Singapore and stuff

Okay, so we were in Singapore for a few days. In August. So mum’s making me write about it. So it sucks. The fact that I have to do this, that is. But Singapore was fun, I guess. Anyway, here’s my stupid post.

Well, there was Singapore national day, with the F-16s and the Apache and the Chinook and the paratroopers with their red smoke. That was fun. And noisy. And humid.

Then there was Universal Studios Singapore, which is by far the best theme park I have ever been to. Literallly. They turned The Mummy into a haunted house roller-coaster. Epic.

Then they had Battlestar Galactica as two different rides, one Human (big dipper) and one Cylon (suspended seat double loop).

It was impressive. Coupled with resort world, it takes up the whole island of Sentosa.

And you can’t really say you’ve done Singapore without doing the science museum with its Tesla coil and controlled firestorm. Yeah. I’m a pyromaniac.

So bye, I guess.

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My Awful (?) Mum

Disclaimer: I may not have included all of the factors, good and bad, of my mum. I kinda want to upgrade my computer and I could use another gigabyte of RAM space, so I’m trying to get an ad deal. One should be enough.

My mum sorta sux. So I wrote this blog post about it.

She…

• Lost my phone for me (IT HAD A COLOUR SCREEN!).
• Has hijacked my netbook cause hers has a shoddy trackpad.
• Is not letting me watch movies on my computer.
• Made me do this stupid blog post (at least she didn’t object to the theme of the post…).
• Generally does not let me talk about the crazy lady whereas she feels free to b@t*h about her all she wants.
• Is now forcing me to do an essay after this. GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!! 😦
• Still owes me a considerable allowance.

However, I guess there is a somewhat larger nice side of my mum. Besides which this post has to reach 300 words to count.

For starters, unlike some people, she does not sell naked pics of me over the web. And she…

• Allows us to go over-budget a lot. And I mean a LOT.
• Eventually pays my allowance. Eventually. And she does allow me to have soft drinks.
• Knows when I’m angry (never) and when I’m simply dehydrated (a lot of the time this is the cause).
• Does not have very strict rules about beddy byes. Not when she has internet, anyway. Lol. 😀
• Is usually a bit more reasonable when it comes to computers. I mean, it is mine, not hers. I mean, she didn’t ask me about it… Should I even put this in the pros section? Is this a pro or a con? Oh to hell with it. Pro it is.

Alrighty then. I’m sweating my ass off in the heat of Penang, and so I leave you now to do something that is hopefully more interesting. Bye now!

The lovely $h!thole of Kupang

Kupang. A sprawling port of 340,000 people. Filled to the brim with smog-belching trucks and bemos blasting horrible Indo pop from which there is no escape, it’s not exactly Indonesian travel destination number one.

But despite setbacks such as clogged roads, loud pop, and sweltering arid heat, the people of this city have found profit in tourism. As the capital of NTT (Nusa Tenggara Timur, use google maps and search for Kupang), most ferries and planes in NTT go here, and there are planes and boats to Bali usually. The Darwin flights no longer run.

All in all, for a city that smells of exhaust fumes and has no area quiet enough to hear yourself think; a city where you can always hear some kind of vehicle running, a city which has yet to be introduced to European or South American food, I would say it’s doing quite well.

Yet another f*cking little country

Yup, we’re now in East Timor, formally known as Timor Leste, which is an independent small country that split off from Indonesia shortly after the U.N. noticed Timor existed.Indonesia then pulled out and stopped massacring the East Timorese, and then the U.N. pulled out too.

So then the East Timorese began to massacre each other instead, so the U.N. came back, and half the economy is now based on selling stuff to foreign U.N. workers. At least they have oil and gas reserves.

Unfortunately, due to its dry, infertile terrain, there is no farming, and the only reason America even has an embassy is because of the 3-km deep channel between Dili (the capital), and the nearby island of Atauro.

Anyway, the point is we’re here.

Dive Komodo

Komodo. The island of the dragons. F*ck dragons. We, sir, have scuba dived it. See, Komodo island is also home to some of the best diving on Earth. Literally. It’s so colourful, so diverse that I saw a shark, a turtle and a manta ray all in the same day. No, really I did!

So anyway, I finished the dive early because I was getting cold and tired, but mum and Guy, our group’s dive master, kept on going while I lounged on the roof of the dive boat. As for what went on underwater, you can check out mum’s blog at http://travelswithanineyearold.com/2011/05/19/sharks-in-the-land-of-the-dragons/ for more details. Bye all!

Bali and back

So. Here we are. Sitting at computers in a restaurant in Labuan Bajo.  Back from our brief visa run to Bali. It was actually quite fun in Seminyak and Denpasar. We were mainly (surprise, surprise) sitting on our arses in a restaurant with WiFi. But we did go to periplus to get some books. I got Percy Jackson and the titan’s curse and The knife of never letting go.

We also got a bedtime book about philosophy and such. And to be honest, that was our trip to Bali. Sorry for not having much to write about. 😦

Sorry.

The boringest island

Hello all! I haven’t posted recently because I’ve been on Sumbawa. Sumbawa is a very boring island. We came in at the port of Poto Tano, then drove on and spent the night in Taliwang, and drove on to Rantung, which had supposedly got beginner surf. But the surf was huge and there were loads of rocks too.

So we stayed the night there and in the morning drove to the capital, Sumbawa Besar, in search of internet. None to be found. So we got our laundry done and legged it. And that’s how we got to flores.

2 Kutas

In Indonesia, there are two towns called Kuta. One is the Balinese hellhole where sozzled tourons go, and the other is the small surfer town in Lombok where this post is centred.

It’s also where I learned to surf. I can now successfully stand up on a board, and with any luck, soon I might not need a push to get me going.

Some compare surfing to snowboarding, but I don’t snowboard so I can’t comment. Yet.

Anyhoo, I’ve got sunburn. Again. It sucks.

All the same, I still love surfing, and I’m sprightly enough not to get muscle pains from doing so.

Can’t say the same for mum though. Poor, poor mum. She’s been surfing 2 days in a row, despite my warnings of the terrible muscle pains that will ensue.

Boards, I now know, are hard to keep while on the road, even without the waxing problems. Oh yes. Boards need to be waxed for some reason. You have to get a big piece of wax and rub it on the surfboard really hard.

But enough about surfing for now, as this post is about Kuta, not surfing and stuff.

Kuta Lombok, not Kuta Bali, that is.

So, about Kuta Lombok. It’s a lovely little town on the beach with a few budget hotels and a nearby Novotel.

We, of course, are staying at a cosy place called the G’day inn, in a decent room with running water, a fan, shower, what seems to be an air freshener, wardrobe and a flush toilet.

The place has free breakfast at its cafe, which serves decent food and ice cream.

Oh yes, BTW, we bought a motorbike.

And put skull-and-crossbones stickers (which we bought here) on it.

Our bike has a terrible colour scheme. It’s white with green stripes. I hate it. Mum hates it. We couldn’t get it painted and now we face the consequences.

Did I mention I can surf?

Back 2 Oz

Hey all! I’m back from Oz now, so I will now happily reminisce about my fun time there and call it a blog post. Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you I went to Brisbane again for a week. So I did stuff I wanted to do there. I went to the Victoria  park Putt Putt crazy golf course one day. That was fun, and I got to improve my putting technique.

Next I discovered I might not be hopeless at cricket. That was nice. Then, I got to go to a really awesome theme park called Dreamworld Australia®. Look it up. My favourite ride was called Cyclone, and I liked it because it was fast, long, and had a double loop. Exactly what I like. And then there was a laser tag place called (look it up) Laser Force®. And, errrr, that’s all, I guess.

Cove

Hey everyone, I got to see the movie known as  The Cove. Well, maybe not a movie. Maybe something like “depressing documentary on the slaughter of dolphins that teaches us that fish contains toxic levels of mercury” would be more fitting..

I don’t think this post will help much because due to the infrequency of my posting and all, few people actually read this stuff, as opposed to my mother, who rolls out a couple of posts per week (in the presence of internet that is)….

Anyways, cut to the chase, they (49 fishermen) were slaughtering them (the dolphins) at the small Japanese town of Taiji (population three thousand and something). After the release of this film, Japan, under international pressure, lowered the kill count, but did not drop the act. Find out more @ SaveJapanDolphins.org