhile since I had a decent dinner! It took awhile to sort all my stuff out and pack up - there was also a new guy who took Monique's bunk (she left the morning before) and he was pretty funny and mentioned a certain company's website that zoomed a distant memory into my frontal lobe - unwelcome. haha!

20 Jul (Fri) - I wake up, finished packing and checked out. On the way to the bus station, I bought a huge muffin and ate it after I was on the bus and settle in for another long bus ride up to Brisbane! Oh...and I got given a pair of shoes.... :p

Coffs Harbour

2007-09-28T23:22:00.000-07:00

I was in Coffs Harbour for all of one day....arriving at 5:30am on the 17th of July and leaving at about 5pm that very evening. So...the "seasoned" traveller that I was should've known it wouldda been freezing and pitch black when I got to Coffs Harbour...but I hadn't thought about that! I'd only thought I'd get there and have 12hrs to suss out the entire town and anything of interest in its vicinity! So....I checked myself into a nearby hotel that had a pretty cool digitised, human-less, system of booking, paying for and accessing your room from a little unit built into the wall of the hotel lobby.

4 hours later, I dragged myself out of bed and packed up my stuff and checked out of the hotel which I then realised was called Formula1 hotel. Still feeling grumpy about the fact that I'd paid for an entire day but only got 4 hours, I dropped my bag off at the tourist info centre and began my walk around town. I made my way to the Rotary Park which I would walk through to get to the beach and a whole host of other "attractions"...

First stop was the Botanic Garden, slated to be the best in the region....now I have to state from the very start that I don't like flowers...really. I can only think of two flowers that I actually like, neither of which would make me swoon or anything remotely close. BUT i paused to walk through it anyway and quite enjoyed the walk and all the bright, vibrant colourful flowers in full bloom. I did see my favourite flower....and I also enjoyed the rather large section of cactii on display.

Shortly after exiting the Botanic Garden, I found myself walking along a large river...flanked on both sides by beautiful parkland. I stopped at a little pier under a large tree to consume my lunch of bread, butter and cheese and also to do a little reading while waiting for the intensity of the mid-day sun to lessen a little. From there I walked for another 40 minutes before arriving at the Coffs Harbour Jetty where there were loads of restaurants, cafes and shops.

I spent 2 hours walking along the beach, watching locals fish and taking in the salty sea air after the week spent in urban pollution aka...sydney :D

The rest of the afternoon prior to heading back to the info centre to pick up my bags and wait for my bus was spent at the Pet Porpoise Pool...playing ball with their dolphins in 6 giant pools, watching seals and sea lions basking in the sun and playing amongst themselves and even tiny little penguins had their own enclosure while turtles and other large fish swam in a large circular glass tank.

More photos of the dolphins, seals, sea lions and etc can be found in the Pet Porpoise Pool album; Flowers and etc can be found in the Botanic Garden album; generic photos from around Coffs Harbour and the beach can be found in the Coffs Harbour Album.

Sydney - Finally

2007-09-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

So. I'm all of close to three months behind blogging schedule...a time within which loads has happened. But let me start first where I first left off...July the 10th; I flew over to Sydney and began my trip up the length of Australia's east coast.

In a nutshell...

July 10 (Tues) - The flight couldn't be any longer, I was sooooo amped to get to Sydney to catch up with an old friend, Susan...well not that old really, but feels like it...coz once upon a time we used to hang heaps, laugh lots, eat loads on roadtrips and ya know...all that kindda stuff that good friends do! So yeah, I got to the airport and she was there; I had a mild heart attack as I came down the escalator and saw her there...and no not because she had become a man or anything drastic like that, merely because a lady had a baby doll she was carrying and dropped it over the side of a bench - and I thought it was a real baby! Anyway, from the airport, we stopped at Raj's place enroute to her home so I could pass some stuff to Justin (from LA) who was in town for Hillsong Conference and was heading home the following morning. We chatted some when we got home but then went to bed quickly coz she had work the next day.

July 11 (Wed) - I spent most of my first day sleeping and then doing some work...and when Susan got back that night we went to a bar and I stretched beyond my own eating boundaries that night when we ordered cured ocean trout and a cheese platter - together with some cocktails. I actually ate the stuff, and yes very very proud of myself for not gagging...the cheese was not so cool, but the walnut bread that came with it was yummy! Later that night, we went to Citrus in Newtown - a cafe I'd visited several times when I was in Sydney in 2006...because they had the best crepes with bacon, maple syrup and ice cream, which we had that night (in the photo above).

July 12 (Thu) - After spending the morning responding to and writing emails, I walked down to the fish market and had me some fish and chips...staying to people-watch, allow my lunch to digest so I could purchase and then eat some fresh fruit from the markets. The rest of the afternoon was spent walking from one end of the city to the other...pausing for awhile in Chinatown where I noticed a new piece of installation art just before the famed arches; it is quite possible that it isn't new, merely that I had missed it the last time I was there. The plaque beneath it named the piece as "Golden Water Mouth" - a piece that celebrated contemporary life and the historic character of Chinatown.

That night, I had dinner with Susan and her housemates....Shalini and Stephen - and yes I did find it hilarious that all three of them had names starting with 'S'. We went to the James Squire Brewhouse for dinner and it was a massive dinner with Shalini ordering a GIANT slab of ribs, Susan having lamb I think , Stephen ordering a bowl of mussels and me having a mushroom and spinach risotto - and no by no means was it anywhere close to as healthy as it sounded. I did also try a "platter" of four mini glasses of beers brewed "in-house"...none of which I found enjoyable...much to everyone's dismay...or should I say, disgruntled-ness.

July 13 (Fri) - I spent much of the day chilling out again, venturing out round dinner time to catch the bunch that had just arrived after spending their week skiing somewhere closer to Melbourne in the mountains. The bunch being Gloria, Shane, Justin, Chester and Aunchisa. I think we had kebabs for dinner, walked all the way to the Sydney Opera House just to take photos and then jumped on a bus to Newtown for coffee and cakes.

July 14 (Sat) - Caught up with Chester, Justin and Shane for lunch at the Sydney Fish Market...where we shared a HUGE seafood platter, inclusive of lobster mornay, fish, oysters, mussels, squid, prawns and loads of chips! We then spent the afternoon walking it off while taking in the sights and sounds of darling harbour, the city, and even sunset at harbour bridge. We also made a mandatory stop at Krispy Kreme so I could get a dozen for the housemates to share!

We passed an illusionist on our way back....he was rather scary. When we passed he was levitating glasses and other small objects above his head, bringing them to land on his face or on the point of his nose and the like. But when I whipped out my camera he said "wait! I have a special one for you..." and then proceeded to enact one of the most freak "tricks" I'd ever seen being done on the street...he took a knife, showed how sharp it was by hacking into the wooden thing he had with him and cut through a thick fold of paper which he then laid down on the ground and then proceeded to saw into his wrist. And blood spurted on the ground beneath...not fun. at all. alot of people screamed and walked away. We left too.

Later that evening, I join Susan, Stephen, Shalini and Kanesan at Will & Tobys to listen to a band. The pub was really cool..with a nice bar on its third floor...where we all agreed had pretty stuffy service (but great cocktails) and the band was playing on the second floor so after our first drink we moved downstairs to ensure we secured seats - which we did on the very front row - and spent the rest of the evening/night listening to...well....mediocre...music. Was that too harsh? Oh well. We had pizza before hopping into a cab and calling it a night.

July 15 (Sun) - I slept in, then FINALLY caught up with my friend Hsiao Chien who'd just arrived in Sydney a coupla days before...she was gonna be in Sydney for a year pursuing.....FURTHER EDUCATION....and a man. hhahha! :D We went to a very nicely decorated thai restaurant and pigged out on prawn phad thai and chicken green curry...it was YUM! Food aside, it was great banter and catchup as we each recounted almost all that had transpired in the months gone past since we'd last seen each other...which was also when we first got acquainted...almost a year ago at the time.

We then went to the Fish Market so I could get some lobsters that I was makign for dinner back home that night and obviously we stopped for desserts as well...eating Pat and Stick's homemade ice cream and a little cheesecake and chocolate tart - no wonder she puts on so much weight you say!! :D Soon it was time to part and I head home to make dinner for the wonderful people who've been great hosts to me for the past week...we had alot of fun in the kitchen...and I also did burn my hand, which wasn't fun at all - but we did have a sumptuous meal of lobster thermidor and twice baked potato....served with a spinach, feta and walnut salad (of which I had more than 5 mouthfuls!!!) and topped off with a warm chocolate cake served with a dollop of fresh cream!

July 16 (Mon) - The day was spent packing and also grooming myself (no don't ask) and having my last coffee at citrus as well as dinner with Susan before we head off for the bus station and say our goodbyes. I would spend the next 10 hours on a greyhound bus to Coffs Harbour...whee! hahah :D

YAY!!! I'm beginning to catch up with my blog!!! I promise there will not be such a long lapse ever again!!! :D

PS: The Sydney Album is up on my photo gallery too!

Helooo to the world from Singapore!

2007-08-17T12:34:00.001-07:00

Yep, been home for about 18 days now, 3 of which were spent in Bintan - an Indonesian island off Singapore. Blogs from Australia's east coast and all of Singapore to catch up with but that'll take awhile...in the meantime, enjoy a video...

This is a song that Amanda and I co-wrote while on our Exmouth roadtrip, I apologise for my rather loud singing and it's actually quite hilarious at the start and end...there was more but I edited it out. haha! Anyway, this song comes for a place where God had been revealing to me how His Love should be the reason we do what we do (serve, live, evangelise, etc) and I guess also from a heart that knows that in comparison to his love, a love that sent his son to die on the cross, our plans and aspirations and agenda just pale ridiculously! So yeah, enjoy the song, feel free to laugh again and also to comment. Ta

Coastal Northern West Oz

2007-08-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

27/6 Wed - It started out on a gloomy rainy wednesday afternoon on the 27th of June...Amanda and I packed our bags, chucked them into the car (with several bags of snacks & etc) together with our newly purchased 12ltr plastic water dispenser and off we went. With a copy of the Australia Lonely Planet on our dashboard and a lunch stop at Subway, we commenced what was to be a north-bound trip of over 1300kms to Exmouth.

4 and half hours later and just as the sky was turning dark, we found ourselves in Geraldton...more specifically, outside the cinemas at Geraldton and so we popped in, bought two tickets for an 8pm show to Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer then cheked into a dorm at Foreshore Backpackers...we asked for a twin room but none were available...but we ended up having the 4-bed dorm to ourselves anyway.

After we'd put our sheets out and etc, we went for a walk around town and discovered Australia's best kept secret right out the back of our hostel....a Megatoy Playground Solution. Haven't heard of it??? Man you need to get with it!!! hahah :p Well yeah it was a playground, but not JUST a playground...it is the mothership of all playgrounds, including a pirate ship, a spider-webby contraption, and a quartet of balancing-act-type-contraptions, as well as smaller single units of balancing surfboards, and last but not least, THE SPINNAMAJIGGY. Yup. It's thus named. It took us both awhile to work out how it worked - amidst laughing, screaming and bumbling around and hanging on for our lives! The photo album for the trip will give you a much better idea of how amazing this playground is!!

After the movie it was pretty much straight back to the dorm and into bed in "anticipation" of our looooong stretch of driving the following day.

28/6 Thurs - We check out the main "sights" of Geraldton before heading out and these include Saint Francis Xavier Church and the HMAS Sydney Memorial. While the church was an impressive building in its own right, attention at this juncture has to be given to the memorial...which comprised of a large dome made up by 645 steel seagulls (each commemorating a sailor lost at sea when the Sydney sank) with a large propellor beneath it, two long walls with each name as well as its story inscribed, a replical hull on which the australian flag flies, and lastly...a statue of a lady with her hand on her hat looking out to sea (awaiting the ship's return).

2 hours later, we arrive at the national park in Kalbarri and stop to take in the sights at Hawk's Head lookout...where we are offered sweeping views of the river and gorge...with the colourful dusty red earth presented in a variety of colours at different sections on the cliff walls. We stop at another "lookout" and walk down to the river bank and clamber across some rocks and boulders but really it wasn't anything very exciting, especially not in a gloomy drizzle...so we got back into the car and continued the upward drive.

6 hours later we finally cross over from grey cloudy skies to blue skies and this is pretty much just as we drive across into the Tropic of Capricorn...marked by a large sign and a white line across the road. Yes we did stop for photos ;) An hour later (it's 5:20pm by now), we drive into Coral Bay and are both immediately enchanted by the beauty of the bay as well as the quiet village ambience of the little town. Petrol prices leave alot wanting though, with unleaded priced at $1.7320 per litre...we had no choice because we had to carry on upwards to Exmouth and didn't want to risk running out (we weren't even sure we were going to make it to Coral Bay!!!) so we had to fill her up and that exorbitant rate and then continue.

We arrived in Exmouth at about 7:30 and spent forever trying to find the place we wanted to stay at and then after we'd found it, to try and work out how to get in and really the funniest thing was after we'd finally got it sorted, checked in, gotten our sheets and keys etc, we proceeded to be "organised" and put our sheets etc onto our beds in the dorm so we could go walk around town and not have to come back and try and do it in the dark. In our great hurry to do so we both somehow missed something and put our sheets on beds in the wrong dorm!!! But we did enjoy our wedges and coffee as well as a really long chat and the commencement of our "Esther" study at the Ningaloo Dreaming cafe before we went back and discovered our key couldn't open the door to the dorm we'd put our sheets in..and it was humorous horror that we realised what we'd done and spent the night freezing on sheet-less beds in the correct dorm.

29/6 Fri - We head to the dive shop early in the morning coz Amanda's starting her dive course...worked out okay, she's doing it with only one other person. I book my whaleshark dive for the next day then walk to "town" for a coffee, spending the rest of the morning by the pool at our backpackers resort waiting for her lunchtime. It's actually a pretty cool pool, very lagoon styled with coconut trees and overhanging rocks.

We lunched from the large food reserve we'd brought with us from home...including peanutbutter sandwiches, mandarins and muesli bars then while Amanda went for her pool sessions I checked out the marina and the beaches along Exmouth's east coast. There was hardly anyone around...but I did see some emus crossing the road and then just walking around aimlessly. It was a lazy afternoon spent basking on the beach with my book - an army of ordinary people. Dinner was at Seachange Cafe where we shared a Fisherman's Basket (fish, crabmeat, scallops, calamari and chips) and I think we spent the rest of the night chilling in our room, playing guitar, singing and songwriting.

30/6 Sat - I had to be at the diveshop at 7am for my whaleshark dive...the shop is an activity hive with people running all over the place getting gear, paying for trips, trying out their wetties and fins and etc. Eventually after everyone has their gear sorted and bags and air tanks are chucked into the trailer at the back of the bus, we're off to the jetty where everyone lends a hand to get gearbags and tanks onto the tinny that takes out out onto the tender. At first the day seems really dismal, for a start, because we had a late start, there wasn't time for us to dive before we went whaleshark spotting...secondly, it was grey and rainy and hours went by without any whaleshark sightings - by our skipper or the spotter plane they'd enlisted. We did have several humpback whale sightings though...

An hour before the skipper had said we'd call off the search and head back, we suddenly got word that a whaleshark had been spotted and so we raced there, only to find it'd dived and probably wouldn't return to the surface. 30 minutes passed and I thought...great probably not gonna get to see one, and then we got word there was another one and as we made our way to the site where it'd been spotted, it popped up right beside us! :D Everyone was ready and geared up and jumped in on cue...and my friends, this is the precise moment where I discovered a new sport....sprint snorkelling! First we try to get out of the whalesharks way (you want to..it's like 10m long and its head is 1m wide!) and then you sprint snorkel up along its side to try and stay with it for as long as you can.

I went in for three swims with it...and pretty much by the third time I'd finally gotten the flow right, to jump in, get out of its way and get into position and then swim alongside...all without bein hyper-excited or exhausted from the sprint-swim, and so I could finally actually look at it, take in its HUGEness, its magnificence and the phenomenal design of it's patterned spotting...really if anyone reckons evolution is THE way it all began, then try and explain how the whaleshark evolved into its proportions and design and how no other fish carries the same markings.

We did our dive after that and I got to see a giant cod...which is famous in the area, it was at least 2m long (imagine how many fish and chips that could serve up!) and was just sitting on the sandbed, looking pretty clumsy! On the way back, the front tyre on our bus blew and so we hung around on the side of the road for about half an hour (bringing back horrible memories from Costa Rica - 5 flats in 10 days) and eventually got picked up by another bus.

Dinner was at Planet Burger - a little caravan kitchen that pulled up at the carpark close to our backpackers and served up pretty decent souvlakis and burgers. I had a chicken kebab with the lot (bacon, egg and cheese) and I was pretty knackered after the days "sprint snorkelling" episodes so we went to bed pretty early that night. What was a bummer though, was that Amanda's "classmate" at her dive course had been forced to drop out because she couldn't pass her diving medical examination, resulting in insufficient numbers for the dive boat to go out the following day and so Amanda had the day off.

1/7 Sun - We started the morning on a beach on the eastern side of Exmouth, watching a pretty amazing sunrise while chomping on almonds and mandarins. After the sun had well and truly risen, we head back to our room to get changed and prepped up for church...we'd decided to visit Exmouth Christian Fellowship, where we experienced a "Hath-A-Sunday" that was based on 1 Cor 14:26 and members of the congregation were invited to go up and share anything as a contribution of what they had.

We check out Whalers Inn after that, thinking there'd be live music but we just missed it and only got to see the band packing up. Nevertheless, we had a really good burger for lunch ...we shared it so Amanda's half had all the salad chucked into it and I had a double meat dosage with the sesame bits on the top of the bun cut off! We then had to tossup between sticky date pudding and a roasted almond chocolate tia maria tart for dessert. Sticky Date Pudding won... :D

In keeping with it being the "Sabbath", we went back to our room and slept away the rest of the afternoon and woke up at about 7pm and spent the evening at the Mini Golf centre...which we deemed to be a "happy place", offering up good vibes, okay coffee, good scones and great people who owned the place. I don't remember our scores but I recall it being really whacky with us taking as many as 8 or 9 shots at some of the holes...all good laughs really. It started raining not long after we had ordered our devonshire tea (for dinner) and so we stayed there for awhile, waiting for the rain to stop.

2/7 Mon - Boat wasn't going out either for lack of numbers, so Amanda came back in and we then drove north of Exmouth to check out the lighthouse - the views from there were pretty amazing, with extensive views of the coast below where you could watch set after set of waves rolling in, breaking and peeling across the bay in clean lines with gentle offshore winds helping them hold their shape. Because it was all grey and rainy, we just sat in the car snacking before eventually moving on to the Jurabi Turtle Centre.

It wasn't really the season for both egg-laying or hatchling-spotting so we jus the eggs and hatchlings faced...such as feral foxes and crabs as well as strong waves washing the sand away, exposing the nests and eating the eggs or eating the hatchlings as they make their way down the beach into the ocean.

We eventually arrive at the Cape Range National Park and after a brief stop at the tourist information centre, we head straight for the reknown Turquoise Bay to do a drift-snorkel. It was a really rewarding (though cold) snorkelling sesh, with sightings of a medium-sized spotted lagoon ray, a turtle, maori wrasses, and a whole heap of other fishes admist colourful coral.

That evening, we try to pan-fry roast almonds in a bit to have them become crisp (the roasted effect)...because we brought them raw and we didnt haven an oven at Potshot. It was quite a riot, with everyone in the kitchen eyeing us down as though we were martians...and it didn't help that we were standing there for over an hour, stirring a pan full of almonds. It was only after we decided to put a pot-lid on to simulate an oven kindda heat atmosphere that we found quick success, retiring to our room to chomp on our crunchy almonds, incredibly satisfied by our ingenuity. :D

3/7 Tues - Still not enough numbers for Amanda to head out on the boat, so we booked ourselves onto a deep-sea fishing charter and head out bright an early for my first-ever fishing expedition. It was actually pretty cool because pretty much straight after we pulled up, one of the guys caught a pretty large fish (it was a giant trevally) and although it got away, he got another one later. Our skipper was Keran and the deck-hand was Lofty - both of whom were rather amused by Amanda and I...apparantly because they'd never met anyone as happy as us out on the boat - they added that women were never happy beyond 10 minutes at a time. haha!

Hours later, they were saying it was a really bad day and they couldn't find fish on their radars...but we still managed to catch a spangled emperor (snapper) and the others caught a couple of them and a sweet lip as well. I also endured a hook in the finger when amanda and I miscommunicated about chucking the sinker overboard...no biggy though, I survived, and so did Amanda... :p I have to say though, I think it's horrible how they repeated stuck a screwdriver into every fish's head and then swished it around saying it was the best way to kill them...UGH. I wouldn't like that happening to me!

When we get back, the boys get to cleaning and filleting our fish and we meet Crusty, Lofty's female staffy. And we head to the shops to buy some butter and garlic to cook our fish with...Lofy also drops by to give us a pack of large tiger prawns (yum yum!!) that we decide to keep for the following day's meal. It is an AWESOME meal of fish with chunks of Brumby's spinach and feta "tear-and-share" loaf!

4/7 Wed - A return visit to the Exmouth Hospital regarding the bites Amanda and I have been getting (we've been told that they're sandfly bites) but the wait would've been forever and we didn't want to waste a sunny day sitting inside the hospital so we moved on and went out to the National Park again and spend the afternoon snorkelling off its beaches before finally watching a pretty sunset at Turquoise Beach.

We see a whole heap of kangaroos and meet our very first Echidna (like a porcupine) on our way back - drop into the photo gallery for a look at them and also our rather luxurious seafood dinner of prawns and fresh fish fillets.

5/7 Thu - I don't have many photos from this day apart from dinner from Planet Burger, so I'm not entirely sure what we did today, I'm guessing we mooched around doing not much?

6/7 Fri - Diving at Murion Island! Finally Amanda gets to go dive, but she finds out she's seasick (she's still adamant that she isn't!) but anyway, yeah the boat ride out there and back were pretty long coz the islands are pretty far off the coast of Exmouth so it's mildly hellish for anyone who's even mildly prone to seasickness! But we had fun all the same though, and the lunch spread was pretty good too!

When we get back, we head to Lofty's place to pick up some seafood he's packed for us to take home to Perth with us...and ended up getting some gifts to take home too! I get the front "saw" off a sawtooth shark and Amanda gets a whale tooth. We take a coupla photos out back with the hacking saw off a 16ft shark (that's way tooo big and prized to be given away) and said our farewells to crusty before sayin farewell and heading back to our room for an early night in preparation for our early and long drive towards home the following day.

7/7 Sat - We arrive at Monkey Mia in the early afternoon and find out there's no more dolphin feeding for the day (that only happens in the morning) so after spending a coupla minutes debating and checking the maps for other options, we decide to stay for a night and leave in the morning after seeing the dolphins. Seeing as its a little coastal village with not much on, we pack a whole bunch of food and settle on a grassy bit in front of the beach and spend the rest of the arvo chomping away, playing guitar and finishing up the song.

That night, we go for an Aboriginal campfire cultural experience and it was rather interesting, going bushwalking along the beach then settling around a huge campfire where we inhale loads of sandalwood smoke which the aborigines believe to have a healing quality. Our guide, Capes, teaches us loads of aboriginal local language and it was quite amazing how he'd switch between native tongue and english seamlessly and continuously. The highlight was probably when he took a raw fish and baked in on the hot coal ashes - then offerred it to us...according to Amanda, the texture was...unlike any other fish she'd ever consumed! :D

8/7 Sun - Early in the morning, we wake, pack up and head to the beach for the early morning dolphin feeding...although it's a ridiculous time of day, the beach is lined with visitors there to see the dolphins and sadly, only one dolphin appears...it's Nicky though, the same dolphin that Amanda had seen (and been talking very excitedly about the day before) when she'd visisted 7 years ago. He swims along the beach and eventually they feed him several fishes before asking us to step back so he'll leave.

We then cook up a rather large seafood brunch and eat up as much as we can before packing the rest to take back to Perth (so it doesn't spoil)...I can't quite remember how it happened but I think as we headed south towards Perth the weather just got worse and worse and we decided it'd be pointless to spend another night/day somewhere else on the coast so we made a bee-line for home and arrived not long after dark...passing sandstorms and more crazy weather along the way. But yeap...the adventure that seemed like it might never end did end...and it was pretty much..ALL good! :D

KEYpers Retreat

2007-07-26T01:16:00.002-07:00

For the unknowing and ignorant, KEYpers was my last CG in Perth before I bid the country farewell and went off gallavanting...and it was rather timely that when I returned to Perth they were having a retreat at North Dandalup and I guess I kindda just rocked up and got to meet the new crew as well as chill out and catch up with the old guard.

Their full retreat was from 23rd to 25th June...but I stayed the one night, enjoyed a good teaching session by Amanda's dad and mum that was to grow increasingly significant as the weekend went by - unbeknownst to all (myself included). Before the session we were fed really well as the designated group toiled and laboured in the kitchen all arvo then served up several different chicken dishes, veggies and etc.

After the session Aunty Bea laid out a "surprise" supper platter consisting of chocolate fondue and fresh fruits with marshmallows as well as a cheese and mixed fruit and nut platter! Talk about being pampered and loved! I have to state that it waS at this specific time that Justin acquired a love and appreciation of cheese and "tasteless crackers"! It was a long night with random chatter, lots of foot massages (courtesy of OSIM contraptions), indian poker and more!

Justin and I left at 7:30am the next morning coz had to catch a flight home to KL later that day and I had to visit a friend's church in Perth. A quality weekend with a very special bunch of people...what more can I say? :)

Akela ;)

2007-07-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

So I did write a tribute to her when I gave her to a Singaporean family who are now residing in perth right? If I hadn't already said it, they're an awesome family and I'm so grateful for their love for her and also of their understanding in allowing and furthermore welcoming me to visit her anytime I'm in Perth. And if that wasn't already mind-blowingly amazing, they're also happy to let me have her for a day!! You can be sure I didn't need to be asked more than once....a day with my baby, how can I say no?? :p

Round about noon on the 25th of June, I picked Akela up for her new home and ran around in their yard for about an hour with her, trying (and failing) to try to get her less excited before I took her out.

Many thanks to Amanda and Aunty Bea for the use of their car to pick her up - it was real roomy and Akela loved it!

We then went to Lake Monger for abit of a walk/jog by the lake...if you recall, this was the last place I took her before driving the long road up north to give her away on the last day. This was also the place where in the frenzied running amuck and playing on the grass fields, I lost the keys to my car...!!!

Next up was Fremantle for lunch and desserts with my cousin Cherilyn who was in town...Akela loved the attention she got, except for maybe that of these three extremely loud and high-pitched school gals - did I mention they had a rather pungently cheap deodorant on too? :p But yeah, everyone who walked past gave her pats and cuddles.

Leighton Beach for a sunset stroll/walkabout was our last stop before taking her back to her new home...she left lotsa imprints on the beach...and deepened those already left on my heart.

PS: Uploaded a whole album of other photos from the two days I spent with her [Click Here]

From an internet kiosk at Brisbane Transfer Centre

2007-07-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

So I've just paid $2 for 20minutes on this kiosk...largely because I had to do some urgent work for a client. That's done now and I have 4mins remaining so i thuoght I might as well drop a note here, afterall...it really has been awhile!

My blog is kinda like a month behind in actual time, with a coupla more perth entries to go regarding Akela and the KEYpers cell retreat, followed by 12 days on a Coastal North-west road trip all the way to Exmouth and back...and then a week in Sydney, a day in Coffs Harbour and 2 days at Byron Bay followed by this weekend spent in Brisbane...so yeap at least you know that's what you're missing out on! :op

I'll catch up eventually...I have to!! Coz my travels are about to end!!! In just 8 days I will arrive in Singapore and that would be the end of my round-the-world galavanting that you've all joined me on in the last 7+ months! Don't fret or sigh though....I will departing the very next day for a family holiday and so there's more!!

I am well and all is well...definitely amped about heading home and looking forward to saving the world!! :p

Family & Friends in Perth

2007-07-13T18:23:00.000-07:00

Woohoo!! Back in Oz!! Apart from the really swollen and throbbing arm, it was an awesome feeling to come through customs in Perth and step out into a familiar airport arrival hall; that and the fact that my flight had brought me home so quickly that I'd arrive half an hour before my designated transport arrived. haha! But arrive she did, with happy smiles but irritation at my lack of hearing and thus answering her phonecalls. Because I'm about month behind in blogs, instead of detailing what I've done day by day, I reckon it's best to bring you the highlights of the three weeks I spent in Perth...largely spent catching up with family and friends between 6-27 June.

Amanda (Part 1 of many) - Picked me up, let me pick our dinner venue and then welcomed me into her home...who can find a better friend? :) But here's the dealbreaker...at about midnight, despite having a massive paper to write and exams to study for, because my arm is starting to go numb and the swelling starts travelling up my arm, she takes me to the hospital where we spend in excess of 4hrs waiting for med students to tell me that my bite could be "either poisoning or infection" - which I already knew!!! I should state that I went there with the sole intention of finding out which it was - the first being a greater concern obviously. Anyway, 4 hours two jabs and a two-week dose of antibiotics later, they said that if I was nauseous the next day and had a fever, it would say it's poisoning. Bah. While we were there though, Amanda had her first go at being in my shoes... hahahha!

Tan family in town - That's Uncle Jeff, Aunty Linda, and their two boys, Ryan and Jerrold. They'd been in for a week already, spent most of it down south at North Dandalup and Margaret River and headed up to bring mum back to me (my mum arrived in Perth with them and had been travelling with them). So they came back up on the 7th but I was feeling pretty sick from meds and the bite and stuff so after lunch at Coco's in South Perth, we went home to rest with the intention of meeting for dinner later at about 7:30, but I got progressively more nauseous and chucked one big spew before retiring for the night at 7pm - obviously dinner was off.

I felt better the next day though, and so together with mum and aaron...I took the boys to lunch at Little Creatures in Fremantle where we had a feast of pizzas, chilli mussels, proscuitto wrapped prawns, frites and some other stuff. The boys had their taste of the lil creatures Rogers before we headed off for gelato and buosino at Amano - where Jerrold squashes a maggot-carrying fly. Their family goes out to dinner that evening and when they return we take them to the airport to say byeeee.

Mumfret (aka mummy dearest, mom, ma) - yay! hadn't seen my mum for 6mths now, pretty much since I hit the road in december, so it was cool to see her again (although our plans to hang out and do some mother-daughter travel were ruined by some peeps). I had to tow her to a coupla meetings with me in the early days but in any case, we had fun hitting my favourite hangouts, restaurants and cafes in various parts of Perth, plus beaches at Freo, Cottesloe, Trigg and she also did alot of shopping at Harbourtown, Westfield Innaloo and at Garden City too. What can I say? That's my mummy!

The Lee Family (that's Uncle Nick, Aunty Miranda, Denise, Adele and Jordan) - while mum was here we drove up to see the family that I'd known since the beginning of my time in Perth and have had the privilege of getting to know and be a part of too! Though they cook a mean feast at home, we opted to head out to Hillary's for dinner instead. It's amazing but it really did seem like all three kids had grown SO MUCH in the 6 months I'd been away...we shared a huge seafood platter amongst the four of us and could hardly finish it!!

The de Mello's (Uncle Bas, Aunty Yvonne, Justin and Shane) - another northern hike but definitely worth it, awesome to go catch up with a family that's always held its doors open to me and more importantly had their arms and hearts open to me whenever I needed a safe place. Justin and Shane were studying for exams then...plus shane was sick in bed...bleah, so Uncle Bas, Aunty Yvonne, Mumfret and I went for lunch in the city at Matsuri - and I conclude their food really is crap and defo not worth the money you pay for it! But it was great company anyway so...no complains there! :)

Kirsty - My sister, friend, chick, and what not....she's so many things to me but really this one is just a princess and a gem! We hadn't spoken much whilst I'd been on the road but we had so much to catch up on and that made it that much more special I guess. We spent a whole evening catching up at Oriels over several coffees, teas and cakes and then went on to the Llama Bar and after we just had to leave, arranged to hang out again the coming weekend - which proved to be a retreat of sorts for the both of us with chill out chats and sharing of hearts, visits to two churches, breaking of bread (nutella slice) around a fridge - that later developed as the power source for the hen and chicks bunch - shall expound on this later.

Justin - Ex-colleague and friend whilst on the road, it was lovely to catch up and amazingly indulgent too coz I got treated to what I have to say must be the best meal I've had in a loooooong time at Zafferano's! At his insistence (and my great desire obviously), we did the full three course.....I had an entree of calamari, seafood paella for my main and an apple and rhubarb crumble for dessert. We yakked for hours, doing a full catch up of the last 6 months and discussing all sorts of funny crazy things (like not dating and just marrying the next person who asks me to) and suddenly it was too late and we had to go - but not before we drove through the tunnel under mounts bay road that I never even knew existed!! :p

Cheryl - she was languishing in 9-subject exams when I arrived so i waited the exam period out before we hung out and did stuff. Although I did make the occasional visit to bring smiles and coffee (and "retard" retorts!)....after the exam ordeal was over though, I spent a night at her place and went for the most horrendous, lung-killing, muscle-pulling run at ever-too-early in the morning. But...it was all good after when we had yummy sandwiches and cake at 130 in Leederville.

Dawn - she's from singas but been in Sydney studying for awhile now, decided to travel around aust (like what I'm doing now) before heading home and Perth was her last stop. We were in secondary school together in Perth then lost contact for a coupla years and somehow found each other again just before she was heading to Sydney (I was already in Perth then)...so yeah same country, all the more reason to stay in touch I guess!

Amanda (2 of many more to come) - Had a pretty crazy late afternoon colouring her hair, which was a two-step process that involved first an overall colour and then a streaking/bleaching highlighting bit. And you need to know that this came after waiting for her to clear all her assignments and exams followed by pretty intensive days and nights of talking and catching up in very great detail. :)

Tanglets - Michelle, Yvonne and Rachael...three of the most wonderful, exuberant and beautiful ladies in Perth. I had dinner at their house and we watched crazy videos and laughed lots and lots and eventually settled into bed for the night - but not before taking funny photos with mad animals AND pulling down the curtain, the rod it was supported by, knocking down a rather large mirror, and everything else on the top of a shelf, including a large glass of water all over Rae's bedroom slippers...yeap, that's me. But they still love me...aren't they darlings?

Cherilyn - My cousin was in town for a night...we caught up for lunch at little creatures, coffee somewhere else in freo (I had akela with me all day that day...will write about that later) and eventually after a looooong drive up to where Akela lives now, we ended up back in Northbridge for dinner at Kim Chee House and then she had to head back to the hotel to pack up and prep up for her flight out.

I guess this is a tribute to a phenomenal family - did I mention Amanda's family? - and to fantastic friends...people who are a part of who I am today and continue to shape who I will be tomorrow with their love, acceptance, encouragement and support. Three cheers to family and friends - everyone say HOORAY!

Fiji's Coral Coast

2007-07-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

2/6 (Sat) - From the airport I hopped onto a local bus that would take me to Korolevu, a town on the southern coast of Viti Levu. Nadi is on the western coast of Viti Levu, which is Fiji's main and largest island, so it was about a 3hr bus ride where we passed through central Nadi and made a quick stop at the bus station (where I got the photo of the funny ice cream man) to drop off and pick up more passengers before continuing on down what is known as Coral Coast. That the bus was full of Indians surprised me...but this was only the beginning of my forray into the world of Fijian populace...it ends somewhat with my understanding of the multiple coups Fiji has experienced since 1997.

I'd tried to book a bed at nearby hostels but none had vacancies so I ended up booking myself into Tambua Sands Beach Resort for a night. The bus dropped me off right outside the entrance and I was pleasantly surprised by the location of the resort; furthermore, I was given a beach-front bure (Fijian type hut) which had a patio where I could sit in and take in the views and inhale salty sea air. The bure had a queen-sized bed and two singles so I guess it's normally meant for families, the resort also had a funny shaped pool that was very welcoming and beckoning. There wasn't anything to do closeby so spent the entire afternoon and most of the evening streatched out on the beach reading. It started raining after sunset and it poured down for the whole night.

3/6 (Sun) - I contemplated shifting my flight out of Fiji forward because of the crappy rainy weather but after ringing the dive shop in Beqa (pronounched mbeng-ah) I was assured that the dive continued even in rainy weather and more importantly, that visibility was unlikely to be affected by the rain and wind, and so I packed up and checked out and headed for the side of the road to wait for a passing bus that would take me to Pacific Harbour (about an hour away). I was dropped off at the Arts Village there and knowing that the hostel I had booked was attached to it, I kindda ambled around looking out for it and found it behind a pond and at the end of a funky-looking wooden bridge across the pond.

I was housed in a 24-bed dorm (the largest I'd encountered thus far on my trip) with only one other person in it - and we had been allocated beds on opposite ends of the dorm...the place was kindda cool, with a lounge area that had an air-hockey table, tv, dvd player and even a massage chair of sorts! Its pool comes out tops on the "features" list though, with a rather odd-looking "face" structure at one end of it with a slide from the side and the whole pool area covered with fine soft sand...or actually the jacuzzi tucked away in the back behind the pool bar might come close too! That evening I caught up on my LA blogging and photo sorting in the lounge area while Roxana (the other girl in the dorm) hired out and watched Pink Panther and we chatted a little about destinations we've been to and upcoming round-australia travels.

4/6 (Mon) - Shark diving!! Finally!! I'd been so amped about it since I started planning the trip to Fiji coz I'd heard on numerous occasions that this was the best shark dive location in the world! I got picked up from the front of tsulu at 8am and met the rest of the people I'd be diving with on the trip as they got picked up from various locations. About 15minutes into the drive I realised I hadn't brought my dive card and just as I was wondering what to do and chastising myself at the inconvenience I'd cause to the group, the guy beside me said to the driver that he had to go back coz he'd forgotten his card....I laughed - comic relief, and the driver told us we might not need it (coz details could be looked up online).

We got to the dive shop, paid for our dives and signed off indemnities then got kitted up and headed for the boat where we were introduced to "papa", our divemaster for the day. He quickly launched into giving us the dive profile and alot of information about the sharks we'd be diving with as well as the processes involved with the feeding and diving we'd be involved in that morning. I learnt a fair bit from the "lecture", such as the fact that the sharks have poor vision (did you know that???) and also that some sharks could consume 150kg of fish at one go...I think this was the tiger shark.

When we arrived at the top of Shark Reef, the crew began chucking some of the fish they'd brought over the side and it was pretty crazy watching the feeding frenzy begin and all the giant trevally and sharks jumping and snapping at the surface to grab chunks of the fish - and at the point you begin to wonder "do i really want to be jumping in there?" But I did anyway and had the two most rewarding dives ever! On the first dive we descend first to 30m and sit amazed whilst watching all these giant trevally and other huge fishes (about 1-3m long) swim all around us in a huge frenzy. We also spot several BIG 3-4m bull sharks circling and after about 20minutes we make our way up to about 17m where they begin to feed the sharks...at this depth we see about 5 different types of reef sharks that are smaller, about 1-2m and after this make our ascent to rest on the boat for an hour before the second dive.

The specific goal of the second dive is to feed the bull sharks and it's such an unreal experience, to see these huge creatures that we fear so much within an arm's length and especially seeing their jaws pull wide open and clamp down on chunks of fish being fed to them at the same distance (you can see their rows of teeth!!!) is just such a rush. Seeing them down there has definitely given me a newfound awe of their magnificence and also painted them in a rather funny light...where while I've always thought them to be insanely fast, accurate killing machines, I now actually see them as dumb-looking (blunt noses held back in the palm of the feeder's hand while they chuck fish into their mouths) in a cute way and I almost feel sorry for them coz they look clumsy (I know they are not, but they look that way coz they are so huge!!)

After the dive Niko (the guy who'd forgotten his padi card as well) and Tero who are both from Finland, grabbed their bags from where they'd been accomodated and leave em at the huge dorm at Tsulu and we have pizza for lunch at tha arts village. Eventually they work out that they can't get to where they want to go by that night and so they opt to stay a night at tsulu and leave the following morning so we end up watching Final Destination 3 in the lounge before heading off to bed that night.

5/6 (Tues) - I wake bright and early to pack all my stuff and take it down to reception and arrange with them to leave my stuff there while I went out for my whitewater kayaking daytrip. While waiting for the arranged transport, I sat down on a cane/rattan woven chair to wait and two minutes later feel like my arm was being stung; I look down at it and see three or four redspots and dismissing it as mosquito or ant bites, I just put some anti-hestamine cream on it but about 30 seconds later I realise it must be more than just a normal bite because the whole area had swollen and become a red angry lump! I tell the girl at the counter to ask if perhaps there was a known spider or something that caused such reactions and they ended up lifting the chair and banging it and etc to look for the culprit that had found me but they found nothing. I didn't think anything could be done anyway and so when the guy arrived to pick me up I thought I'd just go and see what happened...by then (20mins later) it did look like it was starting to subside.

A short 10 minute drive takes us to the office of Fiji Rivers (the people who were conducting this whitewater kayaking thimajiggy) where we pay up, get given a windbreakerand a dry bag and a short briefing that pointed out on a map the places where we'd be heading that day. We get into a 4WD bus and 2 hours later we hop out with numb bums into the village of Nakavika in the Namosi Highlands where we were handed a sulu (sarong) to cover up our knees with before walking through the village. Fact: did you know that the Namosi Province was the last one in Fiji that stopped cannibalism? (I didn't even know they practiced it..hhahaha!)

We walk straight to the Village Chief's house, passing some kava being dried under aluminium sheets, a litter of piglets, a hen and her chicks as well as many happy children from the village kindergarten. At the chief's house, our guide prepares some kava for the sevu sevu (a traditional ceremony where permission is sought from the chief for entering the village and its grounds as well as for the use of the river). Because it's deemed uncourteous if we don't each drink a bowl, everyone has to and we're taught the terms of "low tide", "high tide" and "monsoon" to determine how much we get served. So, I asked for "low tide" and had my first taste of kava - not entirely impressed. One of the group aptly described it as..."looks like mud, tastes like mud"...haha! What was interesting though was that my tongue went numb almost immediately and the guide explained that it was a "relaxing drink" and that as you drink more bowls, more and more of your muscles kindda go to sleep. (I wondered why we were drinking kava before we went kayaking???!!! haha!)

From there it was a short drive to where we'd begin a walk down to the riverbed where our inflatable kayaks waited...the first 30minutes were probably the most exhilirating with the most rapids to navigate through - i capsized and floated downstream twice before working out the difference in controlling the inflatable craft as opposed to a normal kayak (wasn't so bad compared to the others..haha!) We continued for about an hour before stopping at a flat part of the river where it was really peaceful, we were in a gorge and there was a small waterfall cascading down a cliff face right across where we'd pulled in for lunch.

After another hour of paddling, we pull in somewhere else an go on abit of a trek to a really large waterfall; tonnes of water cascades off a rocky cliff face and when we're about 50m away we're already getting covered in its spray. We make our way across slipper rocks and wade across the "river" and eventually find ourselves right beneath the thundering waters (not really beneath it...it'd be too painful!) Just another half an hour's paddling downstream and we transfer into a motorised longboat and continue downstream for about 45minutes then get picked up by the bus and head back to Pacific Harbour.

I get back and realise my arm is pretty sore from the bite/sting earlier that morning but quickly shower, change and repack my bags at tsulu then head out to the side of the main road to try and catch a bus back to Nadi for my 6am flight the next morning. However, two ladies I start chatting to while waiting wave down a taxi and manage to work out a deal for me so I get to cab all the way to Nadi Airport for a mere $15 (only $3 more than a bus which would've been full of locals and taken over an hour longer)! On the way, I realise my arm is really quite swollen and painful but coz I'm wearing a jumper I couldn't actually see what it was like. I grab a shepherd's pie and an 'el presidente' (fancy sounding double espresso) from the "Republic of Capuccino" coz I'm in for a looong night.

I grab my big backpack from left luggage then pretty much look like I'm camping on two rows of seats in the waiting area of the airport while I open up everything and start deciding what to bring back and what to chuck; which item needs to be checked in and what can be taken onboard & more importantly, what entertainment I need with me on the 4hr long flight, 3hr wait at Auckland airport and lastly, the 7hr flight that'll take me back to Perth.

And in the midst of the packing I made two distress calls to my sis to check with her mum-on-law as to whether there was anything I could do about my increasingly swollen, painful and throbbing arm that was so so hot it was all red! Apart from downing anti-histamine pills and trying to compress it with a cold, wet tourniquet, not much...but it was a long and painful night.

6/6 (Wed) - Morning arrives and my bags are all packed up and I've put on my "freedom junkies" shoes that are awesome and I have to give credit to all the Los Angeles Masters Commission incredibly talented students for em. I fall asleep sitting in the time between checking in and actually being able to board the plane and lose my bottle of water in that process. I also meet a brazillian dude named Conrado whom I end up being seated beside for the flight and we have a whole load of laughs and realise that we arrived in Fiji on the same flight from LA a week ago (talk about small world!).

Conrado was a real sweetie, coz having seen how my arm was so swollen and even felt the heat of it through my jumper, he volunteered to chill with me at the airport and look for a doctor or pharmacy once we'd cleared customs etc. There was no doctor though, so I just purchased an anti-bacterial cream and that had to make do for abother 8hrs til I arrived in Perth. My flight to Perth left Auckland late but arrived in Perth about half an hour earlier than planned and I cleared customs real quick too so just sat around waiting for awhile whilst Amanda made her way to the airport. It was so sweet just to take in the sweet, clean, crisp and fresh air of Perth - amazing feeling of being home.

Mana Beach Island, Fiji

2007-06-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

30/5 (Wed) - Arriving at the airport in Nadi (pronounced nan-di) at about 5:30am, the sky was still dark as I made my way towards the "left luggage" counter and spent about an hour outside it unpacking an repacking my bags so that I'd only have to take my little blue bag with me and could leave behind my backpack as well as a a board I'd bought for my brother in LA. By the time I'd sorted all that out (it included a trip back to the departures building to get local fijian currency out of the atm), about an hour and a half had passed and I was greeted by bright blue skies outside the airport.

I purchased a domestic flight out to Mana Beach Island, one of the islands within the Mamanucas Group just west of Nadi, and settled in a seat with a Z-bar to chew on whilst I journaled and went through the music I had on my iPod...waiting for an hour to pass so I could board the plane. I thought I'd seen the smallest passenger plane in Costa Rica....this one was smaller. Operated by Pacific Sun, the plane was an 8-seater but really if it was going to be comfortable (take the word with a pinch of salt here), it should really only be taking 4. Anyway, the flight was a short 15 minutes and we flew over amazingly clear blue waters dotted everywhere with little islands and some remained just slightly below the waters surface..really quite amazing!

We pulled into an air strip and shortly after landing I was greeted by two guys...one was Soka and I can't remember the other guy's name. They put my bag into a wheelbarrow and said we would take a short 10minute walk to the hostel...on the way there we walked past the Mana Beach Resort which sprawled all across the beachfront and the boys told me that if we weren't guests tehre then we weren't allowed to even step into the resort grounds or use its toilets, restaurants, deck chairs, and even its dive shop!

Anyway...Mereani's (the hostel) is pretty uncrowded and we are pretty much right on the beach and I get my own room with meals provided, nothing to complain about at all really! I head out to try and organise my dives right away and managed to (eventually) book a dive that afternoon...so with several hours to kill, I purchase a highly expensive disposable underwater camera and also take some shots round the jetty at the beach. Of note is this pipe that carries water from somewhere within the resort and sprays it out under the jetty.

The first dive was meant to be at Supermarkets - a dive site known for its shark sightings...however, the swell was too big and that would've meant a crap dive so the divemaster said we'd dive somewhere else instead. We ended up at North Reef where we did a 38minute diving with maximum depth recorded at 19 meters...visibility was poor and a strong surge made it a rather unpleasant dive. We did see a school of barracudas though, and that was pretty cool and almost made up for it :) Got back in for dinner at the hostel and got to know the other guests as well as the crew a lil bit better and while they all ended up drinking heaps of kava that night, I was jet lagged and wanted to get some solid sleep in before more diving the following day.

31/5 (Thurs) - Bright and early I was up and out at the dive shop getting ready for the dive at Supermarket...I was pretty amped for sharks this time! The sea looked a little less "phat" and we hoped that there would be less surge and undercurrents this time...on this dive James (a guy form NZ) was doing his open water so he had his own instructor with him and so just me and John (divemaster) dropped down at the furthest part of the reef and pretty much exactly where we descended, we saw a bull shark circling and it was HUGE...it was pretty awesome too. But visibility too wasn't that great and as we swam on we saw a coupla other small sharks in the distance as well as some giant clams, moray eels and etc. It was a 42minute dive with maximum depth recorded at 20metres....I opted not to do another dive because with visibility as low as 5m at times, I didn't think it worth paying to see not much. I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the local village and subsequently lounging around reading and journaling at a secluded beach about 20mins walk west of the hostel.

1/6 (Fri) - After brekkie at the hostel, I set off for Sunset Beach where I was told I'd find good snorkelling and swimming. It was a warm and uncomfortable walk but when I got there, it was as though I'd found my own slice of paradise. White sand beaches with crystal clear waters....and....not a soul in sight! The entire beach was mine for the day, I never saw a single soul while I swam, snorkelled, dried out, swam some more, shriveled in the sun, and swam some more...you get the idea. :D

The day past quickly and by the time I headed back for my room, it was dinner time and the crew insisted that I'd have to join them for kava and a fire-dance show that evening. So I showered, got dressed, had dinner and prepared to go...however, while waiting I went back to the room and eventually fell asleep (i blame it on the hearty dinner they cooked up) - dress, shoes and all!

2/6 (Sat) Alas, the time had come to leave my lovely island...I had brekkie, packed up and dragged my little blue bag to the airstrip and chatted with a couple from New Zealand who'd spent a week at the resort and had been aghast to find out that the prices they'd paid for their drinks were double what non-resort residents would've paid in shops, restaurants and bars around the village. Then it was back into the mini 8-seater planes and a short 15min flight to Nadi Airport.

Done & Done

2007-06-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

Had a heavenly week in Fiji then too many long flights back to Perth - so yes, I'm back home (although I will be going home to Singapore at some point too)...which brings us back to, am I home? or am I away?

Anyway.

I'm still playing catch up with my blog...but at least all my LA entries are up now and all the albums are in the photo gallery too so you definitely need to check them out, I think there are some 8 or 9 albums from LA.

Here's a funny vid from Angelus Temple for you to check out while I sort out Fijian photos and get my fingers flying across the keyboard with bula, vineka, kava and other funny fiji adventures...

My last 24hrs in LA

2007-06-10T01:38:00.000-07:00

Down to my last 24...and I couldn't have better picked the company I was with! Arranging to catch up with Jade and Angel back at Angel's pad later, Ryan, Leanna, Tim and I head first to Westwood so I can get my last Diddy Riese fix (which was somewhat disappointing coz it was so late and they'd run out of the cookie flavours that I normally had...but the ice cream was still great and the company more than made up for it - what with Tim's straw-flower and all! From there we head to Santa Monica Pier and the first thing we see is row upon row of crosses on the sand...and I remember it's Memorial day on the 28th of May. There were crosses, candles and several boards with statistics of fatalities in the Iraq war (most deaths occurring from non-combat situations) and several filled with photos of those who'd lost their lives in the war.

We walk further down the pier and enter Pacific Park..it's like a fair that's always there, with its own ferris wheel, mini roller coaster and lots of stalls with a variety of games to be played and giant plush toys to be won...and the flavour for them at this point in time is Shrek...so there's Shreks, donkeys and baby ogres hanging from every stall! We amble around for a little and try to get one of those crushed and embossed pennies but the machine was out of service and they were locking the gates and closing stalls so we got the hint and headed out...stopping to grab a hot churro for Jade and also to snap a photo outside the restaurant Bubba Gump - where you can put your feet into Forrest Gump's shoes whilst sitting on a bench and snap a photo...I took the photo...without me. :D

We were gonna try and catch a midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 but apparantly they didn't have such late shows...even on a long weekend! So Jade lovingly volunteered to make dessert at Angel's place so while she and Angel went to get the ingredients, the four of us headed for their place in two cars; both bgot lost. I was in Tim's car...and we managed to exit too early and then find ourself staring at an incredibly large mormon temple and after several calls to Angel, we manage to find our way there with Jade already busy in the kitchen. Tim helps with peeling apples and we find he's actually quite skilled for the job, pulling off looooooong coils which we take in turn to eat up!

Jade serves up some chicken pasta while she puts the apple crumble into the oven...it was so good I had seconds! haha! And then at 3am, the apple crumble comes out of the oven looking oh-so-tasty! It's so funny coz the last time I saw Jade, we were in Perth at her party a year ago and she made an apple crumble at 1:30am and I thought she was mad....hahaha! Anyway, we eat up and yak a little longer till everyone starts passing out and at about 4am, Ryan takes Leanna, Brittney and I back to the DC while Jade crashes at Angel's for the night. (PS: check out the spelling on that pot on the stove!)

I go to sleep at about 5am and wake at 10:30am and start packing...I was supposed to lunch with Laura and we agreed to do it at 12:30...but she realises some of the other MC gals have organised a surprise for her (belated birthday surprise which we later find out is a manicure and pedicure) so we swop stuff around and Jade and I head to Burbank to go to Costco so I can get a box of Reese's and have lunch at the same time. Sadly, Costco was closed and we almost didn't make it to Chipotle but we did and the food was great - I didn't have my camera on me!! haha! So anyway, we get back to DC and I finish up packing and we head to the Alcove for a bite, Laura has a very big bite...of her Ham and Cheese sandwich...and we share two chocolate cakes between us...hahaha! It's a long story that one.

While we chat away, Jade nips off to get some groceries coz she's cooking dinner at Michael's place that evening...it's a mini farewell of sorts coz he's moving out of the dream center to Orange County. So anyway...from there we head back to the Dream Center to pick up my bags, finish off writing out my statement for witnessing the car incident so I can sign it and have it verified by someone so it can be used in Jade's court trial, and then more groceries at Vons and then we're off to his place. Jade whips up a french something chicken with rice (she is just the awesomest cook ever!!) while I put new music onto my ipod (Brady decided to gift me in kind for the website with a bunch of CDs coz we didn't get to buy any!).

From Michael's place, Angel, Jade and I zip off to the airport where Ryan and Leanna were already waiting for us and after I check my bags in, we all go to the main terminal where there are some coffee places and chill for about an hour taking numerous photos (they're below) and sorta saying goodbye I guess....Ryan's our timekeeper and he tells us when it's time to go so I get dropped back at the Air Newzealand Terminal and then suddenly, I'm on my own...even on the plane I score a whole row to myself (Yes!!!) and after eating my plane food, I go to ZzzzZZZzzZZ all the way till they serve brekkie 2 hrs before we arrive in Nadi, Fiji.

LA Wk3 : 21 - 27 May

2007-06-08T07:19:00.000-07:00

Monday (21/5) - Finally...a day of rest has appeared in the midst of the busy schedule. We were meant to head to the beach but it was all grey and cold so we logically decided not to. Instead, we spend the morning first at the Inglewood Courts, putting up bail (fine) of $630 for the two infractions the officer charged Jade with last monday and booking in a court trial on the 12th of June - to contest the charges obviously. And then we head on to the Air Newzealand office nearby and get my remaining flights from LA to Nadi (Fiji) and Nadi to Auckland and then on to Perth re-issued. After being greeted by an empty reception area where you're supposed to read instructions and punch buttons to reach someone, it was sorted easily enough and we head back to the DC.

At about 3pm, we make it to Melanie's place and find they're not in...and as we head out to the shops to get scone ingredients, they drive up and so we all go to the supermarket together. Eventually, we get back and Jade's making yummy scones while I'm trying not to blow my nose off while trying to make bookings for my flights, dives and accomodation in Fiji the following week (how organised am I doing it a week in advance?? haha!!) Anyway...the scones come out of the oven and the whole apartment is filled with the aroma of freshly baked scones...yum yum! I have to say...thumbs up to Jade for whipping up without even having a recipe to look at! Jade books tickets to the dodgers game that night then I leave with her to go back to the DC for a quick workout at the gym before the game.

Angel, Tim and Ryan meet us back at the DC and we drive to the game together...and they both make fun of my asian-trigger-happy ways. Tsk tsk! Angel, Jade and I took our "necessary" photo in front of the dodgers sign and we head inside to find our seats. Soonafter, Tim launches into very detailed explanations of how the game works, and give me the basics of how Balls, Strikes and Outs are counted and I even grasped the concept of an "inning"!! haha! I was just started to get it when Melanie and Leanna arrived and I go on a "tour" of the stadium with Melanie as we walk around looking for "real" and by that she means healthy food. She settles for a salad and I grab a horrible dried out churro (oh well) and head back to our seats to watch the game.

Sometime later I cross a coupla seats to go sit with Leanna and Melanie and chat for abit...and I think before that there was some song they sang..like a cheer song, and the words were on the scoreboard and everyone got up and started singing (i have video evidence...hahah!). Oh and I haven't mentioned that across from where we sat, there was a sign up in the hills saying "THINK BLUE" imitating the HOLLYWOOD sign in the hills...but blue referring to the dodgers obviously. And I decide that Ryan should convert and be Ryammed bin Purblueorange and he converts me into some mad-looking nazi warlordess...and yes, we're still friends.

Tuesday (22/5) - Again, no photos of what happened in the day, so that means whatever we were doing, we were very busy at it. That night though, was the monthly Women's Ministry meeting at Angelus Temple and Gina Hanley spoke on "great fakes"...there was a skit I didn't quite get, a french chef (not really) educating us on making preparing a cheese platter and I guess the highlight of the night would (sadly) be when she said (probably in error) that "women need to BE the holy spirit"...which became a punch line for the rest of the night. After service Angel, Jade, Sarah and I went to a nearby little vietnamese place...by then my cold was so bad I couldn't taste a single thing, but because it was so crowded, I assume it was good chow.

We stop by at the supermarket on the way back and pick up a cake for Laura...it was her birthday the following day so we were gonna do a surprise cake-cutting at midnight. It was a great success coz she had actually gone to sleep already (despite the noise Angel, Jade and I were making yakking away) and then when we did eventually cut the cake Lashonda (not sure how that's spelt) joined us too and freaked us all out coz she had ringworm!!! But we still love her! :p We ended up yakking till like 3am and so Angel slept over...on my mattress...hahah!

Wednesday (23/5) - Jade and I spend the morning running errands in preparation of this Saturday's HUGE MC service and amongst some of the things we had to get, we stopped in at chinatown to pick up some bags and so we got lunch from Sam Woo's BBQ (I had beef brisket and shrimp wanton noodle...hehe) We "da pao-ed" coz we didn't have time and so we get back and Angel joins us there and she and Jade attack their Duck + Charsiew rice while I contend with the noodles until Chris drives by in the truck beeping his horn, signalling it was time for Angel and I to go.

We were volunteering with Under The Bridge that afternoon...a ministry that goes out to skid row with hot food to feed the homeless people. It was pretty sad...I'd never seen that many homeless people before in my life, and to see them all together in one place was somewhat overwhelming for a moment and then Chris told Angel and I to just go mingle and speak with the people so that's what we did. There were alot of people waiting in line for the food so that's where we started. I spoke to a filipino lady who said she came out there for meals whenever she was having troubles with her husband at home, and then later on as people were getting their food we just sat with them as they ate. Some wanted to talk, some didnt. Some cried, some laughted...so many faces, so many people....so many needs. The last lady I spoke to said to call her "dreds" coz of the dreadlocks she had....she just come to Los Angeles on a bus a week ago...from the Bronx in New York. We chatted some and she asked me to pray for her..and then we chatted some more and she asked when Christ was gonna preach (she pointed to him, coz she didn't know his name)..and she said that she wanted to hear him speak coz last week when she'd been sleeping out on the streets, she saw him get arrested and said that because he gets treated the same way they do and still comes back out to love em and feed them, he was real, and what he would have to say would be good stuff.

I get back to the DC exhausted...not sure if it's physical, mental or emotional...but I feel drained. Jade and Angel are planning to go to the United show at the LA forum that night, but I'd arranged to go out to Dream St Skid Row that evening with Ryan and Leanna so I wasn't going. While we were sitting in the room discussing them getting tickets, Brady rang and Jade asks him to come down and hang out then go to the United thinggy...and while he's on the way, Jade tells us he's just moved from Kansas City and she and Chad had met him like two months ago or something when he came to check LA out. Anyway, so he arrives and we meet him...later on we all go down to the cafe to talk and what eventuates is a sharing of hearts, skills, interests etc and before I know it, we've agreed to meet again sometime in the week to have a look at a website for a ministry him and Theresa are starting.

At 6:30pm, Ryan, Leanna and I meet up with Mickey and a group from Oklahoma to go out to Skid Row...this time we're handing out bags of chips (later we realise they are mixed berry flavoured chips...not potato chips!! haha!) and just there to invite them to church if they want and let them know about discipleship, food chapel and various DC ministries that could help them out if they need it. The whole place looks different at night compared to what I'd just seen in the day...I learn from asking Mickey a whole load of questions that it's a crime to be homeless...so to speak...and so police come and try to give them a hard time and move em elsewhere or take them to prison and stuff like that. Kindda sad huh.

We get back to the DC at 9:30 and I hadn't had dinner yet so Leanna insists that I need to go somewhere and eat (how sweet!) and eventually we decide to go to "denny's!!!!" coz when I was asking what was open, Ryan suggested it and Lenana and I let out the same exclamation as though we had shared fond memories of the place, when the fact of the matter really is that I hadn't been to Denny's since the one at Holland Village in Singapore closed down eons ago! I got excited thinking about corn beef hash...but when we got there, they didn't have it on their menu. Instead, they had some specials so I had a grand slam breakfast that consisted of hash, eggs, bacon and sausages...PLUS 3 large buttermilk pancakes...hahah!

No I didn't finish it all! What was amazing though, was that they had refilable flavoured coffees and hot chocs...and I ordered a hot choc while ryan and leanna had the coffees, and because they couldn't decide which flavour to get, the waitress brought a fourth coffee just for us to try...and whenever we refilled, the fourth glass got refilled too!! It got even better! When we went to pay, the waitress only charged us for one coffee...when in reality we'd had like maybe 12 different coffees and hot chocs between the three of us! In fact the coffees were so good we had to take a pic with the froth on our lips...hahha!

Thursday (24/5) - Bright and early at 7:15am, Angel and I head out to the black top to join the food truck...it turns out we were a little too early and it was about 7:45am when we started loading up the truck with fresh and canned produce and about 8am by the time we leave. We meet Alfred who's the driver, Jose who decides how much food to take & etc and Patricia, who's a 3mth volunteer from the UK. We visit two sites that morning in the vicinity of K-town...and at each site we get out, bag the food into invidivual bags as the line is formed and their names are taken and when all the food is ready, the line starts moving and we hand out a bag at a time.

We go to Justin's office and I somehow landed myself the task of entering all the Red Eye newcomers details into the excel database and so I do that for awhile while Angel highlights all the relevant numbers in over 90 pages of his mobile bill for the month. Don't you think God must love him so much...to send him two helpers in one day. Bleah....! Anyway, from there we decide to have dinner at the DC Diner (to save money!!) then go to Angelus for service...and Joy Enriquez was performing that night...in her crazy high heels.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was opening that night and Chad, Anthony and some of the other guys were dressed up for the occasion and had Jade do makeup for them. As for us, we went to Hollywood Gelato where Brady joined us for a short while before we headed back coz Jade had to sort out the shoes for Saturday. We hadn't seen Nancy in two days coz I'd been out doing the volunteer stuff and while at service that evening, I'd felt to ring her and so I did but she didn't pickup...but when we got back to the DC and Angel and I had just changed into sleep gear, Nancy sent me a text saying she was fighting with her mum who was kicking her out and that she was crying and all...so we got our clothes back on to go to her place and went looking for Jade who decided she'd come with us as well...and Brady came along too, just coz...and that night, Nancy said she wanted Jesus in her life. Yay!

Friday (25/5) - Same deal for the food truck, except Tim joined us today...plus we had watermelons...which were super heavy!!! And cartons of lettuce too! As Angel discovered, I was "freakishly strong" and so we hoisted away and eventually got the truck loaded up and off we went. This morning we went to three sites in the South Central vicinity...the first stop a primary school, the second a russian house and the third a place where it was all men instead of the usual women and children who came to get food and so we packed the food into individual bags inside the truck and just handed them out from the front as they passed by.

When we got back, Brady was already waiting at the cafe - we were going to discuss the website - and so I grabbed my laptop and headed down and had a very productive hour or so discussing what he wanted and then whipping up a layout of sorts. Halfway through we went to see how Nancy was doing ( we were going to bring her in to fill out the application for discipleship)...but she wasn't in. So anyway, we worked on it for awhile till we had a layout Brady was happy with and then I went and packed up some stuff I was gonna mail, to home and as pressies for peeps and then Brady gave me a lift to the Post Office. After that we hit Amoeba Music and Borders in an attempt to find some Christian CDs (I'd heard some music of american worship bands and leaders that I hadn't heard of before and wanted to chem them out) but didn't find many - oh but I bought the new switchfoot album for 5 bucks! We then had Baja Fresh before heading back to the DC where we parted ways with the assurance that I'd work on the site overnight and have it done by the next day.

So I was going to spend the evening at the DC working on the site but all the Masters Commission students were going to the temple for rehearsal and Jade said that they could use another pair of eyes so I went as well and did some work while watching them rehearse. After watching them run it through twice, Angel rang and said some of them were going for ice-cream (I thought we were going ice-skating...) and so after numerous calls and etc, Alicia dropped me back at the DC, I grabbed a jumper then went over to Justin's office to continue working on his database but Angel arrived soon after and Justin had me trying to fix his outgoing mail server problem and so we left it for later, grabbed Joel from down the hallway then head to Jake and Sarah's new house and wait for Ryan to arrive with Leanna.

We get a tour of the house and I watch Jake and Joel play basketball on the XBox on their giant TV while waiting and eventually they arrive and we drive to Pasa Dena and I finally get to try 21 Choices...which I'd heard about from wayyy in the start of my trip. It's basically frozen yoghurt with a whole lot of toppings you can mix in...cold rock style. I get chocolate with almonds, peanut butter cup chocolate topped with fresh strawberries....I have to say, I think it was a fabulous combination! :D And then I'm all night in Justin's office working on the ZA website...and manage to finish it at exactly 9:30am the next morning, just in time for Adopt-a-Block!

Saturday (26/5) - I grab a blueberry bagel and chuck a generous spread of cream cheese on it then head down to the Adopt-a-Block meeting with Angel. She was going to Laura's site at Imperial Court and I was going to Shelly's site to say goodbye to the peeps I'd gotten to know in the last month...how sad! Jade wasn't around coz she was busy with prepping stuff for service that night so I rode with Tim and Faith and got them to make a quick stop at VONS to get some goodies for the kids and I got a cake for Pamela...the girl I'd met the first week from the apartments and she'd said her birthday was on the 31st of May and I'd told her that if I was still around, I'd get he a chocolate cake on my last visit before I left....so yeah I stuck to my word. sadly though, she wasn't there...and I ended up giving the cake to Shelly as a "thank you and goodbye" present. It was sad to say bye to Nancy...she asked me why would God send me to her and then take me away...and also saying by to Grandpa Eic was hard too...Erica was around and she was alot friendlier today, she even let me carry her and she wouldn't let go of my hand and was very smiley.

Later that afternoon, I went back to Justin's office to fix up his email and I lunch with Angel at the DC Diner then we go back to Jade's room to have a look at Angel's resume and stuf. We decide to nap but like the moment I start dozing off, Brady sends a text saying he's arrived and is at the cafe with some images we can use on the site so we spend some time selecting some and working on them. Then it's time to go for SNR...and it's a huge night coz Masters Commission is running the service...they've also put up an art gallery out front with pieces painted by the MC students and also they were selling shoes designed and painted by the students too! The service was hugely successful, with everything running wayyy smoother than I'd witnessed from rehearsal the night before.

Also, it was really special coz Nancy rocked up to service with Jason...there'd been so many times I'd gone to get her and she'd said she'd come later and she never did and this time...my last service here, she made the effort and I was so massively proud of her! Also I think coz it's got to do with how she's got big J in her now it makes it alot easier :) So yeah, after service she's waiting for us to go grab dinner and so we all help Jade take down all the gallery stuff (and i buy a pair of the freedom shoes) while Brady makes mad swings at pieces of paper dressed up as balls and eventually we head for Burger King...but decide to go to taco Bell instead...which is a combined KFC as well. We order our food and then Nancy and Jason go grab a seat while Brady and I wait for the food...and suddenly Jason storms out and Nancy's like all stressed out coz she thinks he's going to go home and thrash her stuff...so we get our food packed into bags and head back to hers and eat there. Jade joins us there for awhile and then she's got other girls in the car and she heads off with them to the Bourgeois Pig while Brady and I go back to the DC coz he's got some updated docs to give me for the site..and then he goes to join em later. I'm up working in Justin's office till 3:30am that night.

Sunday (27/5) - I overslept. haha...okay so I guess you may have gotten the hint when I said that last night's service was my last service in LA....I didn't plan it, nor am I proud of it...but I vaguely remember having a conversation with Jade at like 8:30 when she said she was leaving in 5 minutes and so I said I'd walk down at 9:30...the next time I open my eyes it's 11am already...so yeah. Anyway...a mammoth lunch discussion picks up after service and at the end of it I'm at Pink's for their famous stretch chilli cheese hot dog with Ryan and Leanna...so it wasn't comparable to the Taj Mahal (Leanna made that comparison!!) but it was definitely in the top 5 hot dogs I've had in my life! :p

From there we head to Hollywood & Highland to meet Melanie and get ice cream at Cold Stone - another ice-creamery I'd heard alot about (again, think cold-rock)...all the combinations I wanted weren't available coz they'd run out of chocolate ice cream...bleah! So I have a Mudpie Mojo or something....which is coffee ice cream with peanut butter, pecans, oreos and brownies mixed in. For some reason, mine finishes up much bigger than the others' and everyone decided it was photo-worthy and jumped in to take a photo with it!

We then spent some time actually walking out on Hollywood Blvd and taking photos of the stars on the ground and also the hand and foot prints at the Chinese Theatre (did you even know there was a chinese theatre in Hollywood??? I found this hilarious!!!). They had all these people in various costumes that you could pay to take photos with...there were alot of Johnny Depps out in pirate garb with the movie having just been released. And there was this girl and her brother busking...the girl was incredibly pale and skinny and her brother, well, Ryan and Leanna thought he was the girl's mother...and I thought it was her sister coz she looked younger than a mum...and then we realised she was a he when he started singing.

From there we went to big lots and I got a special pressie for my bro (many thanks to ryan for finding it for me!!) then we head to Patrice's place to meet Justin and pick up some lights and other gear for Red Eye at Chad's place in Bel Air that night. We get there and it's a sweet pad with views of the whole of LA down in the valley beneath....everyone gets busy either setting up the numerous lights we'd brought or prepping the food with melanie and later after all the food's gone, we sing a medley of familiar songs then watch the Invisible Children DVD...which presents the children of Uganda and their current plight while the LRA continues to abduct them for recruitment purposes. I can't describe it...so you gotta watch it for yourself. Check out www.invisiblechildren.com

Seeing as I was saying goodbye to many of them there and won't be seeing them again, we proceeded to take number of random photos:

so retarded I know....I dunno where I was looking...hahah!

Bula from Auckland, NZ

2007-06-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

Okay so that's weird mix I know...Bula is hello/welcome in Fijian (where I've just left) but I'm now sitting at the Auckland airport waiting for my connecting flight to Perth (wheee!!!! I'm coming home!!!), plus I'm gonna get to see my mum...whom I haven't seen since Dec06, so I'm soooooooo excited!

So yeah, at the airport and finally have net access again since the day I left LA. Uploaded two week-long entries from my time in LA and have another 2 more to come, will do them from Perth. Haven't written about Fiji yet. Will find the time I promise....what you need to know for now is, I dived with sharks, barracudas and had awesome white sand, blue skies and crystal clear water beaches all to myself. ;)

And here's a video of the lovely Jade for your enjoyment:

LA Wk2 : 14 - 20 May

2007-06-05T17:06:00.000-07:00

Monday (14/5) - It's a half-off day today...we start the morning off at Mama Dang's for lunch...she's put in a phenomenal effort into preparing lunch for us with a starter of plantain tempura with a hint of coconut in the batter then freshly-cooked Pho. For the ignorant, that's a vietnamese noodle dish with meatballs and raw beef slices..and for those that know me too well, you'd remember that Vietnamese is actually one of the very few cuisines I don't do...so why do I eat it now you ask? Well...haha I don't know...but only this dish I eat...and NOT if it's tasteless...in general I eat it only if it's home-cooked. haha! She's busy preparing it while we eat the plantain and a coupla BBQed dates that were wrapped in bacon...she tells us it's her son Jesse's original concoction and he told her to give it to us to try.

Eventually she brings out the two bowls of steaming noodles...incredibly fragrant and tasting even better than it looked! While we're slurping away she makes us Vietnamese ice tea...with her special cooked sugar solution and after we're done, brings out a tray of banana-pumpkin cake....thankfully she puts that into bags for us to take away because there was no way (delicious as everything was) we could've fit anything else in. Her generosity astounds me...firstly, I'd only just met her two days before...so really I am just a stranger; that she would open her house to us, and more than that, feed us a feast, made me feel ashamed of myself....so much for loving and caring for others....when I have always been so selective of who I allowed into my home. Shame on me...but it's okay, there's always new lessons to be learnt...the true question is what I'll do with what I've learnt :)

After lunch we drop in at Nancy's to check in on her...we ask her if she's got stuff she needs us to get rid of for her and pretty much today is the day we start making our daily 12noon visits to ask the hard questions and just be there for her. By the time all that is done, it's 3pm...we grab Hubert and all but hustle Faith into the car and head for Huntington Beach in Orange County. Traffic's pretty crazy though and it's already half-five by the time we get off the freeway and we're hungry again so we stop at Jack in the Box for a quick feed and jump back into the car with our oreo shakes!

A short drive later, we arrive on the coast and after some minor parking dramas, find ourselves out on a rather large expanse of sand that is Huntington Beach...the famous jetty that I've seen in numerous surf DVDs is on our right and I have to say, everything about that moment seemed so surreal...I'll blame it on the fact that although the sun was shining, cold winds were blowing and there was a strange glare in the air...we took loads of photos so check out the Huntington Beach album.

What had been thus far a really relaxing and rewarding day came to an abrupt end when while on the freeway, a police car behind us started flashing its lights to pull us over and this being the first time any of us had ever encountered such a situation in the states, Jade wasn't sure where she should pull over (she was in the car pool lane on the extreme left - in america slow traffic is on the far right). Faith and Hubert were asleep in the backseat and while we were discussing if he was in fact pulling us over and if so where to do so Faith woke up and as she did so the officer gave the instruction for us to go over to the extreme right and pull over.

When we eventually crossed the 4 lanes to get there and stop, the officer came running up to Jade's door in a frenzy and when he came near enough, I realised he was holding his gun out and as he approached Jade's window he had it raised and for a moment there I just though "he's not really a cop and he's going to shoot us"...and there was also the shock of actually seeing a gun and having it a meter away from me (can't imagine how Jade would've felt with it right in her face!). So anyway, the officer's name is WONG (on his tag), he's chinese...and actually is a cop but one with a few screws loose...he thought Jade was being kidnapped (by me) and said he thought that was why we were driving "so fast" but we weren't all that fast being in the car pool lane with cars in front of us....plus it was 7pm and traffic towards downtown LA wasn't exactly in ideal conditions for racing along! Oh that and the fact that I think he's forgotten he's actually chinese or something coz he tried to pull a "I don't know which country you got your drivers' instruction from..." at Jade, and threatened to arrest her on the spot and etc. Eventually he calmed down and took her license and car rego papers and went back to his car. He came back about 18 minutes later (I know this be because the photos I took were time-stamped) and gave her a ticket with two charges...one for speeding over 85mph (but he had no radar or anything to show it) and also for crossing the double yellow line onto the Car Pool Lane...which although she did cross into it right at the end of the permissable area, it was still before the double yellow lines started. What was proposterous was the fact that he hadn't mentioned that at all earlier and must've just decided to stick it in because he knew that without a radar and with the fact that we actually weren't speeding, his claim of us doing over 85mph would not stick. So anyway, Jade's really bummed and Faith is ringing her Dad who used to be in the police force or something and we're just all ticked off about his horrible attitude.

We drop Hubert off at Westwood and then Faith at the DC and Tim meets us there and we go in Jade's car to Blowfish (a very expensive japanese restaurant) where Melanie, Ryan and Leanna are waiting. I have to say that dinner was a pretty sad affair...for one the food portions were incredibly small with very very large price tags on them and furthermore, we'd received some bad news that evening and that being discussed at the dinner kindda ruined the evening really. So yeah...a nice day gone all wrong...hahah!

Tuesday (15/5) - Greatly overshadowed by monday's turn of events, I can't actually remember what happened tuesday, I know morning we were doing masters stuff and then I think in the afternoon Angel, Jade and I went to get lunch at the coffee table and then sometime in the arvo and then we go to Westwood to hang with Hubert before flew out that night, we had pink berry then when we got back I trained his bulldog (named Biggy - short for Mr Bigglesworth) to do a "drop" (lie down) while Jade helped him pack his bags - why I don't have any photos of his apartment or the dog, I'm not quite sure....I think I must've been too sleepy.

But anyway that evening we went to the airport coz Jade was picking Michelle up and I tried to get my tickets re-issued for the new dates that I'd booked but that was too dramatic (and tedious to explain)....suffice to say that after an hour, nothing got done and I left the airport really unappreciative of how rude and unhelpful the staff of United were. And then when we got back to the DC we dropped Mich off and picked Ryan and Leanna and headed to VONS to get Mexican for dinner at the Taco Truck...I had a very yummy and cheap Burrito and had Horchata...some mexican rice drink with cinnamon.

Wednesday (16/5) - We have a really eartly start this morning prepping the Filipino Chapel for the All Campus Staff Meeting. I think we woke up at 7:30am and did everything from carting the muffins/pastries down from Justin's office to getting the coffee and water from the kitchen and getting the banner up on stage and also getting more chairs out etc. Justin's mum Jeanne Mayo was in town and so she was scheduled to speak that morning, I think everyone was rather excited...haha!

Jade and Chad were doing games and they'd come up with something caled the something something ice cream bonanza...which basically involved dividing the room into two groups down the middle and after handing out a spoon to each person, gave the command for a 10ltr bucket of vanilla ice cream as well as two bottles of chocolate and caramel sauce to be passed around and consumed...the group that finished first would win. It was chaos!! It was so funny...some guys like just ripped off the caps off the sauce bottles and started gulping it down..and in contrast there were gals kindda squeezing the sauce out onto their spoon, gently eezing it into their mouths and all but gagging at its overwhelming sweetness and quickly passing the bottle on lest they be asked to have another spoonful.

When all the ice cream is finished and somewhere in some tummy there must be a whole lot of churning, we clear off the spoons, buckets and bottles as Justin introduces his mum and she goes up to speak. It was a pretty cool lesson and she further illustrated the reminder through a dramatised story about the frog-prince. More laughter ensued....she got four guys on stage and had costumes transforming them into a prince, princess, wicked witch and eventually for the frog when he changed from a prince. The last dude was a dancing star...and onstage too there was the um...costume hand for the day...Abby! :p

After all that, in the afternoon we go visit Nancy and find she's been sober for 2 days, which is a GREAT achievement for her and so we celebrate by heading out to Macdonalds...haha! Apple pies are 2 for 50cents in the states...crazy huh..but they're kindda small though, not like the ones we have in Sg and Oz. Also, while waiting for the food we just HAD TO take a photo together coz our babe looked so good and happy sober...we were immensely proud of her!

Instead of taking the bus, Jade's driving to the service this week...so we hop into her car with Bethany and Whitney i think and make a stop at Starbucks before going to Bethany. After rehearsing, they give us a huge BBQ feed and soonafter (as though they hadn't just eaten), Chase starts walking on the rails outside the church and Josh decides to jump off the wall and also decides he wants photos taken...I was oblivious to it coz I was standing at the back and Addrienne starts laughing like mad and eventually spits out "he's calling you Ma'am and like he's goin 'Ma'am, Ma'am can you take a photo for us?' and coz you didn't answer he's asking Jade 'what's her name? your friend's name?' " So yeah anyway...Ma'am agreed to take the photo and print it out for them later.

Thursday (17/5) - More running around today, esp with alot of the MC students working at the Microsoft Conference....Jade had to transport some of them there, so I just went along for the ride and got to see the stadium where the Lakers play (basketball). We pick Sharon up after school and stop by Chinatown to get some groceries...Jade was making chicken rice for dinner that night. After dinner we head over to Angelus Temple for service...then it's on to the Bourgeois Pig - which we'd decided was gonna be the regular after-thurs-service hangout...and while waiting for our car (which had been valet-parked), I was amazed to find that the sky that was kindda pretty bright for 10 at night was actually lit up by smog reflecting light back down. Ugh!

Friday (18/5) - Lunch was at Popeyes...my first taste of the "famous" chicken and biscuits here in the States. I'd tried it before at Changi Airport in SG but the biscuits were kindda hard and the chicken stale...so this was sorta like a treat! haha! Jade hadn't tried it before either so it was all fun anyway - I ordered a spicy strips combo that came with mash and a biscuit...the chicken was hot and crispy and the biscuit was yum! The mash ahd a funny gravy that took awhile to get used to I have to say.

I can't remember what happened in the afternoon but I have no photos so I was probably busy running around with Jade doing stuff. Oh I remember...we had lunch at Alcove with After we pick Sharon up, we go back to the DC coz some stuff was happening and Jade had to be back for awhile. That evening, Naynay and Janey join us when we head to The Grove and catch up with Nicole & Melanie there for dinner at the Farmers' Market where everyone had different stuff...Jade and I were gonna share...she was getting kebab stuff and I was to get the seafood...I got a seafood platter and chowder in a bread bowl. Very Yum!

I just realised I'm constanty describing all the great food I'm eating...hahaha! Oh well, at least you can chart the return of my double chin with each meal you're reading about! :D So anyway, after dinner we went to join the queue waiting for Shrek 3 (it just opened) and Melanie didn't wanna watch it so we returned her ticket. We were pretty much at the tail end of the line and Justin and his mum joined us there...but the girls managed to get in and save seats for all of us.

Saturday (19/5) - Instead of going out to Shelly's site today, I've talked Ryan and Leanna into coming out to do Random Acts of Kindness...a monthly thing they do where they go out into the community around the Dream Center and hand out free lollies, ice cream, water and lemonade and do even crazier things like paying for people's petrol at gas stations and doing free car washes. The goal: Just love em...love the people. Sharon decided to join us instead of heading out to the block with Jade too and so all four of us joined Jake and got assigned to the car wash.

It was hard work but alot of fun and it was good doing the service, seeing the shock on the car owners' faces when they were like "is it really free?" and when we say "yes!" and I guess for me it was a cool reminder to know that in this day and age when nothing is free...the church can still love for free. While waiting for the whole thing to start, Jake got a mini football thing out and everyone was mucking round with it...plus coppers pulled up twice and so there's a whole bunch of other photos you can check out in the Adopt-a-Block album.

We wait for Jade to finish with her block then we all (Jade, Ryan, Leanna, Sharon and I) head out to a Thai restaurant for lunch and Leanna and I decide to share for variety...between us we order a Pad Thai and Green Curry with a servce of brown rice. From there we go to Hollywood & Highland coz Sharon wants to make a jumper/hoodie at Neighbourhoodies...a shop that lets you pick your design and words and either press or stitch them on while you wait. It's a cool concept, but pretty expensive.

At Sat Nite Redefined that evening, Pstr Matthew gets a coupla people up on stage to do a burping comp...Bradley won HANDS DOWN...it was sick! (vid's too big for youtube. I'll try to cut it down and feature it later) hahaha! I mean that in a cool way....whatever that means! :D After service we head to Toast and Sharon has this really pretty serve of french toast with mixed berries and I have corn chowder with an omelette while Jade gets a mushroom barley soup and a wrap of sorts. Ryan and Leanna feed off the free bread with a tasty garlicky pesto dip...hahha! :p

Sunday (20/5) - After church we spend forever deciding we're gonna eat at In-and-Out Burger (coz I haven't been and apparantly it's Oh-So-LA and so I have to try it) only to come of Angelus Temple to find that there's a Cuban Fair going on at Echo Park so there's alot of food stalls and etc out there. Eventually though, the lunch posse splits half and half and our side stick with the original In-and-Out plan and the other half head for Cuban fare. I'd actually thought it was a Mexican Fair and also coz like

There's only five things on the menu at In-and-Out...there's a double-double (which is double meat and cheese), cheeseburger, hamburger, french fries and shakes...that's it. We all pretty much order the same combo...just that mine's without onions and salad and I order my fries "light"...and no it's not low-fat...it's just fried a little less so it's lighter coloured...but that's important is that it's nice and soggy...just the way I like my fries! hahah! Oh and I had it "animal-style" too...which means I get covered with cheese! Jade's burger was "protein-style" which meant that she had lettuce leaves instead of bread. Pretty cool huh? And then Jade asked for four hats and made us wear it all the way to Jake's house...that was pretty cool and had a HUGE 72inch screen that they were playing XBox on. And we subsequently watched Moulin Rouge on it too..haha! I'd developed abit of cough while watching it and they happily decided I'd had consumption - which I'd only just learnt right then, was another name for Tuberculosis.

Red Eye this week is at O'Hara's again - everyone starts playing random coin games on the tables and after eating Naoya asked if I could help him sort out some stuff with a car he'd just purchased so I went with him to the car park and checked the papers (not that I could help really coz I had no clue as to how car purchases were handled in LA)...but anyway, we get back to O'Hara's and everyone's gone (rapture??? hahah!) After ringing around, Ryan came out to get us and we joined the others at the carpark to play oversized badminton that was a whole lot of laughs and fun.

After Red Eye, we're up on the roof discussing what's going to happen and who takes who and whilst I snap some night photos of the Westwood skyline, it was decided that Jade takes Sharon home and Naoya was going to take Ryan, Leanna and I back to the DC and I was gonna get a solid night's sleep so as to not fall completely sick coz my intial "dry throat" was developing into a cough proper. Before we left though, I wanted Diddy Riese so we drove around for like 20 minutes trying to find parking (coz the car park we were at was closing in like 15 mins) and eventually got parking and went down to get out ice cream cookie sandwiches (I think they tasted that much better just coz of the wait!)

So, I promised a better description of Diddy Riese...here it is. What it is, is a little stall that serves up cheap but good ice cream and cookies. An ice-cream sandwich costs only $1.25!! So the deal is you get to pick whichever flavour cookies you want and then the flavour of the ice cream that goes into it...my favourite cookie would be the chocolate chocolate chip with walnuts with the cinnamon sugar coming a close second...ice-cream flavour would be peanut-butter-cup....hahaha! What can I say? I'm addicted! So yeah that night was fun, with it being Ryan and Naoya's first time there too! The only thing is we get lost on the way back and get on and off the freeway a number of times and drive round LA a fair bit before we eventually get home...haha! Poor Naoya!

LA Wk1 : 7 - 13 May

2007-06-05T02:41:00.000-07:00

Monday (7/5) - Designated "off" day on my internship (as it is with any church or Christian organisation), we spent the day hanging out at a pad that Mich was housesitting for....the appeal was the pool on a warm sunny day. There was a big smelly slobbery dog at the house, but his looks more than made up for the drool...and to be honest I spent alot of that afternoon indoors trying to finish up on a project I'd been working on. To top off a wonderful afternoon, the girls made beef chilli and brought back soft tortillas, sour cream, cheese and other wonderful things for lunch!

That evening Jade, Chase and I went to The Grove to check it out and had initially planned to eat at Farmers' Market but it was closed by the time we got there so we skipped the food and went straight to Hollywood Gelato on Hilhurst where Chase was amazingly sweet and shouted for our gelatos...it was probably coz we were taking forever and had each tried about 4 or 5 different flavours and still remained undecided...haha! I got chocolate and green tea in a waffle cone eventually.

Tuesday (8/5) - I don't really remember what we did on Tuesday, except I know it was the day I "Officially" started the internship with the Masters Commission students and so that meant prayer at 9am at the filipino chapel followed by scriptures or devotion and then a whole bunch of running around coz Jade is always busy with something and my job was just to assist her in all that. That evening we had pizza at Lamonica's and Diddy Riese (my first time) with Hubert, Wheeler, Brian and another John...I have better photos of Diddy Riese's cookie sandwiches from a later visit so I'll talk more about them later.

Wednesday (9/5) - My first glimpse of church service in a whole new way. One of the things Masters Commission does is to put together services and then take them out to various churches in the area, they do these on wednesdays or saturdays mostly I think. Anyway, pretty much from straight after lunch Jade is running the rehearsals so I'm watching, learning and just helping with whatever I could. At 2:15pm the bus leaves the church and everyone piles in...we pull up at Bethel Christian Fellowship and I witness a fusion of media, drama, dance, fashion, sport, music that presents the word in a fresh package that without a doubt would capture the attention of the world.

Thursday (10/5) - After prayer and devo, did a Dream Center tour with a pair of sisters who were Angel's friends...they had family in LA but one lived in Singapore and the other in Dubai. We got to hear some amazing testimonies from Discipleship guys and teens and also from the students at the DC Academy - the private school run at the Dream Center. Also made my first trip to the Lord's Gym...a full gym open to public with trainers and all that...even a pilates instructor..haha!

Got blown away by the Dream Center Studios, which is pretty much the domain of Press Play, the Dream Center/Angelus Temple worship band. The equipment worth millions were all donated or purchased through the sale of other donations...such as Madonna's and other famous artistes sound boards which are then aucitoned off and the money used to purchase the equipment they needed.

Thurs evening service followed by a visit to the Bourgeois Pig, a little cafe with cozy seating and very yummy drinks. Jade, Angel and Pete had hot and iced chocolates while I indulged with a choc milkshake and Sharon had a strawberry and banana smoothie...haha almost couldda been a chocaholics-annonymous session right there!

Friday (11/5) - Had my first and last taste of the DC Diner's Friday Special - Cheeseburger - whilst sitting in at the Red Eye Leaders' Meet and then did my first official "counselling" here at the DC. Jade just asked if I was up for it and I said "yeah sure, whatever" and I hopped into the car with her and the girl joined us and and maybe like 45minutes into the drive I realised I was smack in the middle of a divine appointment - God is amazing. We were on our way to get Katie from school and then home to get changed and then back to the DC and we spent that time talking and agreed to find some time to pray together before she left LA.

We picked Hubert up and at some point Angel joined us too and we had dinner at Roscoe's - house of chicken and waffles, by that I mean very tasty fried chicken with fresh waffles...weird combination right? But hey I'm in America...anything goes...haha! It was really really tasty and incredibly filling! After dinner, we went to The Grove and I browsed the incredibly expensive things at Nordstroms with Angel while Jade, Hubert and Katie were at Abercrombie & Fitch. We got stuck at the bag section when Angel had her eyes set on a Chloe bag...and while it was cool, nice, soft leather and all, I would NEVER pay USD1700 for a bag...yes, you read right, NEVER.

So I get bored and amble off to GAP on my own after Jade and Katie join Angel, I buy a coupla tees & a 3/4 brown pants and whilst browsing the sales rack of very cool and cheap things, Katie waltzes in with her brand-spankin-new purchase of a pink Juice Couture bag...that cost US$200!!! Did I say she was 11years old? Yes, well...insane huh. But anyway, we thought it hilarious to take a photo of me with the very pink and un-me bag...I 'm sure you'd enjoy this photo too! Oh and I mustn't forget to mention that Hubert's going insane at the A&F store all this while and returns with a huge bag full of goodies!

Saturday (12/5) - We slept over at Katie's place the night before so early saturday morning we head back to the DC for Adopt-A-Block, where we check up on Jose and Caesar - who had last week wanted to come into Discipleship to deal with his drinking problem...but they weren't in. We drop in on Nancy too and she's doing fine and we said we'd come back to get her to church later that evening. Andy and Vince from the next door down are from the band Societys Parasites and Vince gives us copies of their demo album...they're leaving the following day on a two week promo tour so Jade gives em a tube of vegemite and tell them how to eat it with bread. haha!

We then pop down the bottom to see Eric, Eric and Erica....but only Grandpa Eric's in...we spend some time chatting about his family and dog and etc and snap a photo before I go. I meet Mama Dang for the first time...her name is Sheila Dang and she's vietnamese and her and her husband have been in the states for a loooong time...all her three children were born and raised in california. She invites us back on Monday to try her Pho - vietnamese beef noodles.

We went to get Katie after that and I spent the afternoon teaching her mandarin...haha a litte bit anyway! After SNR that evening, we went to the gym where Jake had organised a volleyball thinggy for college students and Jade got into it right away :) After they switched teams, we headed to Dusty's for dinner with Bernyce and some of her friends and I had a yummy french-onion soup.

Sunday (13/5) - Mother's Day...service was so sweet with a special song item at offering time (is that song called Mama?) and competitions to honour the oldest and youngest mothers in the congregation as well as the mother with the most children, mother with the most children in church that sunday and a whole host of other things. After a message on Desperate Housewives, all the ladies got a rose as we left the building. Awww.... :)

We rush to Pasa Dena's Rose Bowl (stadium) for a monthly flea market and I witness Jade and Angel go mad and try and then buy lots of stuff. There were stalls aplenty with a portion of furniture and a whole area with used shoes, clothing, army surplus stuff, bags and anything else you could imagine. The girls bought dresses, bags and shoes...and since I'd paid $7 for entrance, I tried to buy something to justify spending thats seven and got myself a pair of reef thongs (they are flip-flops!!) for ten bucks.

After picking Hubert up, we have a very late lunch that was probably dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I had the lunch special meatloaf...YUM!!! Look at the photo...need I say more? We head to The Grove soonafter coz for Red Eye this week we were gonna watch Spiderman III - not entirely excited. So yeah the movie wasn't amazing...in fact, the way he turned "emo" was so laughably rubbishy! After the movie we go to Urth Cafe and I try the highly-recommended green tea latte...and it did not disappoint (you have to check out the photo of it). It was Josh's birthday and I also met Naoya, a dude from Yokohama who was here for Acting School...and for some reason, we went into a photo-taking frenzy before leaving.

a very quick one

2007-05-28T19:24:00.001-07:00

So I'm flying out of LA in under 5hours...it's still the 28th here but by the time I arrive in Fiji it's gonna be the 30th...I'll lose an entire day on the plane! Anyway...so I have three weeks of a crazy crazy time here in LA to catch up on but I'm sure I'l find some time while basking on the white sand beaches of Fiji to do that..

later!!!

Katie speaks mandarin

2007-05-22T17:16:00.000-07:00

Katie's one of the girls I've gotten to know whilst here in LA...we spent the whole day together one saturday and by the end of it I had her speaking bits of chinese! Alot of credit goes to her for being interested and really trying...coz she's pretty much got the pitch and tone down! And for those of us knowing ones, that's the real hard part of it all! Excuse my mad laughter....she was just too cute!