Holiday time!

Well, after a bit of a break it’s about time I wrote up some words about what on earth I’ve been up to over the last 6 or 7 weeks.
After a much longer and quite pleasant trip back to London for work in July and August I finally returned back to sunny Singapore about a stone heavier from a daily diet of client dinners, smoozing, summer BBQs and enough pints and of London Pride to shift the share price of Young’s in a positive direction.
Work has been a little bit hectic, which has meant a bit of knuckling down and getting stuck in rather than sitting about in the sunshine by the pool drinking frozen margaritas.
So after this busy period I decided that it was time for a bit of adventure and some long overdue holiday. There is no shortage of amazing places to throw oneself at in this part of the world and Singapore has some great and very cheap flight connections to lots of places that I can neither pronounce nor have any inclination of their geographic whereabouts.

It’s odd looking up and taking a precarious glance at the departures board and seeing a long list of places that I’ve never heard of but all sounding quite exotic nonetheless. Having two full weeks of which to play with I decided on a bit of beach pampering for the first half and some sort of mini adventure for the second half.
Luckily, I had a friend visiting from overseas for some of this too, so it made it even more fun to have someone to go with.

So, Bintan (an island a few hours south of Singapore in Indonesia) was chosen for the former and a full week in Saigon in Vietnam for the latter.

Bintan was great and is only an hour by high speed ferry from the south of Singapore. I stayed at the Banyan tree resort which is a top notch resort spa where you are pruned, preened and plucked to within an inch of your life by some expertly trained staff. I’d never really had a proper spa massage before so I was not really sure if I’d like it or not. I can safely say, it’s a great experience and very very relaxing.
So deeply relaxed was I after said massage that as I looked out yonder from the private balcony to which my newly massaged and scrubbed derrière was perched, I perused the calm seas only to see two people come screaming past on jet bikes whooping with glee. You’ve never seen me run down to the beach hire shop so fast clutching a wad of sweaty dollars in my hot but perfectly manicured hand.
After all these years and having ridden, driven, sailed and most often crashed most things I’d never before had a go on one of these so was quite excited. It’s brilliant so if you get the chance, have a go.
Whilst shooting across the waves at a fair rate of knots (and that’s the first time I’ve ever been able to use that phrase in it’s true context) and being bounced around and sprayed with the salty waters of the South China sea, I came to the conclusion that I was undoing all the good work that I’d just forked out good money on, so after 30 minutes I sailed it back up the beach and promptly went back to lounging around with a couple of frozen margarita from the passing waiter. After all – holidays are supposed to be relaxing are they not?


Bintan is also home to a great golf course designed by the Great White himself. It really does look like an epic course, but me not being such an epic player I just looked fondly at the crashing waves lapping against the steep wall of the 8th and sighed. Maybe next time....

So after a few days, it was time to head back to Singapore to repack, regroup and drop off all the Indonesian tourist tat and head off to Saigon for the adventure part. I’ve always had a penchant to go to Vietnam and that’s nothing to do with watching Platoon as a teenager too many times either. I can’t really say why, but when it’s only a two hours north of Singapore it was a great choice for a 5 day break. So armed with my Lonely Planet guide and a few recommendations from the Vietnam contingent at work I set off to go and explore a new land. I only had 5 days so I decided to concentrate my time on the southern areas of Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Hanoi and the Central Highlands and the beaches would have to wait another time.

Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City) as it’s often now referred to is quite literally bonkers.

I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve been living in the sanitised bubble of perfectness that is Singapore but the moment you step out of the departure hall into the Vietnam open air everything feels like it’s been put in a blender, put on to max without the lid being attached correctly and then exploded down the kitchen wall.
Singapore is relatively quiet – Vietnam is noisy. Sing is spotless, Vietnam is slightly grubby, People in Singapore can’t drive for toffee – Vietnamese people also can’t drive for toffee..... Ah we’ve found the common ground then.

In a nutshell, I loved it from the moment I nearly got run over in the first 10 seconds of arriving to the moment I left. I’ll try and explain why.

Vietnam is rough around the edges and I guess that might have been it. For a country that was at war until a few weeks week after I was born it’s come along leaps and bounds.
Considering that more than twice the number of bombs than in the entire second world war were dropped on it, it’s a wonder that the place has anything left of it at all. Granted, it’s not the cleanest place in the world, nor is it the most coherently run, but what it lacks for in these areas it more than make up for in its underlying character, the friendliness of the people and the general sense of energy that makes places like this so much fun to visit.

Take the traffic for instance. More motorbikes live here than anywhere else on the planet. Over 3 million of them are on the roads, tracks and pavements, up trees and in the gutters.

I’ve never seen anything like it. Crossing the road is something that would send The Green Cross Man to drink.






I can just imagine a gigantic Peter Prouse staring down on these little scooters zipping around the place like mosquito’s with the sea of black haired Vietnamese paying absolutely no notice to his informative but educational Stop, Look and Listen campaign and shouting out an enormous “NOOOOooooo Luke!!”
Basically there are two rules to crossing the road in Saigon. The first rule is that traffic lights do not count for shit for scooters. When the lights are red, simply bunny hop up on to the nearest curb (which has already had a helpful little ramp fitted to it) and scoot around the pesky red tinged light. Once on the other side of the light, let rip with all your 50cc might and off to the next set of lights. Repeat as necessary until the final destination has been reached. It’s like a training ground for wannabe Evil Knevil daredevils.

The second rule is that when crossing the road and in particular at junctions with more than 4 exits, nobody stops. 4 or more lanes of traffic just all collide at once and mingle amongst each other like ants. It’s a wonder to watch, so when you cross the road you just close your eyes and walk out. I liken the not being hit by a passing scooter with the same measure of biblical miraculousness of the parting of the Red Sea. It’s truly a wonder that a scooter can be ridden with 5 people on it and not end up under it. I shit you not, I even saw one with an entire double mattress (sideways) on the back being rode down the high street.

Another great thing I noticed was the street cabling. I’ve seen some shitty wiring in my time, but how on earth anyone can make sense of the telecommunication network that services the Vietnamese people is an amazement to science itself. Seeing some cables that could be carrying any medium know to man dangling from the trees and being wrapped around the nearest nail sticking out of a wall does not inspire you with confidence that any email, volt or phone call is ever going to get to where it needs to go to. The analogy of the concrete jungle was no more fitting than here as the cables looked like vines growing any which way then could around the myriad of protruding manmade structures.


After a few days of Saigon it was time to move on




No trip to Vietnam would be complete without a trip to the famous Cu Chi tunnels. These are the famous tunnels that the Viet Cong used to hide in and use as a secret underground network during the Vietnam war against the Americans. This truly was a fascinating experience to go and see along with the War memorial museum in Saigon. This really was a thought provoking place and you really do see the true horror of man when you walk around it.

I’ll be honest and upfront that I never really knew much about the Vietnam war. Its history, purpose and general conduct was always a bit of a mystery to me. The museum is a great place to learn about it and visually see tanks, machine guns and a pictorial history of the entire background of the conflict and the some of the history during the lead up to it. The entire place is a little one sided in opinion that the Americans were a megalomaniac all encompassing evil, that the war on Vietnam was illegal and that left to their own devices the world would have turned out a much better place. Granted, Americans generally are a little bit evil and it was illegal, (it’s nice to know we’ve progressed a long way on that front then I guess) but being left to their own devices would have led to a further imbalance within the pro communist sympathetic countries in the region, potentially leading to a deeper conflict or destabilisation of the entire region. I made that bit up myself so you won’t get to read that bit there just in case you start to look for that poster ;)

The tunnels are a good day out from Saigon and are quite odd to see. The Viet Cong were quite small people, so that could fit down these tiny tunnels, where obviously the fat evil Burger King eating M16 wielding American GI could not fit. I managed to get my inner thigh in before I got stuck. They have made a few more tunnels that are a little bit bigger than some of the real ones but even they are tiny to get through. It was super hot, and very cramped and to be honest, a little bit scary. How it must have felt with half the American army bombing and shooting the crap out of the place is a thought I’d not like to dwell on too much.

I left the place a little sombre as it really did make me think what a shitty bunch Man can be. What drives us to do the things we do over something as trivial as the next man having a bit more tin or a little bit more rubber is boggling concept to get a hold on and one I don’t think I’ll ever really grasp.

It has kicked off a bit of history switch inside me though and I’m developing a bit of a likening for books on the region, particular late second world war stuff in and around Singapore and the region. In particular King Rat by James Clavell and The Naked Island by Russell Braddon which are based around the infamous Changi prison around the second world war. Both are fantastic accounts and have really made me want to go and see Changi prison in the future, which I’ll hopefully blog about.

So from the concrete jungle to the real jungle, to another jungle – it was time to float off down to the Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta is an area of southern Vietnam which is mostly a network of silt rivers and estuaries. Over half the rice in Vietnam is grown here and the nearly all the locals are involved in some sort of farming, either on a subsistence basis or larger trade. Nearly everything that happens revolves around life on the river in this part of the world, so I got booked on to an overnight river cruise on a boat not to dissimilar to a traditional river junk.
Technically I think it’s a rice barge but I’m not sure.

The boat was amazing not only because of the food and the amazing scenery but for the fact we had the entire thing to ourselves. Watching the scenery pass by as we sailed deeper up the river made me a little bit like Martin Sheen sailing up the river in Apocalypse Now. After the busyness of Saigon the peace and tranquillity of the jungle was a stark contrast.
Along the way, we stopped off at various village houses to see the locals and how they lived, which was fascinating and ranged from local brick factories, to fruit plantations to a small set of houses making handicrafts and coconut sweets, which were very tasty. Nothing amazed me more than the friendliness of the local people and them wanting to share their houses, their food and welcoming a couple of strangers us into their lives, if only for an hour or two. Just makes you think if you’d do the same.

The main memory that will stick with me of the Mekong River would be the floating market, which is a large market where all the local traders come to exchange and sell goods. It’s a bit chaotic, but lots of fun and had some of the most tasty fruit I’ve ever had the delectable pleasure to taste. All in all, it was a great trip that I would recommend. Beats getting your bananas at Waitrose for sure.

So this week it’s back to work and back to Singapore and normality, if of course you can call it that.

Shore leave.

Since I arrived on back in late May I’d not actually left the shores of Singapore and half the point of being here is to do some exploring of Asia and it’s surroundings. Moreover because there is some great scuba to be done around here and having pretty much exhausted the diving in the Red Sea (I can visualise some Instructors mates firing up the complaints emails on this statement) I’m quite keen to explore new oceans, seas and puddles of water deep enough to stand up in to see what oceanic delights await me in this part of the world. Even better is the fact that places that I’ve looked at on the spinning miniature globe on my desk which once looked so far away are now just a small step away, or at least a smaller credit card bill away.
One of the guys at work was talking about learning to dive, so last Saturday I tagged along to see what the local school setups are like and also to find a store for spares and maybe a few dive trips and the like. I met up with Rafi and Louise from the Dive Company which is a great little dive shop and school absolutely nowhere near the sea. I always find this funny as people often paint the picture of dive shops being these run down little shacks held together with twine with stolen starfish nailed to the corrugated iron roof. Truth be told – I’ve certainly been to a lot like that, but this one was a much more modern affair and the only thing nailed to the wall was a load of cool new scuba goodies to spend your hard earned dollars on.
So having a chat with the guys about my teaching background and adventures, I promptly got offered a job to help out with teaching and was asked if I wanted to go to Pulau Aur in Malaysia that weekend. Bit of a result. I felt more at home than a pig in the proverbial.
Having had a couple of years off I was quite excited about teaching again so this was not only a result that I’d be getting to try out some of the dive sites in the area and getting to meet some really great people but I’d also be getting paid for it. It won’t pay the mortgage off, but teaching is something I’ve always enjoyed so it’s more about the love of it that making oodles of cash out of it.
So I rocked up to the dive shop on Friday evening and was promptly given my official “dive crew” black polo shirt that officially marks you out as someone who is supposed to know what they are doing. Truth be told I was rustier than a Lada at the bottom of the North Sea and fumbled my way through a lot of things that I really should have known back to front. Luckily, I had a small group and my DM Bobby and other Instructor, Jeff helped me out a lot and made it a fun weekend.

The trip to Pulau Aur is a 2hr coach journey to the causeway which links to Malaysia. It’s then a 2hr drive up to Mersing on the East coast of Malaysia which is where the small ferries head out easterly to the smattering of islands scattered between 2 and 4 hours sail away. Aur is the furthest island from the coast at about 80ks away. It’s also the most isolated in terms of facilities in that it’s just made up of a few ramshackle dive resorts which consist of a few wooden cabins on stilts on the rocks.
Whilst not 5 star in appearance or it really was 5 star in terms of friendliness and overall character. The food was also relentless in that it just kept on coming. After the first day diving on the Saturday there was a fantastic BBQ buffet with all manner of foods on offer. It really was great and the party spirit flowed as well as an inordinate amount of booze that Jeff and Bobby brought over. Now, Instructors and DM’s are particularly renowned for being able to put the booze away and these two had come away for a boozy weekend with diving being a secondary bonus level activity. It was a drink hard and fast quickly and go to bed early routine that left me in a little bit of awe. I’ve seen a bottle of vodka disappear pretty quick but not as quick as they hit the sack after it. The next morning I realised why as getting up at 6 for the breakfast dive made it hit home.
The diving at Aur was good fun. The sea is a balmy 28 so a skimpy shorty was all is really required. The diving was quite varied and lots of small things to see in the water on offer with some nice corals and the occasional turtle thrown in to spice it up.
This does of course mean my full length custom 5mm wet suit is bugger all use here as it’s a bit like diving in bath water. More dive gear purchases looking likely.
I’ll do a bit more teaching every now and again and especially when the trips to Bali come up. Rafi was good enough to give me a call a few days later to see if I enjoyed myself and if I was up for doing some more teaching when I’m back. Yes on both counts.

I’m back off to London this month for a work trip so the adventure is on hold for a couple of weeks hiatus.

Magic mash

I finally got the keys to my place last week which was great as I was getting a little bit tired of not being able to sit on a proper sofa or cook things in my own kitchen. Granted, I still don’t actually have a sofa to sit on still nor any cooking implements or anything even to eat off or in fact eat with yet, so it’s a bit of an anti climax as far as thinking that having my own condo would allow me such luxuries as sitting down and dining.

All my stuff (and I say stuff) as as it’s not a great deal arrives today so at least I can at least think about cooking something and perch myself on the kitchen counter whilst I eat it. Still a lot to buy but it’s coming along. Annoyingly, I’ve had a bit of a busy couple of weeks with work and watching the shambles of the World Cup, so I’ve not had chance to use the amazing pool that I have nor any of the other facilities yet. As both of those have calmed down a bit it’s a bit of R&R later this week as I’ve a couple of days off.

Here’s a picture to give you an idea.

Even though the footy has been dire, it’s been great watching it here in Asia as everyone here is footy mad. It’s much more of a female spectator sport here too and the crowds of fans you see (mostly Liverpool oddly) are a 50/50 split between the sexes. At least it’s not full of Man U fans which is quite refreshing. The good thing is that there are loads of great outdoor bars to sit out at and drink lots of Tiger beer and watch the games in the balmy night air. When I say balmy night air, I mean heavy, thick, sticky and humid air that makes you wetter than a fishes towel after a very long shower.
Shame I won’t get to see the final here as I’ll be back in London for that as I’ve a trip back to London coming up in a week or so. It’s had the feeling of watching important footy when you’re on holiday somewhere. Perhaps it’s the heat, or maybe it’s the getting up at 3am to see England draw 0 –0 against a team made up of plumbers and carpet fitters that makes it feel that way. Either way, it’s been fun to be part of it and I’m looking forward to the Grand Prix in September and even more so as I’ve a couple of friends coming over to watch it too. It’s quite a big event here so I’m quite looking forward to watching my first F1 race over here.

One of the funnier things I’ve found here on a bit of a tipsy night home from one of the games was the most bizarre fast food (if you can call it that) dispensing - erm... thing that I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen some really odd ones over the years but this is easily in my top three. Popping into a 7-eleven one drunken evening home with a few colleagues I chanced in to the Magic Mashed machine.

Now being a Londoner I’m not totally surprised by the excitement that a bowl of mash can summon up but this was a new take on it that I’ve never seen before. You stick a dollar in the machine – stick a cup under the nozzle and out pours a concoction that I can only describe as runny powdered smash. Once the mash solidifies into a semi plasmatic like state the machine makes a bit of a gurgle and spurts out a thick dollop of super thick dark gravy on to the glistening surface of the nuclear hot mash like substance.
This was quite entertaining, so we bought about 4 of them although being only two of us I have no idea why still, so we asked Mr Mash standing behind the counter if he’d ever tried this ingenious but tasty meal out the machine. He replied that in the 2 years he’d worked there that he’d never tried it - but by golly he’d take one of our spare mashes (not sure of the possessive plural on that I’m afraid) and try it out.
So it was mashey goodness all round for everyone. I’d like to say it was horrible, but at 4am in the morning when you’re sharing mash in a pot with your new mate from the 7-eleven everything just seems a bit tastier than it should and life is just a tiny bit rosier.

Not sure I’d be trying it again as the 7-eleven was closed the next day and they NEVER close... Ooops.

messing about in boats.

This weekend I decided that I'd have a go at something on water. As all my dive gear is still being shipped here picked something that I've quite fancied doing for a while but never got around to.
Sea Kayaking. Well, the first bit to this was the 1 Star course, which takes you from knowing nothing about a kayak to being able to zigzag (ok - you are supposed to go in a straight line) around the marina bay and do a few rudimentary manoeuvres. I did give kayaking a brief go when I was about 12, which was about half of the average age of the folks on the course, me being the oldest by a fair bit. I do remember it being a bit easier when I was in my teens, but then I also remember most things being a bit easier then when I think about it. The guys on the course were all good fun and lunchtime was interesting as they probed me all about London life and generally what I thought about Singapore. I also got to try a few more foods that they insisted that I try out from the local hawker centre nearby. Something that I always love doing. I should really start paying more attention to some of the names of things rather than pointing inanely at things and saying "Yes please!" when I see something that looks interesting.


The course I did was run in a small river bay that is now a catchment area for a resovoir nearby. I say now, as like most things in Singapore, it's going under a huge reconstruction phase of linking all the rivers up to increase the water catchment area for the Marina Reservoir. This does mean that eventually, you'll be able to kayak most of the river system in Singapore, which sounds pretty cool.

The point of going on this course was not only to have a bit of a mess about on the water one weekend but also to pursue the 2nd and 3rd star grades so that I can do a kayaking trip up the rivers of Thailand on a 4 day camping trip that I've seen. Once I've got a bit more practice in and ironed out the zigzags into more of an A-B path missing out involuntary excursions into the international shipping lane or the path of an oncoming sea tanker I might be good enough to give it a go.


The course itself was great fun and I forgot how much fun it is to learn something again from scratch, even if you do look a bit rubbish at it at first. My arms do feel like they've been pulled out of their sockets this evening and the factor 50 missed a few key areas (back of neck and ears look like they've been dipped in pink paint) but all in all a great weekend and recommended.

One thing the SGs have well and truly sorted out is making courses for young people readily accessible. Maybe I've been inner-city living for too long but this is an inner-city and as far as I can see there's a lot of choice and availability, for hardy any money at all. The entire course for an adult was less than 40 bucks a day which I thought was great value for all the kit hire, great instruction and quite a fun learning experience too.
They should put on a free wiping of after sun cream service on the way out though as loads of us had no strength in our arms to lift them to gingerly dab at our overly pink ears as we left.

Open for guests...

Open for guests.

Having had my first real month in Singapore and as part of the relocation service my company has given me, I’ve had the first real month here being put up in a serviced apartment. While this sounds quite grand, it’s just like being in a hotel room with a small dining room and a kitchen bolted on to it. The only difference between it and having a normal flat is that the magical cleaning fairy comes every morning and tidies up your towels and moves the papers you scattered on the left of the desk to the right of the desk each evening when you come home. I tested this one day by leaving the papers scattered on the right side of the desk for a change and yes, they’d been moved to the left when I got back.
I tested this even further by leaving them in the middle one day but this must have confused him/her as they were thrown in the bin. Either the middle part of the desk is a no mans land as far as cleaning goes or I made some huge cultural paper placement faux pax. That or three day old copies of the Straights Times got on her/his tits enough to warrant the use of the bin.
Property hunting in Singapore is quite an easy affair really as there is a massive amount of choice to suit all manner of budgets. It’s just a question of putting in an afternoon and going to visit a few with one of the local Realtors.
I could tell you some stories I’ve heard about Realtors here (basically anyone can be one with absolutely no qualifications and it’s a license to print money) As I come to think of it, it’s exactly the same as being an Estate Agent back home. (drum roll please).....
In my experience, I had quite a good one and James took me around a few places that I’d heard good things about and it was an easy choice one Saturday afternoon to pick my new home down on the East Coast.
I’d pretty much decided on the East Coast the day I arrived when I went for a bit of a wander down by the park facing the sea.
Now don’t get me wrong, the sea is the last place you’re going to dip your toes in unless you have leprosy and are at the hacking it off stage of preventing it from travelling further, but it is a pleasant view and living by water, no matter what the colours of the rainbow you are likely to see glistening across it’s filmy surface is– it’s still the sea after all.

I pick the keys up in a couple of weeks by which time I should have my stuff from England so it’ll shortly be home sweet home and I’ll be back to life without the magical dish fairy.

For those of you wishing to visit this lovely isle, it’s open season from the end of July when I’m back from London. Hope to see some of you soon!

Ministry Of MoM

This week, I finally got around to sorting out my EP visa. Like all bits of officialdom, everything has a three letter acronym and lots of application forms to get it.
Singapore is no different than anywhere else in the world in respect to the sheer amount of forms you have to fill in just to be able to use three sheets of toilet paper in a visit rather than the two.
Having spent the last year of my life being given the full on treatment of Her Majesties effectiveness in bureaucracy and sheer crappiness of arranging and coordinating absolutely anything that involves one piece of paper being passed correctly six feet to the person on the other desk without a 3 week delay and 5 phone calls for it to be fixed, I was half expecting that Singapore would be similar given the amount of forms that need to be filled in to arrive/live/work here.
UK paperwork officialdom people really should come here for one of those 3 week learning exercises as it really is a well-oiled machine here.
On Friday, I took the morning off to come down to the Mom (Ministry of Manpower) at Clark Quay.
MoM is one of the things all newcomers need to go and do. Basically, all the paperwork that you’ve gone through to get here and live and work needs to be made official with the government department of manpower.
Needless to say, I’d resigned myself to taking off the whole morning to get my mountain of forms looked at, my fingerprints taken and a passport photo taken. Having done some similar exercises in the UK, I knew that my very life force was likely to be sucked from my frontal lobe with pen pushing lack of efficiency by some little twat with a red biro in his front shirt pocket.
It was a pleasant surprise to be, erm, surprised.

The Mom is probably the most efficiently run, f*ckwit free place I’ve ever been to. So much so, they actually realise that you are the most likely fu*ckwit candidate in the entire place and throw themselves upon you like you are a human hand-grenade made of f*ckwit shrapnel and if not defused immediately of the forms and paperwork that you carry, you might explode and infect the place with ineffectiveness and general f*ckwittedness ™
As you step out of the lift on the fourth floor, which incidentally, is beautifully sing posted I might add, they literally have an armed guard of commando trained middle age women who wrench the paperwork out of your hands, check it, fill in all the mistakes you’ve made, take a passport photo of you (which you forgot to bring), sort out the new amended appointment (as you’ve come on the wrong day – see past history on this) and usher you to a counter with a 40” plasma telly over it with the words “Andy! – Shut up and queue here flashing on it”
After 5 minutes you leave with no paperwork and a bit of plastic with your name on it saying “Welcome to Singapore – you’re Legal!” written on it.

It’s truly a master class in how to run stuff.

I left feeling slightly violated, but in equal measure felt as though I’d spent far to long queuing up for shit in other parts of the world. Leaving this kind of efficiency behind will not be an easy task.

Spread The Word

This week, I went to this Expat thing called Friday Night Drinking Club. Now, FNDC (once you’ve been accepted in the group) is a facebook group for Expats that meet as a group social at different bars every Friday night in Singapore. Each week they go somewhere different so it’s a good way of exploring new drinking holes and meeting new people, which for folks like me that no neither the holes nor that many of the people, it’s not such a bad thing to attend.
I’m a bit mixed about some of the whole Expat thing and I’m not really here to get rat arsed with lots of people I could get meet quite happily in London. Anyway, I found myself on a Friday evening with no real plan of anything to do and the group were meeting at a cool bar near my hotel so I decided to go along and see if it was any good. In the end, I had a great time, drunk my own body weight in beer and met some really interesting people who were actually very nice and not as twatty as I thought they would have been. It just goes to show that you should never really make an assumption about things without at least giving it a go in the first place.
Stumbling home at 4am in the morning and knowing a few more interesting people and learning a bit of Mandarin - and forgetting it again in the morning was not a bad way of spending a Friday night.
The interesting thing about spending your time with people in the same situation as you is that you soon realise that some of the thoughts you have about the place are the same as everyone else. Will it become home? Will it start to feel like home? Will I ever get served any dish without chilli f*cking sauce?
These are all questions that it seems a few people have here and it was good to mull them over with some other folk who are new or slightly new to these shores.
I did end up meeting a couple of people also writing blogs in various flavours. Turns out that there is a competition each year in Singapore for bloggers, with which there are various categories to be nominated in. I quite fancy at least being nominated for a category, if nothing more than getting let in for the free booze at the awards party next August.
Do me a favour and add yourself as a “follower” or link to me, or just about anything that makes me look like people give a shit about this tirade of thoughts that I’m bothering to share with you.

I promise if I win, I’ll thank each and every one of you.