first post

hey guys!

So I know I've been pretty bad with keeping you guys up to date and informed about what I've been up to, so here's my best attempt at 12.35am whilst in my hostel in Rome. 

Start:

leave sydney, plane to Darwin with some amazing views of clouds and some interesting stories from a Dutch 60+ widowed midwife who specialises in home deliveries. She could tell just by touching a mother's stomach/uterus area how old the baby was (until 20weeks or something, since all babies are the same size up to 20 weeks) and this was verified time and time again via ultrasound.

Darwin to Singapore trip - amazing views of the sunset - see some of my photos on my  web album (made so that my non-facebook mum could also view it)

Singapore for 3 days with Ben and his mum.
impressions: it's quite developed (most people live in 10+ level apartments, though there are houses) and the shopping centres and hotels can be unbelievably decadent. the marina bay sands hotel has a 150m pool that is 200m high in the sky (on the roof top, available only to guests unfortunately), and most of the surfaces within the 3 building/tower hotel complex are marble and shiny and stationed by perfect concierge staff. it's also super humid, but bearable. people stare at me because they know I'm a foreigner (though it is a bit of a change to visit a country where everyone is Asian-looking I must admit) because of my accent/the way I dress. Ben taught me that I (Australians) pronounce 'here' as 'hee-ah', which I never realised.

They also have a LOT of durian despite it not being the season. (Y)! you can just buy it and then sit on one of the plastic tables near the durian stall and eat it. The durian suburb area is called 'geylang', which is also the red light district of Singapore. We (Ben's family and I) therefore went scouting for prostitutes as I had never seen them before. Apparently they used to be a lot more common (according to Ben's dad, who used to be a civilian police officer) , and streets were divided by the race of the girls you'd find there. Since prostitution is effectively illegal (you can't even chew gum in Singapore..), the girls that are still on the streets have an inside in place to signal a warning bell whenever there are cops around so that they can scatter. This person was an innocent enough old-ish man on the corner of the road selling icecream to visitors/tourists/foreigners. Interesting system. the prostitutes pretty much looked like they could fit in any nightclub back at home (ie bum skimming skirt/dress and lots of cleavage). It was a pretty interesting night haha.

went to Kota Kinabalu with Fiona, another university friend. KK, as it is also called, is the tropical capital of the West Malaysian island of Sabah. She goes back every year for a month or so to visit her grandpa. He's pretty cool. Still a super active grandpa.

KK in some instances reminded me of Vietnam when I went as a child, where not every house has a flushing toilet and a lot of the city is still developing. However, i thoroughly enjoyed my time here - this was the first time I saw a sunset on water (since in Sydney we pretty much only see the sun rising from the water because we're facing the east) I went to see orang utans - we had to walk into this jungle sanctuary for 5min, and within that time we were swamped by mosquitoes (more than i had ever seen in one place, ever.) ended up with 15+ mosquito bites despite constantly spraying myself with insect repellent. seriously scary! however, we did get to see an orang utan about 1m away from us which was pretty unbelieveable (one of the tourists tried to bribe it with a bit of coconut despite being warned not to in an incredibly long introduction video that i mostly slept through). Also went parasailing, which was pretty cool.  I think the best thing about KK was seeing Fiona and her family, and how simple and pleasant life is there. No internet, just hanging on the porch and talking. pretty sweet.

despite the fact that I'm currently in Rome,  I"ll have to start my posts about Dubai and Rome another time. need to sleep!

Ciao!