It's another gloomy day in singapore. It's not helped by the fact that the air con in here is freezing, and the glass on the windows in tinted. Feels just like England actually! Went out last night with the intention of going clubbing, but we soon realisd that in Singapore thursday is not a clubbing friendly day. It always seems so strange to me that Singapore has Universities, and get doesn't really have many "student" nights. Well not like back home anyway! In Leeds every night of the week was a massive piss up. There was always some huge student night on with cheap drinks and lots of pissed students trying to impress each other by singing along to "come on eileen" in the hope of getting a clumsy snog and a bit of a grope. I remember the sticky floors which would coat your shoes and trousers with black grime so that it looked like you had been working on a farm. I remember the warm pissy beer served in plastic cups which would squash and split, spilling your beer over the already sodden grimy floor. I remember the triple vodkas for a quid seventy, which were also warm and tasted like varnish remover. I remember the myriad of sophisticated pulling techniques used on the dancefloor, like looking at someone and then grabbing them and attatching your face to theirs. I remember the kebab van parked outside which would serve undercooked meat of unknown origin to clumsy fingered students with faces covered in ketchup. And the lack of beef in the burgers was always more than made up for by the beef in the crowd. Once the burgers were finished with, then the ritual fighting would begin. "Dijoo look at my gurfren?!", the chant would begin, and soon everyone would join in the ceremony of banging heads against heads and fists against noses, like morris dancers on crack. After the fun and games were over, and a few people had been knocked to the floor and kicked repeatedly in the head, the cab stealing would start, and after some unsuccesful attempts to guess the name of the genuine customer... "Is this cab for dave? I mean Darren? Dennis? Dwain? Jack? Jill? Sorry, I meant Bob. Bert?....." someone would suggest the clever idea of walking home, as after all, it's not THAT far, and we are all very energetic at the moment, and we do only live in the THIRD most dangerous neigbourhood in leeds.....

On the walk home there would inaviably be at least 100 kebab takeaways, and no one is strong enough to resist that much temptation. Afterwards, the chilli sauce mixing with the ketchup running down the faces and shirts of stavros' latest customers, the party would continue on to the danger zone: the park. One of britain's biggest contradictions, the park is, by day, a place of fun and joy. games of football, frisbee, a crate of stella and a few crafy reefers, sunshine, ice cream, and blankets spread on the grass. By night however, it leans more towards glue sniffing, anal rape, severe beatings, muggings, and gang fights. Even walking alongside the park is dangerous, as people have been known to run out of the darkness and grab you off the pavement and drag you in. One thing that has always struck me as odd, is that there are absoultely NO lights in the park. Surely half this nastiness could be avoided if people weren't able to hide in the darkness.

anyway, I digress. So, newly revitalised after a super hot kebab with extra chilli sauce, it is decided that the best course of action would be to go straight through the park, as it will cut 10 minutes off the journey, and besides, drinking 10 pints of beer has given everyone special Kung Foo powers, so any trouble will be quickly dealt with. Having escaped the park with only one minor altercation with a group of psycopathic 13 year olds, home is eventually reached, and pizza is ordered. And soon everyone is sleeping peacefully, their faces resting on a pillow of pizza and fag butts, blissfully unconscious.... for now.

coming soon! :"The Morning After".

Well well well. I've moved out of my apartment and I'm currently staying with my mate Chris. Once again i am a homeless nomad. I tried to go and claim back my CPF cash yesterday, but it all went horribly wrong so I've got to do it again today, but it's raining!! I don't want to leave the house! :( Wen't and had dinner at Martin's House last night. His green curry is renound for being rather hot, and my bum can testify to that this morning. I can't really be bothered to write anything now, as my feet are getting cold, so adios amigos.... :)

I got up early this morning so that I could try to finish packing and clean up the flat in time for 4pm when the woman from estates was coming to check it. I spent the whole morning in a panic, and scrubbed everything till it gleamed. My hands are red raw from so much scrubbing! My bathroom is no longer a shrine to the god of brown residue. Now it is the temple of the shining tile. At 4pm, she arrived. I was frantically trying to finish cleaning the kitchen, when she caught me by surprise! Damn! She came in and began surveying the room with her eagle eyes.... "Mmmmm, 4 chairs, table, desk...... yep, everything seems to be here. Good luck with your packing! :)" and with that, she was gone! I don't know whether to be ecstatically pleased or horribly annoyed! She didn't even look once at my gleaming bathroom! Not even a glance at my spotless kitchen floor! I guess I was thinking I was still in halls of residence at university, where they really DO check for even the slightest sign of dirt, and then charge you for the hire of a contract cleaner! Anyway, at least now I can relax a bit and concentrate on packing instead of cleaning! I can't wait till it's all finished. I've been throwing away so much good stuff. I feel so awful throwing away good food, but who's going to want half a bottle of soya sauce etc etc?
My nose is so messed up from all the dust. I can't stop sneezing. In fact i can feel one coming on now........hang on.........ahhhhhhh.......ahhhhh.....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.........oh f**k it! there's nothing worse than an Ahhh with no Choo!!!! It's one of the most frustrating things ever! It's like sex with no orgasm! I feel so cheated. Hey I've just thought of a new expression! "You're all ah and no choo!" i.e. you never follow thru on what you say you'll do. pretty cool huh! I think i'll start using it and see if it catches on. I admit it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but what the hell, it's worth a try. :)

Man, this is getting tiring! I'm still trying to pack, and my flat still looks the same. The landlord is coming tomorrow at 4pm and I haven't even begun actually CLEANING the apartment!! I think the bathroom alone is going to take a day! It's so infuriating how everything that gets wet in singapore starts getting that brown residue on it. My bathroom is like a shrine to the god of brown residue. The worst thing is that the only way to clean it off is to get down on your hands and knees and scrub. For hours. I hate it! I think maybe I'll just make a bleach bomb and let it off in there....

We just counted up my "loose change bottle" which i've been throwing coins in for the last year or so. I've been planning on giving it to charity, and selene suggested the "selene's airfare fund", so I'm donating it to that. ;) Anyway, guess how much it was! about $325!!! Not bad eh?! All in coins! :) I really should get on with this packing thing. But I dowan lah! I ended up offering my Sofa away for FREE! Someone responded within about 5 mins of me putting up the notice. Not a bad deal I thought, a $550 sofa for nothing at all. Hopefully he'll have enough manners to say thankyou.... preferably on bended knees whilst trying to kiss my hand. If he doesn't I shall point out his lack of manners with a carefully timed punch to the solar plexus. :) Apparantly it's going to be used for his "computer club". I feel quite guilty, as I haven't broken this news to my sofa yet. I'm not sure how he'll cope with the sudden change of lifestyle. To go from one minute having the kind of rock and roll lifestyle that most sofas only dream of, to suddenly being the kind of sofa that even the chairs take the piss out of, despite their obvious size disadvantage. It's heartbreaking really. Perhaps I'd better wait until i've got him through the doorway before I tell him the truth, otherwise he could make life very difficult for me! Anyway, I'm just talking rubbish now to avoid doing any more packing. ok, ok! I'm going!...........

Still trying to pack today. It just doesn't seem to be happening! the more I pack, the more "unpacked" my house looks! The floor is strewn with stuff that I can only describe as "miscellaneous". I think I'll just have one box called "other stuff" and I'll just throw anything in there that doesn't quite fit anywhere. btw, does anyone want to buy the following items:

Toyomi floor standing fan - has 3 speeds, 1, 2, and 3, not to mention 0. only $20!!!

Sofa "nikkola" from Ikea, has cushions and everything! only $100 or vaguely near offer.

Toyomi toaster oven. what can i say, it toasts things. only, ummmm, $2. :)

Ironing Board: free!

Also, if anyone wants anything from my kitchen: pots, pans, plates, cups, cutlery, food (sack of rice, instant noodles etc) then they can have it for free!

bathroom stuff also free! mouldy shower curtain! partly soiled toilet brush! countless "nearly empty" bottles of shampoo!

I'm so tempted just to get a big rubbish bag and throw everything in it. in fact, that's exactly what I'm going to do! Yes! I feel liberated already! I'm not sure what to do about my 2 years worth of glass bottles I have been collecting with the intention of recycling them. They still haven't opened a recycling point within walking distance of my house, so then how? Oh well, better get back to it i suppose..... :(

Man I'm really starting to despise this blogger utility. I spent over an hour last night trying to post my previous post, but blogger simply wont let me have a long post. I tried posting half, then clicking edit, and adding the rest. no good. i tried publishing half of it, then ading the rest, still no good. So, in the end i've had to split it into 2 posts. Does anyone know how I can stop this happening? If not, does anyone know of another blogging site that doesn't have this problem. Cos when I'm travelling I won't be able to spend an hour troubleshooting in an internet cafe, i'll want to just post and go! Help me please someone!

Feeling very wierd today. I took my Cable Box back today, and I know it sounds wierd, but it felt like the first real sign that I'm actually leaving. I've got to be out of my flat on tuesday, and I still haven't really started packing yet. I guess I'm just afraid of seeing all my life packed up into a few boxes. I dont want to have to spend even one day living in an empty flat full of boxes. it's just too wierd. I think the fact that I've used the word weird 3 times already says something in itself!

Anyway, I went out today and bought another bag!!!!! This time I got a crumpler camera bag for my new digital camera. Went and met selene after she finished work, and "hung out" around Suntec. hehe.

I can't decide where I want to travel. I've pretty much decided on the first part: India, SE asia, Australia and NZ, but after that I cant decide whether to go to Central America, South America, or Africa. Any suggestions? So anyway, no cable! I now have to make do with channel 5 and channel I and the occasional comedy on central. :( No more simpsons!!!!!! :( Having no TV is dangerous, as it forces us to think, and we all know what that can lead to ...... ANARCHY! I've been thinking today, and it feels ominous. What is life? we live, we die, and we do stuff in between. Does it matter what we do in between? mmmm, i guess not. As long as we stay happy and try to make others happy, then I guess that's all that's needed. But what makes us happy? Money? Love? Success? Fame? It's funny I guess, cos really all it takes sometimes is a sunny day and i feel like I couldn't be any happier, and other times I'm being given love, recognition, admiration and all the rest, and I dont feel so happy. I think the best kind of happiness is the simplest kind. The feeling that nothing really matters as long as the sun keeps shining. I think that if the pursuit of happiness becomes stressful, then ultimately it will never succeed, as the task of achieving it takes presedence over the act of experiencing it. It always strikes me as odd when I see ppl who look down with pity on ppl who live simple village lives, as if they are missing out on something very important that we are priviledged enough to be involved in. And I think "but who's really the poorer here? Sure they have less money, but they have a hell of a lot less stress, and a lot more happiness as a result"! I'm not being a patronising middle class romantic either. I'm well aware that poverty is the cause of the most severe suffering and stress, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the kind of kampung lifestyle that lots of ppl in malaysia still enjoy. And if there is stress seeping into this kind of lifestyle, i think it has more to do with the growing pressure to conform to western modernity then with any flaws in the actual lifestyle itself. I mean, there's tribes all over the world that have been living for centuries without any major worries. It's only really since we started infringing into their teritory that their problems began. It sounds very sanctimonious, but I'm not actually saying that anyone should or shouldn't do anything, I'm just speaking my thoughts. Mmmm, maybe I'll go and join some tribe in the rainforest somwhere. I rekon I could survive without all the creature comforts of the 21st century. Except maybe my electric toothbrush. and maybe my digital camera........ and my TV....... and my PC...... and my Bed....... and my MD...... oh screw it, i'll just go and visit them for a week and then go home and have a shower and watch the Simpsons. :)



Go find out more at www.survival-international.org

Today it rained most of the day, so I did very little. Went and ate Char Kway Teow and made myself feel sick, and then made a rather makeshift dinner of mashed potato, a beef burger, some veggies, and corn on the cob. :) Selene doesn't eat veggies, so hers was just mashed potato with a beef burger! (No buns, cos they were too stale). Man, i really know how to treat a woman. :) Just watched the second half of Terminator. Didn't seem as cool as when I watched it as a kid. I went to see "Harry Potter and the Chamberpot of Weak Piss" on friday. It was pretty good. A bit long, but otherwise well worth watching. I think those harry potter movies are the first movies I've ever seen that are actually better for having read the book first. Usually if I see a film of a book, I hate it. The worst book adaptation ever is "The Power of One". The book (by Bryce Courtney) is one of the best books I've ever read, and I've read it about 6 times, which is quite a lot considering it's as thick as a large dictionary. The film, however, is shite.
I've been trying to pack for the last couple of days, as I have to move out on 26th, which is exactly one week away. But the problem is everything I try to pack, i still need! Clothes...no, need to wear em......CD's......no, need to hear em.......PC....um, no........TV.......yeah right!!!..........
So in the end, all I've managed to pack is my books! Everything else is still strewn around my flat in it's usual mess.
I bought a new camera the other day. It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-P9. It's got 4 mega pixels of stuff in it! wahhhh! It was bloody expensive tho. Selene was a bit shocked that i would spend so much on a Camera, but I rekon it's a good investment. and it's shiny. and the lens extends when you turn it on and make a cool noise like "vffwrrrt" and then it goes "bing bong" to let you know it's ready for action. So as you can see, it's well worth the cash. :) and it takes very good pictures! here look, i'll show you, i'll take one now.....



See! good right!? Here, I'll take a photo of the camera so you can see how cool it looks....oh....hang on.... mmmm, actually I've decided not to do that. Ok, I guess I'd better go now, otherwise my post will get too long and then Bloody Blogger wont let me post it. :( nite nite.

Hello again.

This weekend, me and Selene went to Pulau Ubin to camp overnight. We've been wanting to go for ages, and we finally made it! When we got there I knew straight away that I would like the place. It just doesn't seem like Singapore at all. Very laid back, everyone smiling, shopkeepers being friendly and helpful, mongrel dogs scratching their fleas in the middle of the road, lot's of dust and junk everywhere. lovely! :) So we hired a couple of bikes and headed across to find the beach and set up camp. When we arrived at the "beach", we were both a bit surprised that it called a "beach", when it is in fact, more similar to a small carpark. Anyway, we pitched our tent in true singaporean style (as close to the toilets as possible), and set about making a fire. We noticed there was a large group of students camped near us, obviously on some kind of organised trip. They were all singing camp songs and having a good time, and we thought "ahh, how sweet".

At 2am I was lying on my rock hard bed fantasizing about taking a flamethrower to their whole camp. We had been trying to sleep for hours now, and yet these students just didn't stop! I mean I'm all for ppl having fun, as I'm sure you all know, but these little bastards just seemed to scream and shout at everything! It was like living next to a troup of howler monkeys, only worse. At about 3am, Selene went and asked them politely to keep the noise down a bit, which they did.... for about 30 seconds.

At about 4am I got up and went over to find about 20 of them stood around at the toilets having a shouting match.

"Hi guys, can you do me a favour?" I asked nicely....

They all stared at me blankly.

"Can you SHUT THE F**k UP???!!!!", i YELLED, trying to look as menacing as was possible at 4am.

They all stared at me blankly.

After ranting for a while more, I decided my job was done and went back to "bed" (the floor). Amazingly, they did actually lower their volume........for 30 seconds.

At 6am, the remaining few "cool" ppl, who had stayed up smoking ciggarettes to prove to themselves how much cooler they were than the rest of the group, finally went to bed.

At 7am they all got up and started singing again.

So, we got up, having had no proper sleep, and decided to cycle around the island, which we managed to do pretty well. Amazingly, i managed to spend the whole trip with my top off, and didn't get a single mozzy bite. Then when I got home last night, I got about 15 bites within 20 mins of walking into my house!! Obviously the mozzys on Ubin had been conspiring with the mozzys in my house to set an elaborate trap for me! bastards.

I don't bloody believe it!!!!!!!!!! I just wrote the longest, funniest, most brilliant post in the history of posting, and then when i hit "post", IE just went to an error page, and then wouldn't let me go back!!!! ARRGGRGRGHGHHGHGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God Damn You Blogger!

Well, I really can't write it again, so you'll just have to take my work for it. It was truly brilliant. ;)

bugger.

I'm going to bed in a huff now. :(

It's pissing with rain today. Ahhh, lovely. :) Everything here is back to front! When it rains everyone say's it's nice weather, when it's sunny everyone says it's horrible and stays inside! The scary thing is, I'm starting to agree with them...

I've just been to the bank and got a bit of a shock. I've always tried to avoid thinking about "markets" and "currency depreciation" and all that nonsense, but now i've just realised why people DO pay attention to it. When I came here, the exchange rate was 2.5 singapore dollars to 1 uk pound, now it's 2.77 dollars to the pound. That's not much you may think, but actually it means that my final end of contract paycheck is going to be 1000 pounds less than I thought it would be!!! ONE GRAND!! All because of a lousy 27 cents change! :( Anyway, I won't bore you any more with my dull yet frustrating financial woes... :) I've managed to do a few things today. I've washed my sheets!... Not that I dont do it very often!... ahem... and I've made lots of frustrating calls to automated customer service numbers:

If you would like to change your billing address, press 1
If you would like to change your gender, press 2
If you would like to enquire about what i'm wearing, press 3
If you are unsure what a bill is, press 4
If you dont understand english. press 5
If you would like to speak to an operator, tough, cos they're all busy.
Your call is important to us. Almost as important as the dump I has this morning, but not quite.
Please hold, your call be answered in approximately...one...million...four...thouasnd...and...twenty...eight...seconds
Thankyou for holding. If this horrible piece of music doesn't scare you away, we will deal with your call as soon as we have eaten lunch..*beebee bee bip bip bee boo bee bip...*

and when they finally answer....

"hello, craptel cutomer billing hotline, sharon speaking, how can i help?"

"hi, I'd like to terminate my account"

"I'm sorry sir, you'll have to call billing enquiries for that"

"what's this that I've called"

"This is the billing hotline sir"

"Right, well can't you just put me through?"

"I'm sorry sir...."

"ok, what's the number"

"One moment sir... *shouts* Dawn! What's your number?*... It's 1376 sir, thankyou for calling craptel, have a nice day. *click*.

*dial 1376* ring ring. Welcome to Craptel's automated customer serivice hotline. For a nervous breakdown, press 1..........

Man, my brain hurts! I've just spent hours trying to get the archives working properly on this blog. Still seem to have 3 novembers! Oh well, my birthday's in novemeber, so I guess three's ok. :) Anyway, today was my last day at work. i've handed in my keys, my access card, my gun and my badge, and it's back to being a plain old civilian again. It was actually quite sad leaving, despite all the stress and frustration I've had there. I'll definitely miss the place and the ppl. But now i'm here, hundreds of metres away from the colleages i knew and loved... ;) Yep, that's right, I'm still living within a girly stones throw from my office, so I guess my escape was not so great after all. But having said that, it's less than a month until I leave....

Looking forward to going home for Xmas. Ah, the beautiful traditions of xmas! drinking, eating, and watching telly. :)

Merrrrrry Xmas everyone!! (If the stores can start xmas, so can I!)

Well, today was my last proper day at work. Tomorrow I've just got to finish clearing my desk and then I'll no longer be able to call myself a "lecturer". Shame really. I was getting quite used to the shocked looks I always got when I told ppl I was a lecturer. ;) Now when they ask what I do, I'm gonna have to say "oh, I'm between jobs at moment, I'm taking some time out to go and find myself", and ppl will say, "wow, that's so interesting" before turning to their friends to whisper "bum!". Nah, I'm just kidding. Actually most locals here react quite interestingly when I say I'm taking a year out to go travelling. The responses range from:

"Wah! You must be very rich ah?", to

"Wah, you ang mo's very strange lah! Why you want to go round asia? It's very poor you know? Why don't you go to europe or the states?"

But I guess at the end of the day, I'd think an asian was pretty weird if they told me they were planning on going backpacking round the West Midlands! ;) And of course the irony of it is that one of the big reasons why we all do go travelling around asia is because it iS very poor, and we can AFFORD to travel it!



Another thing that I often hear from locals here is "Wah, you're so lucky! I wish i could go travelling like that!", and then when I say "well why don't you?", they look at me like I've just suggested they go and slap both their parents in the face, urinate on the family heirlooms, and use the granmother's ashes as kitty litter. Which, considering the response they would probably get from their parents if they did decide to go travelling, is maybe not that bad a metaphor! ;) Of course not all families are like that, but family responsibilty is definitely a huge thing out here. There's an immense amount of pressure to find a respectable job and settle down so that you can provide for your parents in their old age. So to just selfishly decide to go and see the world would most likely be frowned on by most traditional parents.

Oh well, I'm very grateful to have such understanding parents! And don't worry mum, I'll still find a job that pays loads of cash eventually, and then buy you that mobile home to go travelling round in when you retire! :)

wow, that was some ramble! night night.

What a weekend! So much happiness and so much sadness all thrown in together. On Saturday, I was kind of hoping that my girlfiend, Selene, had organised a bit of a surprise birthday/leaving party for me, but as the evening drew closer I started to realise that this wasn't the case at all. And then when she asked me if i'd invited any of my friends to the drum and bass night I was MCing at that night, it confirmed that there was nothing planned. No secret group of friends plotting to surprise me, no carefully planned party awaiting my arrival.

So, feeling pretty miserable and sorry for myself, and with selene apologising and asking me not to be angry with her, we headed off to Drum and Bass. When i got there, there was just the usual few friends who organise the night, and the few last shreds of hope that I was clinging on to were finally dashed. Then Selene asked me to come through to the wine bar next door for a second, and WHAM!!!! The whole room was filled with my friends and students! Especially my students! My god! there must have been close to 60 of them! Cheers guys!!! You rule! :) They all did the usual cheering singing happy birthday and stuff, and I did the usual looking goofy and grinning a lot, and then we all moved back into the drum and bass arena, and a wild night was had by all. Cheers to everyone who was involved, you really made my day. :) Especially Selene! Thanks baby! :)




But it really is sad to be saying goodbye to so many people. And of course the hardest is leaving Selene. I'm still not sure how i'm going to cope without her. :( I'll just have to see how long I last....

Anyway, a lot of ppl were asking how they're gonna keep in touch with me from now on, so here you go! You can track my movements on this log, and e-mail me anytime at billy@billysalisbury.com

I'd better go sleep now. night night. :)

Was watching Lonley Planet on the telly last night. There's so many places to see and not enough cash to see it all! I'm so useless at making decisions, but I guess i'll have to make one pretty soon... I can't believe my time in Singapore is nearly over. It's flown by! It feels very wierd clearing up all the mess I've spent so long carefully creating...

Hi guys,

welcome to my online journal! With a bit of luck, I'll be able to keep you all up to date with my verbal ramblings all through my global rambling. Oh dear, I'm rambling. Rambling? Is that really a word?! I'm all confused now. It's sounds more like a name.... Danny Rambling.... anyway, enough, I swear to do my best to update this journal at every available opportunity for your viewing pleasure. :)