I'm alive!

Hi everyone, and sorry for not posting anything in the last week and a bit...but I have a perfectly good excuse! I have a lot of new things to add and I might not have enough time to talk about it all at this moment, but I'll finish at another time if I can't now.

So...last time I left off we were just leaving Australia. Caught the red eye flight leaving Perth International Airport around 1:00 in the morning and arrived in Kuala Lumpur again around 6:30 am on July 3, 2009. Since Perth and Kuala Lumpur are in the same time zone, I was fortunate that I didn't have to deal with another time variation since I FINALLY got adjusted to the jetlag (after almost 2 weeks). We met up with my aunty Mary and uncle Chiang at the airport and boarded a transit bus to the LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal) just a few minutes from KL International. At the LCCT we took an Air Asia (cheap, discount airline that honestly isn't that bad in relation to what you pay) flight to Kota Bharu Airport which took about an hour. At the airport there, my uncle Meng's cousin picked us up in I would say, a 1985 Datsun minivan, complete with only two functional seats. We crammed 8 people in the back of this van. Yes...eight. I sat on a milk crate while my uncle Seng sat on the floor and everyone else sat on a makeshift bench at the back of the van. Really sketchy shit, considering that the roads of Kota Bharu are congested at almost all times of the day with traffic and motorcycles. This is probably the most asian thing that I've ever done in my life...and for the record, I AM Asian. It's like trying to cram a whole bunch of Chinese or Vietnamnese people into a boat and shipping them overseas in the most uncomfortable situation possible. The only difference is that there were no parasites and foul odours in the van.

So this continued on for an hour and a half until we reached the sea port located on the furthest north eastern point of West Malaysia (close to the Thai border) around 5:00pm. We boarded a pretty shady looking speed boat that claimed to make the 10 nautical mile trip to Perhentian in less than 30 minutes. I didn't doubt this claim as the back of the boat had twin 150 HP Mercury outboard motors. We crammed eleven people into this boat (see the picture) which didn't seem right in Canadian safety standards, but whatever...this is Malaysia! Everything is safe (that was huge sarcasm which I'll explain later if I remember). Anywho...the boat raced to the island, but only to discover that Long Beach, the most popular part of the island, had all it's chalets and suites booked solid. Apparently, someone in my family didn't think it was necessary to call and book in advance (even thought he said he did) so back on the boat we went and made our way to the opposite, more quieter, side of the island where we finally found a chalet. I wasted no time and dropped my stuff off, took a shower and hit the hay for the night - 35 degree weather with retardedly high humidity doesn't make people happy at all.

The next day, we woke up around 8:30am and headed down to Long Beach - a short 10 minute walk through the middle of the island from our chalet. The first sight of Long Beach made me so excited I almost made me soiled myself. If you imagine the most beautiful beach in the World; this is it (maybe a slight overexaggeration, but this is my blog so I can do what I want) - complete with crystal clear, blue waters and pearl white sand laden with colourful umbrellas across the entire span of the beach (umbrella rentals are 10 Malaysian Ringgit - about 0.325 RM to every Canadian Dollar). We rented an umbrella (sounds stupid), threw our stuff down and jumped into the water. The water was so warm, almost like a bath tub and since the island is located in the South China Sea, which is a branch off the Pacific Ocean, the water is thus salty. About halfway into the day, around 2:00pm, I noticed that the liberal coating of SPF25 sunblock I put on was rendered absolutely useless. I was red like a lobster and didn't care. My cousin Gaby and I swam close to the shore near some rocks and realized that there was tons of beautiful, colourful tropical fish swimming within some of the rocks and coral littering the sea floor. We spent the rest of the day snorkeling around the area until the sun went down. Packing up our stuff, we headed back to the chalet...my back on fire and everything.

I have to stop typing right now since dinner is almost ready (p.s. I'm in Kuala Lumpur at my aunty Mary's house). I'll hopefully finish this up later tonight, or if not, tomorrow at some point since the best part is yet to come.

Talk to you shortly.

Last day in Australia :(

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy Canada day. Hope the beers are flowin back at home! Tonight is my last night in Australia before I head out to Malaysia, more specifically the island called Pulau Perhentian, located about 10 nautical miles off the coast of Malaysia. The island itself is covered in beautiful white sand beaches, coral, sea turtles, and other marine wildlife. Here I'll hopefully get a chance to get a quick scuba diving lesson so the resorts will let me borrow their gear. I'd love to be able to scuba dive around the coral reefs, or if not at least snorkel in the crystal clear waters. I won't have an internet connection, and probably would never use it anyways so the next time you hear from me will probably be on the 7th or 8th of July when I return to Kuala Lumpur.

...so I left the post last night around 10:00pm local time to go out to the casino with my uncle Seng. I guess a more fitting title would be "Last day in Australia"...so I'm going to change it now. About two months ago, he bought a brand new Alfa Romeo Spider which if you don't know is a pretty sick two door Italian convertable sports car (we don't have Alfa in North America). The casino is located in the Intercontinental Hotel just outside of the Perth City limits. We went and got a beer and I sat down at a $10 buy in black jack table. I don't feel like describing every moment so I'll just tell you the results haha. On $10 in, I finished off with $125 up so I stopped and moved on to this spinning wheel thing with fruits and shit on it (like the Nevada lottery tickets). I ended up losing all but $5 dollars on the stupid wheel so I got pissed and put my last $5 chip on the purple grapes giving me 11-1 odds. Surprisingly the wheel landed on the grapes and I was up $55 again. I was like "hey, my luck's turning around" so I put 20 bucks on oranges (5-1) and won again. At this point I was up to $135 Australian Dollars so I stopped, cashed in and got another beer. I didn't want to lose anymore money cause I'm not a chronic gambler. So moral of the story is always put your money on grapes and oranges :|

So backtracking a bit...on Tuesday, June 30th, my auntie Judy, Monica and uncle Meng and my mom made our way 3 hours north to Nambung National Park to visit the Pinnacles - natural limestone formations in the Northern Australian desert. I thought it was pretty sick since the vast desert were littered with these weird looking rocks, almost resembling stalagmites found in caves (stalagmites are the calcium carbonate formations on the floor of caves, where stalactites are the ones found on the ceiling of caves...food for thought)...hey if you're interested, here's the chemical equilbrium for the reaction:

CaCO₃(s) + H₂O(l) + CO₂(aq) → Ca(HCO₃)₂(aq)

But anyways, a similar reaction occurs in the desert where these Pinnacles are formed. And as I said...quite an amazing site. But I think I was the only one that thought it was cool. My auntie Monica (from London) was complaining that, "we drove all the way to see rocks", and that she can "walk outside to see rocks any day she wants". I guess it's kinda boring, but I still found it pretty interesting to see. Also, my aunts were making jokes about the phallic nature of these shapes since they look like giant dicks in all shapes and sizes. They were having a good time like little school girls taking pictures in poses that I don't want to see my mom or 50 year old ladies do ever again...I'm still having nightmares thinking about it...so lets never talk about this again.

The next day, we went to the Perth City centre to look around, and pick up some last minute souvinirs. I finally bought a didgeridoo which is an aboriginal wind instrument made from the wood of the Eucalyptus tree. The wood, about 4 - 5 feet long and 4 inches in diameter at the largest point is then hollowed out by termites. Most of them however are found hollowed out already which could take hours to find the perfect piece of wood. Here is a link to a pretty sick video of what the didgeridoo sounds like. I can't play as well...but I can get a pretty sick sound out of it and make some cool effects. I'm going to practice up over the rest of the summer and I'll be a pro.

That's about to the extent of everything I've done in the days leading up to now. My aunts are fighting now. All my mom's sisters have the exact same annoying temper as my mom and after this, I know that my mom isn't that bad. The Liew family temper is known by all my uncles and my cousins. It's fucking annoying, and I had to listen to it sitting in the back of a cramped car for 3 hours; my iPod was dead and my noise cancelling headphones couldn't cancel that much noise...even though they are supposed to attenuate sound in a busy city subway... They argue and fight just for the sake of arguing, and they never EVER drop the topic until they are done (which obviously lasts longer than 3 hours). Plus if you don't argue back, they'll keep bringing it up and repeating their point until you want to blow your brains out. I'm glad I don't have that part of the genes.

Anyways, I have to finish packing all my stuff to make sure I don't forget anything. I somehow lost the receipt for my didgeridoo. And by lost, I mean misplaced. And by misplaced, I mean thrown out because I thought the random piece of paper in my pocket was rubbish. Now I can't get the 30 bucks back from the airport as a tax refund (the tax rate in Australia is 10%, so do the math on how much I paid for the didge).

I'll post when I return to civilization if I haven't been eaten by a shark, or paralyzed from the jelly fish and other painful bitey things of the South China Sea.

Bye for now!

p.s. my aunts stopped arguing about 2 minutes ago...there was peace in the world. And it started again...

Simon

Down, down under, Didgeridoos and Pinnacles

G'day! Sorry I haven't posted anything in the past while...I've been pretty busy here and haven't really had a chance to sit down and write anything since my last post.

On Saturday, June 27th my family here and I made our way southbound to a small town called Albany. If you don't know, my auntie Judy and uncle Seng's house is located in Perth, Western Australia. I've attached a map of the entire state of Western Australia for your viewing convenience so you don't have to google it and so you know what I'm talking about. Anyways, Albany is just under 500km south of Perth and took us about six hours to drive on the Albany highway. An interesting fact I learned about Australia is the rather strigent traffic rules. On most major highways, the speed limit is set at a firm 110 km/h. If you exceed this speed limit by 5 km/h, and you get caught (either by radar or well hidden speed cameras) then you will get fined...and you can't even fight it. So most drivers here are extremily cautious and drive well under the speed limit - as you can imagine, that slows down our trip to anywhere. Another thing about Perth, even though it's the fourth largest city in Australia, is that it is completely isolated from anything, so driving is a way of life here (public transit sucks anyways).

From Perth, we stopped by a small family owned persimmon farm. Persimmons are a large, tomato shaped/sized berry. They are a beautiful, reddish-orange coloured fruit, especially when packed together nicely in boxes in which they are commonly sold. They are common in this area of Australia so we bought a box and continued on the Albany highway southbound.

We arrived in Albany around 6:30pm and found the nearest Best Western on the highway and immediately booked two rooms (each room had three beds) since we were all tired from the long and boring car ride down. After unpacking our things in the hotel room, we walked over to the "Hungry Jacks" which is Australia's version of Burger King. After eating, we went back to the hotel and I passed out around 7:30 cause I'm a big loser...

Waking up at 8:30 in the morning, I quickly showered and got ready. We checked out of our hotel and drove down to Middleton Beach, located very close the the Albany city centre. At 9:00 in the morning, the sun was just rising over the water, which was an absolutely gorgeous sight to see. I wish you all could have been there, since pictures won't do it justice (that's my excuse for not uploading pictures since I forgot the USB cable for my Canon SLR back at home in Belleville...shame on me). Since it's winter here in Australia, the beach itself wasn't overly populated and the wind and waves were fairly strong so we packed it in and drove around Frenchman's Bay, located on the southern point between Denmark and Albany (see the map). The area provides fantastic whale watching opportunities, swimming, diving, snorkelling, fishing and sailing, but our primary reason of visiting was just because it was a halfway spot to Denmark; where we got breakfast.

At Denmark, we stopped at a small shitbox restaurant, which served very authentic Auzzie meals. I've learned a long time ago that the smallest, hole in the wall restaurants always serve the best food, at the best prices, and this time was no exception! On the menu, the first thing I saw was that they served kangaroo. Me being the hypocrite that I am, was craving kangaroo meat since I've heard so much about it from the locals here. From my last post, you saw that I was making friend's with the little marsupials and now I'm ready to eat them haha. Anyways, I ordered the "Big Outback Breakfast" which consited of eggs, toast, smoked kangaroo meat and kangaroo sausage. When the plate came, I was greeted by three large, pale breakfast style sausages and a few slabs of reddish coloured kangaroo meat. Needless to say, I jumped in and began eating it. So you're thinking to yourself...what does kangaroo taste like? Well let me tell you...the texture of kangaroo is almost like a cross between liver (if you've ever had that) and a really good quality beef tenderloin. Very tender and lean with a unique flavour (slightly gamey) and texture. It's honestly something that I can't compare to at home, so you'll have to try it if you ever make it to Australia. I mowed down breakfast, my uncle paid the bill and we were off on the highway again, heading west.

Our next destination was "the Gap" and the "Natural Bridge" located in Torndirrup National Park. The Gap is a natural occurance created in the granite rocks off the shore of the Indian Ocean due to natural erosion from the waves. A viewing platform located over 50 feet from the water provides a spectacular view of the gap. I'm pissed I didn't bring my cable to upload pictures, but if you google image search it, you should be able to find a picture. I can't begin to describe the scale of the scenery...but a picture should suffice - so look it up or be a bitch...whatever. It's even more impressive to visit during the winter as the waves from the Indian Ocean are ferocious and the spray from the water easily reaches the top of the rocks from the bottom.

Finally...after the gap, we drove to Pemberton and visited the Gloucester Tree, located within Gloucester National Park. The Gloucester Tree is a giant Karri tree and was built in 1931 I beleive as a fire lookout tree. At the top of the 61 foot tree is a man-made platform, where rangers stationed there would sit and keep a lookout for potential fires in the forests of Western Australia. To scale the tree, metal spires are drilled into the sides, kinda like a ladder so people could climb. As it's opened to visitors, I decided to give it a shot. I made it halfway up and got scared. Since there's no safety equipment, a fall could have killed me...or worse, turned me into a gimp. So I stopped and climbed down. I bitched out, and now only have a stupid story to tell about the time I made it halfway up a tree. If I had kids, they would be ashamed of their dad. After 30 minutes of my unkle Seng making chicken noises, we left and headed north to Mandura for dinner, about an hour south of Perth. The trip took an extra long time since we were experiencing torrential rain and wind (due to the winter)...we arrived just before 8 pm.

My uncle Seng's good friend owns Cicerello, a fantastic seafood restaurant, complete with a huge saltwater aquarium on the mouth of the Freemantle harbour. When we arrived, we were seated instantly and were served a huge bounty of seafood...including chili mussels, steamed fish, seafood linguine, fish and chips and their famous seafood chowder. I can't recall the last time I ate so much that comes from the bottom of the sea. It was amazing, and the toilets of Australia did not thank me the next day haha. (p.s. I can't find any toilets that flush in the traditional spinning water style...they all just push water down the drain...but my quest for the opposite spinning toilet water still continues...).

Anyways...laptop battery dying...not enough time to finish story. I will add more later before I go to bed or tomorrow morning. I'm going for a walk with my cousin and the dog.

Cheers!

Simon

Kangaroos, Koalas and Dingoes!

Look what I got to play with...

When we first landed in Australia, I didn't think much of it. Roads looked the same as Canada except they drive on the left hand side of the road. Sure, some of the trees on the highway looked a little weird but all in all, just a glorified Canada. Even the weather right now is pouring rain, and fairly cold (15 degrees Celsius). But all that changed yesterday...

I was up at 7:00am in the morning yesterday, since I couldn't sleep due to the 12 hour time difference. Fortunately, my auntie Judy has an awesome Delonghi Magnifica automatic espresso machine. $2000 buys you a machine that does it all...grinds the coffee beans, froths milk, and makes incredible espressos...with the water pulled either short or long. I made a double shot long espresso as soon as I woke up, downed it and took a shower. I wish waking up for work back at home was as easy...

After breakfast, we made our way to Caversham Wildlife Park located within Whiteman Park, a huge bush reserve near Midland. At Caversham, guests are allowed to meet and feed all the inhabitants of one of the largest private collections of native animals in Australia. The park is home to kangaroos, quokkas, emus, camels, dingoes, koalas, and tons of exotic birds and marsupials. As soon as we walked into the park, we were greeted by a huge group of kangaroos! At that minute, I knew I was finally in Australia!! I fed the kangaroos some free feed that was available and got so many pictures with them. I think we spent a good hour with the kangaroos. And no, I didn't stick my hand in a pouch (the first sign posted specifically said, do not touch the pouches haha). Around 1:00pm, there was a sheep shearing demonstration and some of the audience had a chance to try to crack a leather whip...very unsuccessfully.

After the show, we walked to a special area of the park, reserved specifically for koalas. I have honestly, never seen anything so adorable in my life (no, I'm not gay). These koalas basically spend the majority of their time up in a eucalyptus tree, eating the leaves of said plant. When they aren't eating...they are sleeping. Sounds like a perfect life for me! Unfortunately, from what I've been told by a staff member at the park, koalas only have a 10 year life expectancy due to having such a sedentary lifestyle. Come to think about it, that's kind of reflected in today's society with over eating, obesity and heart disease etc. But I don't feel like talking about that right now.

Anyways, I wish I could upload more pictures, but I still haven't figured out the formatting for this blog (and frankly, I don't care too much). I'd better get ready, as we're heading south for the day and night. Talk to you soon!

Simon

Balik Kampung!

I decided to change the name of my blog to something a little more meaningful.

"Loosely translated, "balik kampung" means to go back to one's hometown. However, it is most applicable when used to describe the annual pilgrimage of city folk to their respective hometowns during festive seasons..."

Simon

Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)

Michael Joseph Jackson
(August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)


They're Out To Get You, Better Leave While You Can
Don't Wanna Be A Boy, You Wanna Be A Man
You Wanna Stay Alive, Better Do What You Can
So Beat It, Just Beat It

You Have To Show Them That You're Really Not Scared
You're Playin' With Your Life, This Ain't No Truth Or Dare
They'll Kick You, Then They Beat You,
Then They'll Tell You It's Fair
So Beat It, But You Wanna Be Bad

You will be missed...

I see you've played knify spoony before...

G'day mate! How's everyone doing? It's 9:40 pm June 25/09 local time here at Perth, Australia...and a full 12 hours difference from back at home. Our flight left Heathrow, in London at noon on the 24th of June and arrived 13 hours later at Kuala Lumpur International airport. From there, my aunt Monica, Uncle Meng, my mom and myself (I'm going to start using names of my aunt and uncles cause its going to get confusing) had a two hour layover and boarded a plane from there to Perth for an additional five hours. So I obviously arrived safely here in Australia with minimal terrorist intervention. Which is always good. The plane flew over Afganistan...which scared the shit out of me....cause any moment a surface to air missle could come flying and take the whole plane down. Scary shit...no jokes.

**Quick recap...my family in England is my aunt Monica and Uncle Meng and my cousins Lennard and Julian. I will introduce the others when the time comes.

Surprisingly, the 18 hours in the air wasn't as bad as I thought since my uncle ended up scoring us some sweet business class seats on the airplane. Ok...well not quite business class, but we were at the front of the plane...you might even say, a first class economy class? Anyways, there was enough room for us to stretch our legs out, so we didn't feel cramped. Also, we had our own personal LCD screens built right into the arms of the chairs with movies and TV on demand. I ended up watching about three movies and sleeping/eating the rest of the way.

The food on the airline was decent...again much better than I was expecting. For dinner on our first flight from London, they served a choice of either beef stew with potato wedges or a chicken with fried rice dish. I opted for the latter as it was a little more traditional on Malaysia Airlines. For a late night snack (I can't remember exactly what time), they served an assortment of cheese and crackers with fruit salad and some weird banana bread loaf thing that tasted like sand. Finally for "breakfast", they served either a choice of omelette with sausage or a traditonal Malaysian dish which I chose called Nasi Lemak: rice with a shrimp sambal curry, hard boiled egg and green beans. Sounds gross probably, but it was delicious and very authentic.

We arrived in Perth at 3:00 pm local time (again Perth and Malaysia share the same time zone) and were picked up by my aunt Judy, and driven back to their house. Perth is on the far coast of West Australia...about a five hour flight from Sydney (I was not aware of that distance prior to asking my aunt today). I really wanted to visit Sydney, but due to time restrictions I'll have to wait for another time...

Upon arriving at my aunt's house, I met my cousin Heidi, which I haven't seen in a while (last time I saw her was when her family came to Belleville when I was 12 I think). She is the same age as me, I'm older by three days, so it's pretty cool since she's one of the ONLY cousins (out of many) that is the same age as me. Anyways, we caught up which was really nice then my uncle Seng came home with my other cousin Gabby (who's in grade 8). We ate a quick dinner and everyone went out to the local mall except me, Heidi and Gabby who stayed at home and chatted.

It's really nice to see family, and connect with them so well after so many years apart. Unlike a lot of people I know, I don't have the luxury of having family close by. The closest relatives I have is another cousin from my dad's side of the family who lives in Chicago and then my dad's sister who lives in Vancouver. So big family reunions like this happen once in a blue moon (the last time was 14 years ago in Malaysia when I was 7 years old), and when they do, I love every moment of it!

Tomorrow, my auntie Judy is planning a big barbeque...Australian style with kangaroo burgers lol! I'm excited to try it as it's a huge thing down here. I forgot to mention, my aunt's backyard is home to several wild kangaroos...so if I get a chance I'm going to hunt them with my boomerang and throwing sticks. Just kidding...but seriously.

Enjoy reading, post comments, drop me a line on facebook...send me a text if you can figure out the country codes and dialing procedures for messed up numbers (I have a new number here in Australia: 04 04 169 570 and again, don't ask me how to use it lol). I love hearing from you guys...especially when I'm over 10,000km away from home.

Hooroo mate!

Simon

p.s. excuse the spelling, grammar and other nonsense as I'm too lazy to proofread. Does anyone even do that?

Going to the land down under!

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the posts, been quite busy for the past day. I won't have much time to write anything right now...I have to start packing and get to sleep so we can wake up early tomorrow. Our flight leaves for Perth at 12:00 pm local time, so I have to be up around 7:00am...which really sucks. But I can sleep on the plane...as I won't have too much else to do, considering our trip is 13 hours from Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur, where we transfer on another plane to Perth, Australia (which takes an additional 5 hours). You'll probably hear from me in a a few days, as I need to overcome a full 12 hour time difference...so the jetlag is going to be awful :(

Anywho, today...my mom and I walked about 10km from the flat on Great Portland St. through Reagent Park, where they have an awesome rose garden display; all the way through to Camden Town. Camden is different than the rest of London that I have been seeing. There are a lot of interesting characters in Camden...like goths and people who dress like it's Halloween everyday of the year. I thought the emos in Belleville were annoying and fucked up...but no. Not at all compared to what I saw today haha (I hate emo crybaby kids by the way).

But moving on to more important things. After Camden, my aunt and both my cousins went to a nice restaurant close by. Their specialty was mussels and chips, kinda like a unique take on the traditional fish and chips. I ordered a tried and true favourite there...1 kg of mussels with a white wine cream sauce and fries. Delicious! I wish I would have taken a picture, but my aunt did, so I'm going to snag a few of them from her. I just realized that I'm eating a lot here...I'm going to be a fatass after my trip. But I like to think the excess walking counteracts everything bad I'm eating.

OH...that brings me to a different topic all together. The girls in London. Wow...my girlfriend will be highly displeased...but for the guys reading, I have honestly encountered only 2 to 3 morbidly obese girls...the rest of them, I wouldn't even consider fat. Maybe I'm in a good part of London...but I can't beleive it. Anyways, I'm going to get some sleep for my big day tomorrow.

I'll see you all on the other side of the world, in the land down under!!


Cheers!

Simon


p.s. the picture is of me beside one of the Queen's guards outside of Buckingham Palace.

London - Day 2

Both yesterday and today were phenomenal. After my post yesterday, we ended up walking around downtown London, from Buckingham Palace and right along the River Thames all the way up to Tower Bridge (the bridge from the song!). We ended up taking a lunch break through Chinatown here in London. But from what I've seen, it didn't look as big as the faithful Spadina Chinatown in Toronto. After lunch, we briefly stopped at the London Eye (but never went on as the lineup was huge; then took a stroll by the famous Shakespeare Globe Theatre...restored in it's entirety, complete with a thatched roof after a fire in 1613 burned it to the ground. A short ride back on the underground completed our day. Overall we walked a fair distance...about 10km total for the day...so by the end of things my legs were done.

Upon returning back to my aunt and uncle's flat on Great Portland, my aunt wasted no time and ended up cooking a huge dinner! After dinner, my aunt, uncle, my mom and I took a drive down to Greenwich to their other flat to spend the night. I thought that the first flat was amazing...but I was amazed at the sight of their other one. It is a penthouse suite located on the edge of the River Thames with a spectacular skyline view of downtown London...need I say more?

I would have posted something last night, but I was just too tired. I went to bed around midnight and woke up around 9:30am local time...even though it felt like I didn't sleep at all...I think the jetlag is slowly wearing off though, cause I feel pretty decent right now.

Today was also another sweet day. We started off getting brunch at this Italian joint where I got my first coffee(s) since I landed. We didn't waste any time and headed about one hour north of London to the University of Cambridge. The interesting thing about both Cambridge and Oxford here in England is that everything is separated into "Colleges", including the famous King's College and Trinity College...the alma mater of Isaac Newton. Each college serves as a home for students that gets selected for the college...almost like the Harry Potter sorting thing. The college you stay at becomes their home for the next three to four years of their education. Friendly competition in sports and academics then occurs between each college here. Cambridge houses over 800 years of tradition and history within it's walls, all of which are evident in the ancient stone castles and churches present on the grounds. Needless to say, I've been considering doing graduate school at Cambridge, and being there today put a huge leap forward in my decision...but we'll see when that time comes. Both my cousins here in England; Lennard and Julian attended Cambridge (one of them went to both Oxford, then Cambridge for medicine) so as you can see, I have big shoes to fill, my dad was also educated here in England.

After the visit at Cambridge, we drove and picked up my cousin Julian, the younger of my two cousins here from his flat a few minutes north of London. He's 23 years old and is working as a chartered accountant for a huge firm in downtown London. Pretty amazing stuff. We then went to a Japanese restaurant for a huge sushi dinner, and now I'm here...in bed with some mad itis. So I will stop writing here, and let you guys have something to read without boring anyone. Tomorrow is going to be a pretty big shopping day...so I'll see what expensive things I can buy. Things are pretty expensive here...and the fact that the exchange rate isn't in our favour doesn't help out too much. Have a good night!

Simon

Welcome to merry ol' London!

Well...I survived the trip on the plane. But just barely. My back is killing me, and I haven't slept yet. And don't even get me started on the airline food. I'm also suffering from a horrible headache, due to the lack of my favourite stimulant. It's about 12:00 pm local time here in London (which is 6:00am in Ontario). Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to upload a picture today, but I'll try to get a few of them up as soon as I can.

A slight change in our itinerary...instead of getting off at Heathrow, we landed at Gatwick Airport and took the train to London. We're staying at my aunt and uncle's flat right in downtown London...and I must say it's absolutely gorgeous! So far, from what I've seen, London is going to be a great place to spend the next few days, before I take off to Australia. There's just too much to see in such a short amount of time that I will be here, so we're going to hit the "big" things, and maybe save the minuscia for another time. Everything is accessible by subway or "the tube" as it's called here by most of the locals. I've always said that public transit is for losers haha...but there's no other way to get around here since the traffic is extremely congested; it's the busiest roads I have ever seen...much worse than Toronto or Montreal and my aunt and uncle never drive.

Today, we're probably going to take a walk on the River Thames and grab a bite to eat somewhere downtown. Pretty much just going to take it easy and get a brief introduction to all that London has to offer. I'm also going to attempt to pick up a cell phone today, so if you guys want you can send me a text just to say hi. I'll post my number on Facebook as soon as I get it, so keep an eye out for that.

Anywho, I'm going to take a shower to freshen up a little, as seven hours on a cramped plane isn't too fun. I can't wait for my 18 hour flight to Australia...

Talk to you guys soon!

Simon

The last Tim Hortons...

Right...so I know that I'm not going to be out of Canada for that long. But...that means I'm going to be away from my precious Tim Horton's large double double for just that long. I just realized that I have become so dependent on a caffeine-based beverage to get me through the majority of my day...either at work, school or whathaveyou. But who cares? coffee is good and research has shown that caffeine acts as a performance and endurance enhancer and also as a catalyst for fat loss and weight control -- obviously without all that thick cream and sugar. I LOVE COFFEE!

So today, I finally started packing. Then realized that I was missing a lot of important things...like clothes. So I went out to College Sports and Sport Check to pick up some non-cotton t-shirts, cause all I pretty much have is cotton shirts. Cotton sucks when it's humid or if you're doing anything physical cause it sticks to your back and doesn't dry properly. The last thing I want is to be even more uncomfortable in 40 degree HUMID weather, so spending the money now made the most sense to me. I also picked up a bigger pack so I can carry my laptop, camera and other things as carry-on luggage, on top of my bigger suitcase. But I'm sure most of you don't care about my shopping habits...and to be honest, neither do I.

I can't beleive how fast time has gone since I found out about the trip. It was just like yesterday that I started work and now I'm packing up ready to go. To be honest, it still hasn't really sunk in yet, and I don't think it will until I'm either in the car on the way to the airport or sitting on the plane, halfway across the Atlantic. People tell me I should be more excited, but trust me I will be excited as soon as I realize that I am actually on my way on such an amazing trip. In the mean time, I better finish packing so I don't forget anything in my haste. Thanks for reading.

Cheers!
Simon

Pre-Flight Checklist

Hi everyone and thanks for visiting my blog!

For those of you who don't know, I'm leaving Canada in two days, and heading out on a six week trip to England, Australia and Malaysia (I haven't even started packing yet!). The real reason for this trip is to see family on my mom's side, as I haven't even met some of my relatives! The timing couldn't have been any more perfect since we were able to schedule it so mostly everyone could be together. The plan is to spend four days in Manchester, UK, about ten days in Perth, Australia and the remainder of the time touring through East and West Malaysia. And yes, I have family in each of those places.

I will be updating this blog as often as I can and only if I have an internet connection available (some of the rural parts of Malaysia that I will be visiting don't even have running water, let alone electricity and internet) so keep checking back if you don't see anything posted for a few days.

By the way, I know some of you keen readers would also realize the irony in my blog title, as the majority of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, died in a plane crash back in '77). Enjoy reading and drop me a line.

Simon