Melting

It's gone midnight and I'm still melting. I'm going to come back about a stone lighter with the amount of sweating I'm going to do here in Singapore. It's been about 11 years since I was last here and in that time I seem to have forgotten how freaking hot and humid this country is. It's good to be back though. My Dad lived out here for a while so it kind of feels a bit like home. Singapore is currently home to my old school friend Pam, so that makes it feel even more like home. And I'm eight hours closer to the UK now, so I guess geographically I'm closer to home too.

I was inexplicably emotional on the flight from Brisbane to Singapore today and had quite a few tears. I was going to say that I'm not sure why, but I can kind of guess why:

Last time I was here was with T.
We had a good time here - happy memories.
My big adventure is one step closer to coming to an end. And all that entails...
I left NZ and Australia behind, and my friends in both countries. I think I will be back one day but I don't know when.
I was back to being on my own again for the first time in a while.
I was flying economy.

That last one is obviously a joke. The plane was actually really empty so I was able to spread out across the seats and pretend I was in business class. I didn't think much of the warm quiche though. Thumbs down to that. But the riesling went down a treat. I got to watch a couple of good films (Le Concert and Los Abrazos Rotos/Broken Embraces - a really good Almodovar film). I also listened to Cheryl Cole's album. Not historically my thing but she has surprised me in recent months with her Will.i.am and Snow Patrol collaborations. Verdict: first half of the album is better than the second. And I don't think I'll buy the whole thing. Maybe the odd song for my ipod?

Anyway, I really do digress... I'll write more about the past little while when it's not so late in the day after a long-haul flight, but the gist of it is that on Sunday Janelle and I left the Whitsundays for Brisbane. We had such a good holiday and got to know each other even more than we already did over the 10 days we spent up there. Due in part to sharing a teeny tiny cabin for six days on a relatively small boat I guess. There was no real escape, so it's just as well we did get on. We put the world to rights. We brainstormed and debated how to try and get our own lives back on some sort of track. We marked my birthday. The first without T. We yacked into the night about the people we'd met. We giggled an awful lot. Sometimes until we cried. We ate a huge amount. But we kidded ourselves that the laughing was good for our tummy muscles so negated some of the calories. Janelle even kidded herself that her White Russian was good for her as it contained milk. We played way too much Scrabble. And mostly got shamefully beaten by non native English speaking people. We danced with some Western Australians in a dodgy backpackers bar. And we didn't really care what we looked like. Or that we were about 15 years older that the rest of the clientele. In fact, it was a relief not to be there as a 17 year old. Been there, done that. Then, wham. It was over. We were back in Brisbane and that was another leg of my trip more or less over. It was sad saying goodbye to me old marra Janelle. Today I kept looking around for her, thinking I was walking too fast again and she was lagging behind as her little legs couldn't keep up, but she wasn't there. It's been a blast little Paatsch and I thank you for taking such good care of me. And I salute you for jumping out of a plane at 14,000ft. One day you'll look back on that whole experience and smile.

My old Strasbourg marra, Steve, met us at Brisbane airport yesterday and I spent last night sat on his sofa with him and his mate Martin. Martin has spent the past seven, that's seven, months on a bus from London to Sydney. It sounded like the Flying Kiwi bus. Except it was for seven times as long. Imagine that fellow FKs. And it was through places like Pakistan under armed guard. Slightly more hardcore than our jaunt. Steve has got a lovely pad in BrisVegas so we had a bedroom and a bathroom each. And some noodles with a side order of English television. We watched Top Gear and Blackadder and Men Behaving Badly and the Liverpool-Chelsea match. It felt like a warm-up for going home. It was so nice to see Steve again. I saw him briefly last year but otherwise we hadn't really seen each other since Strasbourg and that's a good 12 years ago now. Once again it proved to me that the passing of time doesn't stop you being mates. It was like we'd just seen each other yesterday. Thank you for putting me up Steve, and for ferrying me to and from the airport, especially at the crack of dawn today - I really appreciate it.

Then I had my eight hour flight, which you know all about except I forgot to say that there was lots of turbulence, before meeting Pam at the airport here in Singapore. We had a swim to cool off, then the most delicious chocolate birthday cake, that Pam had gone to the trouble of making. I was so touched and it was a lovely welcome to Singapore. It even had a plastic Elmo swimming through the chocolate icing under a cocktail umbrella. I'll definitely be taking that recipe home with me. In fact, I might publish some of the recipes I've collected on here one day and share the love. I'm really looking forward to spending time with Pam here in Singapore. And to exploring this city again after so long. I'm hoping to meet one of Tim's former line managers for lunch one day, and one of my Flying Kiwi friends, then it's off to Ho Chi Minh City for a long weekend on Thursday. So I reckon it's probably time for bed now. I've got a lot to fit in... Night night.