Chad Is Everywhere

And all of a sudden I was back on holidays. Everywhere again. Fortunately for Singapore I used the city as the jump point for my Asian Panda trip. I was in reality on the way to my real holiday destinations. This was but a stopover in a nice city I'm familiar with. On the way home Singapore was to be a flight returning point funnelling me back towards Brisbane making my ticket a return to Singapore with 2 other internal Asian flights. This was a much cheaper flight option than that of taking just 2 single one way flights in and out of Asia. Unfortunately my plans to catch up with a friend in Singapore fell apart. They were booked out with plans having only returned from their own holiday the week before. Not to worry. It was just an idea of opportunity I thought. So instead I went to the backup plan of seeing Singapore by night. And in particular visiting the main tourist draw card, the Gardens by the Bay , when it is all lit up. Having seen the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome ...

We celebrated my mother's 65th birthday Saturday night by going to our friend Jason's pop up restaurant experience, Betty Wilson's Dining Room. Such a wonderful night tasting local ingredients in a small and casual setting. His concept is great. With just 12 guests for a sitting you really have a great time hearing about each dish as they are served.

The last stop of my recent overseas trip was a stopover in Hong Kong on the way back. You see I had friends there to visit. This alone made it the perfect city I had not seen before to stopover in Asia at. And then it just got better. My former flatmate in China decided she could make a side trip for a stopover to say hello too! Awesome I thought. I had just 48 hours in Hong Kong. Enough time to see some places without getting into much trouble. Heck my biggest trouble was booking the wrong hotel dates before I even left the country. I gave my friends a free stay-cation (travel term for going nowhere). Anyway the replacement hotel happened to just be the same hotel my university course had discussed in a lecture, The Eaton Hotel. It was right smack bang in the middle of Nathan Road. Unfortunately for me why it came up into the search was that it was actually undergoing renovations at the exact time I had arrived. I mean I didn't get any noise on the 18th floor, and the glass ...

This was the email I sent just after my being attacked in Hawaii. For all to read... ...................................... Hi all Thought I might just update everyone with news. I'm still in Hawaii. Leave tomorrow. Question for you all? What would you think I was doing Thursday night? If you answered, spent 4 hours in the emergency room of a Honolulu hospital then you'd be right. Why was I at the hospital? Well the story goes. Me and a few of the backpackers thought we'd go out that night. Started at a cocktail bar, moved to a another area of Honolulu. Things were going great. Well about 1am in the morning our unofficial group leader decided we had to move on as the club would be closing soon. So on the way out I decided to do the touristy thing and take a photo of the club we were at. Outside there was a big samoan bouncer, a id card checking girl, and some random guy standing there chatting up the girl. Anyway the girl decided to be funny an...