First weekend out in London

Shaun and Allan (my nephews) invited me out for my first weekend in London. It was great - a real Kiwi affair.

So we watched the Super 14 Finals between the Crusaders and the Hurricanes. It started a 0830 in the morning so we were at the Walkabout at 8am and sinking my first beers (Shaun and Allan started at 5am with weetbix and vodka)

So, the bar was packed by 9am and the day had begun. After the game Sarah (reluctantly) joined us (she wasn't keen on the Kiwi-London cliche). After a while we had fun and tubed for 30 minutes to another kiwi hangout - the Redback where there was a hungi in progress by the local Maori boys. Sweet as bro! Called it quits at 9pm - a solid 12 hours.

Sarah and I sat in a park until my focus returned and then went home. She admitted to having a great time and my family are real sweet.

The next day Sarah and I headed to the "Church" where we meeted the family and about 3000 other people for lunch, well it was noon, but there wasn't any eating. It was pretty fun and it closed at 4pm when we went to another bar.

Sarah and I then went to a BBQ with Bridie, my old flat mate, which was pretty cool and relaxing after such a huge weekend.

Check out the photos

Beautiful London

Amongst the rush of the city, there is beauty.

I don't think that I could survive this place with out the islands of forests and quiet places. Thankfully, neither can Sarah, and she has already scoped out all the secret retreats.

Hampton Heath is a reserve just 20 minutes walk from where I am staying. As you can see from the photos it is beautiful.

Click here to see the rest of the photos for this day

Jeremy is in the House!

Hello everyone.

I applied for about 15 jobs yesterday. Today my phone has been running hot since 9am. I have lost count of the number of calls I have taken - must be around 8 - 10. Apparently I have a "very strong profile" - and that makes me hot property!

Out of all the jobs at banks, insurance, investment brokers, phamacutical companies, ... oop another call.... ok, so anyway there is a job working on mobile phone broadcasting for a large TV network who does stuff like ESPN and Discovery channel etc. So hope that works out, other wise I might have to take an "ordinary" job for someone else, oh, there was one at a music portal site, that could be fun but I dont really know much about music!!!

Ha,

Anyway back to it!!

My suit arrived today, just in the nick of time!!

Message to Family

Hi Family.

Things are going well here. I have adjusted to the jet lag though are still having dreams about being in a Singapore hotel and wake up wanting to order room service!

My flight took me directly over Islamabad! So I got all emotional when I realised that I was about 10 kilometers(above) Tom (brother) - strange to come so far just to pass in the night, so to speak.

I have started looking at job sites. The range of jobs look good, but as to how promising they are I'd not like to guess at.

Shaun (nephew) has contacted me and we are going to the Walk About in Shepards Bush on Saturday morning to watch the Super 14 finals. Sounds like he has the whole week end planned so that is great! I have also contacted my other friends and they will join in some time during the weekend!

The weather here is typical London - gray. I have been told that last week was beautiful and warm but this week is going to be gray and rainy.

Today I am going to "uplift" my bank account from regent st. I went to do this yesterday but forgot to take my passport so will do it today.

Fi (sister) and Fitz want me to do some property management on their flat while I am here, so that should give me something to do.

The place that I am staying at has "free" broadband internet - one of the neighbours has a wireless network but they have not put a password on it - my computer automatically logs onto it and I have free, fast, internet - don't worry its not like im downloading movies, just checking my email and job vacancies!

So now that I have broadband I can "talk" to you guys for free. You will also need broadband - so that is the Elliotts, and a microphone ($12 from dick smith). If you guys organise a webcam too then we will be able to have a video call!

Im Here! LONDON!

So I arrived at 0530am after a boring 13.5 hour flight. It was really tourturous!

Sarah picked me up we dropped of my bags at her place and went and had breakfast and went into town to just make it a bit more real - it all seemed to weird that i was finally at my destination.

We had a look at St Pauls cathedral, but at £9 to have a look around we thought is best to move on. We got a coffee and a sandwich and sat by the river on a typical gray London day. Then it rained. We made a mad dash to the Tate art gallery where we spent some time.


When the rain stopped we walked around - it was really good for getting my bearings - London isnt really that big at all!

More photos here

The Last Leg

Well, Im in the Singapore airport departure lounge, using their free internet!

Im about to embark on the last leg of my journey - the 13.5 hour flight to London!

Darwin and Singapore were great. Spent that time with Simon (my old flatmate), his girlfriend Serina, and neighbor Joey. They all came to Singapore with me as well so was really fun!

Darwin is small. Ashburton like really, except there are some big hotels. Darwin is the only city in the Northern Territory, so it is the govenment hub and services a huge area all the way down to Alice Springs.

There are plenty of crocs and they are in salt water and fresh water too.

When I was there they were entering their dry season, so the humidity was less than Philippines. There was still plenty of water around to swim in as you might have seen in the photos.

Singapore is hot and humid. It is very clean and organised. We seemed to think that they must even scrub the roads cause their isnt a mark on them! There is a $500 fine for littering and chewing gum is illegal.

I have to go cause my free internet is about to expire!!!

Anyway, next stop London!!!

Photos of Singapore to come.

PS - my suit is beautiful! I also got 4 silk shirts and 3 silk ties!!

Bye!!!

Singapore

Singapore was fun. Drinking was really expensive - two rounds for 4 people - $80. The beer is almost as expensive at the spirits! Travel around Singapore is insanely cheap - taxis cost around $3 about 10 minutes ride! The subway(MRT) costs about $2 to get to the other side of the Island!!!

Singapore is a great place to spend some time! We just missed the annual Singapore wide sales in late May - bugger! Still I bought a 2x telephoto lens for my camera that takes my zoom up to 8x and a wide angle lens that lets me get more in the shot - great for the self portraits - more scene, less me! (not that I dont like myself or anything!)

I love my suit! Its on its way to London. I ended up getting a Jacket, 2 silk lined pants, 4 silk shirts, and 3 silk ties!

Check out the photos :

Day one
Night Zoo
Sentosa Island

Darwin - So beautiful!!

Here I am in Darwin,

Nothing exciting thats not said by the photos here:

Day 1 - Beach, Drinking
Day 2 - Swimming in water falls, Termite Mounds
Day 3 - Jumping Crocs, Awesome birds, Wetlands

Make sure that you see the Jumping Croc video!

Heading back to Singapore tomorrow, then onward to London!

A quick note on updates

Hi all,

Im trying to get the updates done but there is soooo much to do!

For now I am updating the photos first. You can view them from my travel journal on:

http://www.ballofdirt.com/journeys/10555.html

Scroll down to entry 44 and start from there! - make sure you see the shooting and the wedding

Love to all

Jeremy


PS.
I ordered/bought a suit today - tailor made, Italian Amarni Cotton, Jacket, two silk lined pants, an egyption cotton shirt and a tie - don't ask $$

Unplanned Stop over

So ok.... im in Singapore, not when expected though...

Heres the story....

Left Dingle (country residence) on the afternoon of the 11th. Went into Iloilo city. Went out on the booze with Uncle Vic to a very important persons birthday party - a city counciler. Iloilo is a city of 600,000 people (only 250,000 votable population apparently - a politition told me this - fingures!). This party were the former Mayor, heaps of current city councilors, and petrol station owners, the richest man in the Philippines ... etc.... anyway next time im here im going fishing and tramping with one of the younger ones!

So anyway on the 12th at 0500 in the morning I go to Iloilo airport, at 0700 im in the air to Manila. By 1000 am Im in Manila with cousin Farah and cousin Vicvic. I have something to eat and have a sleep. At 1300 I head to Manilas only international airport to catch a flight on a discount airline, Tiger Airways, to Singapore, then connect from Singapore to Darwin...

I arrive at the airport and am told that Tiger Airways does not fly from here and nobody has heard of them.... you can imagine how I feel. I almost threw up. The nice people there do some research for me and find out that Tiger Airways flys from an old US Air base 3 hours out of Manila - Clark International, in another province altogether - so my ticket had misled me - it said Manila (Clark), but is not in Manila!!!

So panic.. panic.. numb... numb...

Go back to Farah and Vicvic, called Tiger Airlines which is a international toll call on my roaming celling phone at NZ rates + roaming charges, to Singapore. In "queue" for 30 minutes and i hang up. I go to the mall to use the internet and book another flight. The only one available is on Tiger from Clark the next day, but I miss my connecting flight and have to stay over night in Singapore.

So stay the nite in a hotel in Manila, catch a bus to Clark - 3 hours - queue for 3 hours at airport wait for 2 hours in departure lounge - in the mean time Simon in Darwin (works in Hotel industry) is booking me a room in Singapore.

Land in Singapore - oh my, what contrast!!! Clean, ordered, fast, english - I almost cryed when someone spoke to me in real english, not pigeon english - clear, understandable english.

There was a free shuttle to the hotel and the hotel is beautiful, so relaxing - i even had a bath and ate western food - a pork chop and mashed potatoes!

So in the end, Singapore was a good stop over - I got some time to myself - first in 5 weeks - in luxury.

My flight is at 2200pm tonite so will take a look around the city today.

So... there it is in a very very brief overview - there is a lot of detail that is very interesting but can't be bothered typing it!

1 week in Philippines

The internet is driving me crazy here. View images here

So yep, I've been in the Philippines now for a week now and have finally got around to updating my blog.

So I arrived in Manila on Thursday night - welcomed by a sign that read "Welcome to Bird-flu free Philippines"! - very reasuring.

Since everyone was at the wedding in Iloilo - I was picked up by another cousin, Vicvic. She took me to a hotel that was near the airport and also happened to be the red-light district too. We were walking down the street a one of the "working" girls stroked my arm! Quite forward! So I took her home ;-)

Was told to be at the airport 2.5 hours early as I had to pick up my ticket to Iloilo before check in. What a mission! People here move as slow as wet week. Enter the airline office and take a number. There were 5 infront of me and the turn around way about 1 customer every 10 minutes - so I was going to be stuck in the line for 50 minutes before being served! The guard (they are everywhere with big guns) saw that my flight was leaving in an hour so bumped me to the front of the queue - still took 50 minutes though. The next thing was the huge line outside the airport for the security check - you have to have a ticket to enter the airport! Anyway long story short - plan was delayed so I had plenty of time anyway.

Was picked up by Ryan and his cousin Farah, she took us back to the family house. We ate funny food and drunk really strong alcohol - the beer "Strong Horse" and the local rum (rhum) Tanduay(Tan-du-eye) - so cheap at 52 pasos which is less than $2! I dont normally like rum but this stuff is GOOD - so smooth and easy to drink! The food was great - I even ate the fish which looked aweful but tasted great! Anyway after a few beers and shots of Tanduay we ended up out on the street where a few lads where sitting - so we bought 2 bottles of rum. They were so stoked and overwhelmed that a Kano (Ka-nU) - a white man - would sit and drink with them - apparently they will be talking about "the kano" for months! It was a very special moment.
Every where I go people stop, double-take, and stare - especially the little children, they point and their jaw drops. I am very big here. I went to the mall and bought some clothes, here I am a L or XL. And I have been called "Mega Muscles" which I find very strange as in NZ I am just a wee man.

Spent the last 4 days on a tropical island - Boracay (Beroc-eye). What a wonderful place - so many people trying to sell something, every 2 minutes "Yes sir - you buy?" and I reply "No thank you" - every 2 minutes. I am very very rich here and they are so poor.

The local delicacy here is Balot (Baa-luu) - a under-developed duck fetus, par-boiled in its egg. I was NOT going to try one (Im alegic to eggs you see), but Ryan did. I will upload images so you can see for yourself.

We drunk heaps - happy hours every nite - 2 cocktails for $5 - 2 beers for $1, ahhhh but no hang overs, but lack of sleep. We had fun at night - even went skinny dipping a few times!
The water was always warm - but sometimes something would sting you - a tiny jelly fish that you cant see - the sting was like a small burning needle for a few seconds - nothing much.

Anyway enough now. It is so different here and always something new.

Boracay Island

Hi all!!!

On a tropical island! So beautiful!!! Sorry no pictures - internet is slow so will back date some later!!

We had electrical storms last night! Thunder and Lightning but no rain!!! Then buckets of rain - then none!
The thunder was so loud that it hurt my ears!!! So cool.

Must go swim!