Travel Tales of 2

So still in Perth went out on Saturday night with Adam Danny Gavin and Brenda, got slightly drunk as you can see if you check out the pictures - don’t know where we got the glasses from or the hat actually. Great night was had by all and we again crashed for the night at Adams place. The next day the lads decided to take a slab of beer down to the beach where we spent the day and watched the sun set not a bad way to spend a sunday. On Monday it was time to say goodbye to Gavin and Brenda who were heading on to Asia although i think in a way i was glad to say goodbye i was badly in need of a night off!!!! It was great meeting up with them a great way to start our trip in OZ. So after saying goodbye to them we headed back into central Perth and had an early night (after a few drinks with Sean).

Tuesday we headed to a couple of job interviews were we had offers of working in an apple orchard, grape picking or working on a pig farm. We headed back to the hostel to have a think about it when we got a phonecall from one of the agencies telling us she’d found work for us in a roadhouse in a place called Williams? We ended up taking the job in Williams (thats where i’m writing this from) a small town an hour and a half from Perth. So the following day we headed to K-Mart to pick up a few things before filling up on fuel and heading off to Williams - didn’t get very far however as the beast (nickname for car) wouldn’t start after we filled up on water. The battery was flat…… Anyway after getting a jump start from a taxi driver we were finally off.

Of course being us we choose the warmest March day ever recorded (EVER) to travel in a non air conditioned car….. We eventually got their and after peeling myself out of the car we checked out were we’d be working. The roadhouse is just a petrol station with a shop takeaway and restaurant. Garret is working in the kitchen cooking and im in the shop and lending a hand to the resturant. It also has a shower room (for truckies traveling all day that have to sleep in their cabs). Williams itself is just a few houses three petrol stations (the main Albany highway passes through the town), a school and a pub. Theres also a lot of farms around a small one being around 5ooo acres (I didn’t press too many zeros there it really is meant to be 5000) with 3000 sheep… Garretts hoping to try out sheep shearing that’ll be fun.

We also seen our first kangaroo - road kill, its easier to see them that way , they dont run away

The house we’re staying in is fine no aircon (seems to be a recurring theme) but with work we won’t be there much. Slight mouse problem but our boss demonstrated how to handle them (she owns the house and when showing us around a mouse appeared…) jump up and down on them - not joking he tried hiding under a mat and she hopped up and down on him poor thing never stood a chance. Don’t worry she’s not a nutter just grew up on a farm and mice tend to move into homes after harvesting. Our new housemates are also working in caltex (thats the roadhouse) the english couple (who have just left to explore Oz) seemed farmiliar when i first met them and sure enough we’d run into them in China in Kunming - couldn’t get over it.

Well we’ve said goodbye to the english couple they left a few days after we arrived, we’ve also checked out the local pub (reminds me of churchtown) and had a few shifts at work (so far haven’t got fired). We’ve booked St. Patricks day off so heading back to Perth for that. well thats all for now i’ll try and keep you posted although for the next while all we’ll mostly be doing is working (feels really weird being back at work after six months off). happy st. Patricks day to all S&G

Okay stupidly we didn’t book a hostel before coming to Perth so spent our first day looking for a hostel in extreme heat - theres no escaping the sun. It’s not that i’m complaining about the weather more that i was carrying a backpack with no clue where i was or where to go - brilliant!!! Eventually found a really nice hostel to stay so we cooked something to eat (first time we’ve had to cook in six months) and just crashed for the night.

It wasn’t until the next day that we realised that Perth is full of Irish seriously every hostel is 60% irish so our accents are back as strong as ever (they had mellowed out while traveling to make it easier for people to understand us). We went searching for a hostel that we could stay in more long term as the one we were in was only available for two nights, which we eventually found. Then it was back to the hostel for a barbecue which was followed by a few beers and a beach volleyball game involving feet in the main lounge room (don’t know how anything wasn’t broken), it was an early night roughly 3 in the morning.

Up early the next morning - which was not enjoyable at all - packed and moved hostel. We met up with Gavin and Adam Sheenan who gave us a lift out to Scarborough were we met up with Brenda McKenna and Danny (Adams girlfriend from Meigh in Armagh - she knows some of the McArdles but i can’t remember her surname so Danny will have to do). We went to the park and had a kick about then it was back into Perth city centre to watch the rugby match. Unfortunately the game didn’t start until 2.30 in the morning here so the irish club were we went to watch it had to stop serving before the game started and they couldn’t leave drink on the table either so there was no buying a huge round just before the bar closed cause they just came round a half hour later and lifted the full drinks of the tables. However the match more than made up for this inconvenience - Gavins voice was gone by the end of the match and my heart was still in my mouth. Another early night by all accounts as it was 6 before we got back to the hostel.

We decided to have a quiet night Sunday so headed out to Scarborough again where we made dinner and drank a slab of beer - we crashed at their place that night. The next day myself, Garrett, Gavin and Brenda went to see Freemantle prison where we went on a tour its only been closed 15 years or so. There was plenty of stories and we got to see the hanging room as well as the solitary confinement - were i tried to leave Garrett (didn’t work). Back to Scarborough were we met up with Danny and Adam again this involved yet another slab of beer.

Our sixth day in OZ and we decided it was time to try out an Australian beach so back to Scarborough (this is the city beach area). We had a blast of a day the sea was unbelievably rough nothing like the Thailand beaches the waves were strong enough to knock you off your feet and when they did they ended up washing you up on shore. I had great fun laughing at Brenda who spent ten minutes trying to get up on her feet unfortunately i wasn’t paying attention and ended up on my ass myself. We went for fish and chips for tea then back to the apartment to meet up with Adam (who’d been at work and missed out) and had another slab. Brenda and Gavin had been due to leave the following day but had decided to stay on a few more days so they’d changed their flights so we had an excuse to celebrate.

all for now
S&G

Okay so when we arrived in Singapore the first thing that hit us was how clean the place was i mean there was practically no rubbish on the ground the cars were gleaming (someone told us there was actually a law that you had to keep your car clean don’t know if they were messing but then again Singapore can be pretty funny that way - they’re big on anti drugs if your caught with 3grams of hash you get an automatic 18 months rehabilitation in prison. If your caught with 5gams or more with intent to sell you get hanged so pretty hard core).

Anyway after we got over how clean and modern the place was - brilliant public transport and got settled in we headed to Chinatown. It was the chinese new year a big night all over Asia especially in China - obviously. There were massive crowds and it was quiet warm and the atmosphere wasn’t that great we were near enough the stage were all the entertainment was but as most of it was in Chinese we funnily enough couldn’t quiet follow it!!! But we did get to see a dragon dance - you know the ones you see in films based in Chinese areas two people under a big dragon costume. At 12 o’clock the fireworks started it was a nice display but it was the bangers which were better, they’re crazy on them here, they were loads of them and when the crackers exploded bits of them went flying all over the place so you got covered in ash. You had to be careful you didn’t get anything in your eye while you had your fingers in your ears to stop yourself going deaf.

What was really weird though was that it was so different to home. No one was drinking while waiting on the countdown they were just standing there - and most waited for over three hours. As soon as the countdown was over there was a mass exedus from the place if you stopped resisting the crowd just carried you in the direction it was going. when we eventually managed to get out of there we just headed back to the hostel it was pretty late at that stage and we’d been up since five - so straight to bed.

we decided to do a bit of sightseeing the next day so we went walking - it really is an amazing city with a fantastic skyline the buildings are really amazing even i thought so and i don’t know anything about architecture -the local theatre looks like a giant honeycomb theres even a building with two trees growing in an alcove on the 30th floor. We found a church and i wanted to take a look at it so headed in only to find there was mass on. Was going to leave only we were met at the door by a man who handed us a songbook and palm book - it was an anglican church. Garrett who thought it was hilarious i’d brought him to an anglican church insisted we stay ten minutes before he let me escape out a side door. He reckons i’m trying to convert him what with visiting buddhism temples, Cao dai temples, Confucism and Taoism and now anglican (and we’ve only been in Asia so far).

On our walk we came across a festival were they had all the fortunes for the upcoming year of the pig as i was born in 1981 i’m the year of the rooster and Garrett is a dog!!! That evening we went on a night safari which was different - walking around a zoo at night well we spent most of it in a golf kart type thing - got to see rhinos, hippos, leopards, the usual but also got to see hyenas, anteaters (which are actually huge), massive fruit bats, otters, and jumping cats. It was definately different walking around the place at night (it was all night animals basically they were most active after sun-down so it was easier to spot them).

The next day we decided to walk around more of the city we were going to go to the national museum but got lost - found a really wacky hippy bridge, had coffee by the river when it started to downpour etc.. We gave up on the national museum and went to little india instead were we had heard it was possible to get a parrot to tell you your fortune!!! Unfortunately when we found the parrot in question he was on strike (Garrett suspected he had laryngitis) so the old indian woman told him his fortune instead. She widely suspected he’d have stomach problems in the near future and to solve this he needed to put on weight - but don’t worry she conveniently pointed out the market shop next door where we’d be able to get good food mmmm……

We extended our stay in singapore so we could get to a few shops as they were closed for the Chinese New year so it wasn’t until the 22nd that we headed back to the airport and onto a plane for a five hour flight.

S&G