Dominica Malcolm

When I initially booked this trip, it was because I had frequent flier points I wanted to use, but didn’t know what I wanted to use them for. So, since I’d enjoyed working with Oil in the Alley in Honolulu in November 2010 so much, back in April 2011, I’d discussed with Sean and R Kevin the idea of me coming back using the points and working with them on another video. We’d wanted to do it during Improvaganza, the Hawaii improv festival, but unfortunately I couldn’t get any flights for September, so we organised it for October instead. By August last year, however, I’d also wanted to visit some other friends in the US in September, and so I talked with Sean and R Kevin about rearranging the trip, since Jeremy didn’t want me to be away from our children for a couple of weeks two months in a row. That was pretty understandable, so we worked it out, and I got the flights changed to February instead.

In late December last year, it was clear that a couple of friends I hoped would be able to come visit me in Honolulu weren’t going to be able to come, and I’d felt like I would be too lonely to spend the full 11 days of the trip in Honolulu with so much time to myself. After all, I wouldn’t even be able to hang out with R Kevin the first weekend, since he was going to Seattle to perform at an improv festival there. So I talked to Jeremy about that, and he ended up saying it would be okay for me to go visit my friends instead. What I loved about this is that it cost the same amount for me to visit California and Washington, DC as it would’ve been for me to just go to Washington.

Thursday February 16, 2012

My first day is probably going to sound incredibly long, and that’s because Honolulu is 18 hours behind Kuala Lumpur, and I crossed the international date line to get there. So, I woke up at 6am as, according to my itinerary, my flight was scheduled to depart at 10:25am. Incidentally, Jeremy would’ve needed to take me to KL Sentral around 6:30am regardless, just because he needed to be back home in time to take Doyle to school. We ended up leaving home around 6:40am, but as I’d given myself 3 hours to be at the airport before departure, I wasn’t in too much of a rush anyway. From KL Sentral, I took the KLIA Express.

Once arriving at the airport, I checked the displays to find out which check-in area I had to go to. I couldn’t find my flight… or at least I couldn’t find a flight on Singapore Airlines travelling to Singapore departing at 10:25am. I did see another flight going there at 11:25am, however, and at least that told me which counter to go to. So I walked the long distance there (it was the next to last row in the terminal), and checked my flight details. It turned out the 11:25am flight had the same flight number I was flying, so I determined that at some point, Singapore Airlines must’ve changed the schedule. I later found out (once on the plane) that it was just changed for that day only, due to an air show being on in Singapore. Luckily, even though I was now there four hours before the scheduled departure, the check-in counter for my flight was already open.

When I was checking in, the clerk tried to tell me I was going to have to collect and re-check my bag in Tokyo, which freaked me out because I was probably only going to have about an hour between flights to get off one and board the next. Given I’d never been to the Haneda airport before (we flew to Narita when we went to Tokyo in 2007), I didn’t know how big the airport was, let alone if I even had enough time. Then the clerk worked something out and managed to get my bag booked all the way through to Honolulu so that all I would have to do at Haneda is get my boarding pass for my final flight.

After going through immigration and security, and getting to the area where the C gates were, since I still had an extra hour to kill than I expected to have, I found my gate, and then went for a wander. Jeremy told me to check out the jungle they have, so I managed to find that when I checked a map. It’s funny because it really is right in the middle, and it shouldn’t be hard to find… but I’d never noticed it before! Not that I’ve been to KLIA all that much, considering I usually fly AirAsia from LCCT. So I walked through the KLIA jungle; it’s not that big, and enjoyed the waterfall, and then decided to stop and have a chai latte at Dome, because I hadn’t been able to get the KLIA free wifi working, and Dome had their own wifi. When I’d finished my Internet things, and my drink, I started heading back closer to my gate to find somewhere else to sit. When I got here, I’d finally managed to get the KLIA Internet to work on my phone, and spent most of my time mucking around the Internet while I waited to be able to go inside my gate.

Finally it was time to go in, and I got stopped when my boarding pass was checked, because they thought I needed a visa check for my final destination of the USA. Mostly I thought this was ridiculous because I gave them my Australian passport, and Australians are entitled to visa waivers. However, rather than explain that, since I wasn’t actually going to enter the US on my Australian passport anyway, I showed them my US passport, and they let me on through.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful, at only 40 minutes duration, so I’m just going to skip to arriving at Singapore Airport. It had been over four years since I was at this airport, and arriving at a different terminal from the one I would be departing from meant that I had to check the map to find out which way to go. This pretty much brought back the memory of the last time I was there, when we thought we had heaps of time between flights, but the sheer size of the airport actually meant that we missed our flight, because we didn’t know it would take us so long to get to our gate. This time, I fortunately had more time between flights (even though my first flight arrived an hour later than was planned on my itinerary), and I went directly to the terminal I would be leaving from.

Upon reaching the correct terminal, I found a couple of places to eat, so I thought I’d check them out and see what currencies they took, since I didn’t have any Singaporean dollars. Fortunately, the Dunkin’ Donuts accepted Malaysian ringitt, so I picked up a bagel sandwich, which I happened to have the exact change for in my wallet. Then I ate that as I walked, since the map had suggested it would take me 18 minutes to walk to the other side of the terminal where my gate was. I happened across a sign that showed me the way to a butterfly garden; again, something I didn’t even know Singapore airport had. So I finished up my bagel and went to have a look. Wow! They had so many butterflies in there; it was great. You can even see the butterflies in different life cycle stages. I took quite a few photos just because it was so easy to get good ones. Then I headed back out and decided to check if I could access the Internet from my phone. Unlike at KLIA, Singapore Airport requires you to get a username and password from an information desk to use the Internet on their wifi. So I found the nearest one, and waited as the clerk assisted someone in front of me. As the clerk processed my passport information to give me the login details, she told me about how she’d been giving the previous passenger Changi airport currency for flying specific flights with Singapore airlines. Oh, I said, since I’d also been flying that airline. Then it turned out my flight to Tokyo qualified for free money, too, so after getting my login details, the clerk processed that, and gave me $20 to spend at the airport. However, since I’d already eaten lunch using Malaysian money, and I would have four hours between flights at the same airport on the way back, I decided to save it until then.

Still with plenty of time to spare, I found somewhere comfortable to sit in front of a TV displaying music videos on MTV, and killed more time on the Internet. When it got to twenty minutes before my gate was due to open, I started heading there. I still had to wait a little while before they started letting people in, but it wasn’t too bad. Once I got through the next round of security, I mainly listened to music.

The flight to Tokyo was about 6 and a half hours, and I was fortunately seated right at the front of the economy class seating, near the emergency exit, which meant a) I could be one of the first economy people off (a good thing, when you’re worried how much time it’ll take to get to your next flight!) b) I had massive amounts of legroom and c) the flight attendant seated opposite me for take-off and landing started a great conversation with me. I mean, I was clearly on my own anyway, and I smiled a lot at how friendly she was being with the family with two little girls seated in the middle of the same row, so I suppose she thought I’d be open to the conversation. It was great; she asked whether I was on my way home or whatever, and when I said I live in KL, she surprised me by asking which part. Turned out she was Malaysian! We actually had a lot to chat about in that short take-off time, with where I was going, and my family, how lucky I was that my husband lets me have these trips on my own, that sort of thing. She was very interested in my destination since she would like to go herself one day, and when I said I’d been to Honolulu before, she mused that it could be like a second home to me. I don’t consider myself that familiar with Honolulu, but one of the reasons I was comfortable going there on my own was because I had experienced it enough to at least know my way around most of the bits I knew I’d want to go to.

Once the fasten seat belt sign was off, the flight attendant had to get to work, so I pulled out my personal TV and had a look at what movies they were playing. I went straight for new releases, and when the first movie had a picture of Ryan Gosling, I thought I’d have to check out what it was, even though I hadn’t heard of the film. The subject matter was the sort of behind-closed-doors part of the American election process, which felt very fitting, and interested me a lot. I didn’t even bother to see what else I could choose from, I just started it immediately. I actually really enjoyed the movie, and not just because Ryan Gosling is one of my favourite actors. It kind of made me wish the US actually had candidates that spoke more like George Clooney’s character. Maybe it does and I just don’t hear about them.

Next up, I watched In Time, which I’d seen several trailers for when seeing movies in Malaysia and thought it seemed interesting. It was; I think it had a lot to say about the current economic environment, even though it’s set far into the future that they didn’t even specify a date. Dinner was served while I watched this one. When the movie finished, I thought about trying to have a nap, but thought I’d check the other movies first. Then I happened across one called The Big Year, which again, I hadn’t heard of, but seeing the picture of Owen Wilson meant I was going to have to watch it. He would be another of my favourite actors. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the very end of the movie before I had to hand my headphones back to the flight attendant, so I’m going to have to try and catch the end on my way back. I wanted to find out who won the Big Year!

Haneda airport ended up being reasonably small compared to what I remembered of Narita, and considerably smaller than Changi, so the transfer desk where I got my next boarding pass was easy to find, and all I had to do was go through another security screening, and go up to the departure hall. I had plenty of time! Fortunately there weren’t any queues. I did wonder whether I would be able to do the same thing for my flight home, though, as I’d really rather not have to leave the airport, even though I have an overnight in Tokyo. My flight the following morning is really early anyway. Hopefully that won’t be a problem.

Since my final flight departed Tokyo at half past midnight Tokyo time (so it was still 11:30pm KL time), I mainly tried to sleep on the flight. It was difficult at times, and I was right at the back of the plane, but at least I got some rest. And managed to be awake at appropriate times when food was served.

My flight arrived in Honolulu at 12:30pm local time (yes, still Thursday!) and the airport process was a little different than I remembered from a little over a year earlier, in that we had to take a shuttle bus to immigration. I don’t remember doing that before! I hadn’t been given a customs card on the plane, so I filled it out when I got there, and then, as a US citizen flying on a plane that was majority Japanese passengers (well, I was flying from Japan and Hawaii is a huge Japanese tourist destination), I didn’t have a long queue before I went through immigration. The customs clerk asked me what I was doing in Malaysia, as if I had just been visiting, so I had to tell him I live there. I don’t know why this struck me as odd. Of course it would make more sense for a US citizen to be returning to America if they live there.

Anyway, he sent me through, I collected my bag, handed in my customs form, and exited the airport. Then I waited in a long queue for a taxi to take me to my hotel. On the drive, I had some nice reminiscing feelings come up as we passed various parts of Honolulu that I recognised from the previous trip. Bethel Street – that’s where the Oil in the Alley show was that I filmed last time. Ward Ave; I must’ve walked down there on my way back from seeing Robin Williams. I liked the familiarity. I liked recognising the street, and the direction we were going, and knowing it was the right way because I opted to stay in the same hotel as last time. Well, except that I booked a room in the Tower instead of the hotel portion, because I wanted the “partial ocean view,” and also it wasn’t that expensive since I only needed one bed instead of two this time.

I arrived a bit more than an hour before the official check-in time, but since my room was already ready, they let me go straight up. There was a nice fellow to help me with my bags, which I accepted. Then when we got to my room, I remembered that you’re probably supposed to tip them for doing that. I wish I could remember how much is customary for that sort of thing, but at least I don’t think I gave him too little when I did.

Once I settled in, plugging in various equipment that needed recharging, and discovering my computer didn’t want to acknowledge the Ethernet cable it had plugged in (thus I couldn’t access the Internet on it), I called Sean, as per his request, because I wanted him to look after my expensive camera for me while I travelled to the mainland. I had to leave him a message, but luckily my phone had a direct line number on it so that I could give it to him and he could call me back. While I waited for that, I sorted through my bags so that I could pack what clothes I needed for my mainland trip into my backpack. I also greatly admired the view from my room on the 35th floor, overlooking Ala Moana.

After Sean and I discussed collection arrangements, I freshened up in the shower, which was very much welcome after the last approximately 24 hours, and then had a nap for a couple of hours. I hung out in the room a while longer, until Sean called to let me know he’d be there soon. I bundled up a few things, and headed downstairs with my camera. Sean must’ve arrived before I got down there, because he ended up coming around and surprising me from behind, but it was good to see him briefly again. He had to get back home to look after his daughters, and thus couldn’t stick around, but we discussed how we’d be meeting up again the following Thursday when I return, when we would go check out the venue of the show I’d be filming the following night.

Since I hadn’t yet been able to get on the Internet, and I was getting hungry, I walked down the street to IHOP, which I’d walked past several times the last time I was in Honolulu, but never visited. Like I said – love being familiar with where to go! I had intended on having pancakes, but ended up ordering a chicken salad instead. I checked various bits and pieces on the Internet, to catch myself up on things since Singapore, while I ate. I was a little ashamed of myself when the bill came and I realised I wasn’t going to have enough change to leave a decent tip, but I didn’t really have anything I could do about that since the only other note I had on me was another $20. My waitress and meal was really good, too, so that made me feel extra bad. It’s times like those I wish the US was more like Malaysia and just put a straight percentage service charge on the bill so I wouldn’t have to worry about having enough change.

Anyway, I headed back to the hotel after that, and ended up being able to use the Internet some more when I got to the lobby of the hotel (I had intended on asking about the Internet in my room, but this ended up being easier to do). So I spent some time online before deciding to head back to my room and get some sleep.

Friday February 17, 2012

Given I had a 2pm flight to LA today, I decided I didn’t really have time to do much in Honolulu. So I decided to spend some time writing up the first part of this blog. I started early, given the alarm in my room was set to go off at 4:30am (I didn’t set it!) and I couldn’t go back to sleep after that. Around 7 or so, I went downstairs, and the complementary breakfast was not where it was the last time I stayed at this hotel, so I wandered down to a nearby corner store where I bought a couple of things so I could get enough change for the bus later. I ended up buying some food I could take to the airport for lunch, and a couple of small bottles of alcohol, which I was asked to produce ID for. Given I’m now 28, and even though the legal drinking age in the US is 21, and they probably card anyone who looks under 25, I’m still not used to being asked for ID. Perhaps I just don’t buy enough alcohol for that.

I went back to the hotel lobby, thinking I’d use the Internet there, and discovered they’re relocated the complementary breakfast. Which was, thankfully, an improvement on the complementary breakfast they offered in November 2010. I’d forgotten my login information in my room, so I didn’t get to use the Internet then anyway. After breakfast, I headed back to my room and worked on my blog some more, until 9am. At that point, I had to head back down to use the Internet, as I’d needed to skype with Jeremiah about our plans when I’d be arriving in Washington on Monday. Once that was sorted out, I had a bunch of other things to catch up with online, so I did that, and then headed off with just my carry on bags to catch a bus to the airport. I left everything I knew I wouldn’t need at the hotel.

Arriving at the airport with only carry on bags was especially convenient, because it meant I avoided a long line that was for people to have their checked bags scanned for plant items, as well as the long queue for people checking in with checked bags. There was no queue for people checking in with no bags to check! So it was all a very easy process. The security line was longer, however, and I didn’t happen to have a clear bag for my liquids, but the security people didn’t seem to care. This was also my first experience with the special new TSA body scanning machine that created a furor when it was introduced not so long ago (I remember seeing them in Honolulu in 2010, but they were not yet in use).

As I was heading to my gate, I saw an ad for Dole pineapples – 3 for $28! I thought, “Is that meant to be a bargain? You could buy 3 pineapples in Malaysia for US$1!” Then I sat at my gate for a while until it was time to board. My flight to LAX was approximately 6 hours. I slept for a good portion of it, and listened to music. I unfortunately missed the end of The Big Year as it was screening (this flight didn’t have individual screens like my other flights). Then I ended up picking up Idol Meanderings to read a bunch of stories from, since I’d be visiting people who had pieces published in the book. I wanted to be able to decide which pieces I’d have signed by them, which I did on the plane.

When I arrived at LAX, I sent my friend Kristen a text to let her know where she and her boyfriend, Kevin (not to be confused with R Kevin!) could find me, by the United arrivals. After much confusion and several texts later, I managed to find them. Kevin and Kristen are a couple of my closest friends who I met through the LJ Idol competition, which I mentioned in my post about my last trip to the US, back in September, so it was good to finally have the chance to meet them, since they were also a couple of my longest-standing friends from the competition (we became friends during my first run in the competition, rather than my second run, like most of the friends I met in September).

Since food had to be purchased on the flight, and nothing seemed especially appetising on the menu, I didn’t eat anything on the plane. Thankfully, Kristen and Kevin hadn’t eaten either, so they drove us out to an IHOP not too far from where I was staying in Costa Mesa, since it was one of the few places that was open that late (my flight arrived at 10pm). We had a lot of fun just chatting about various things, and got along really well. It never fails to please me when I meet my Internet friends and that happens – they’re exactly as they are online, and what I expect. I ended up ordering chicken and waffles, since I’d almost been tempted by that at the IHOP in Honolulu. That led Kevin to ordering the same, which I think surprised Kristen, since apparently he has a “usual” order that he never orders.

We stayed, chatted and ate there for quite some time, until we decided it was time to get me to my hotel. As we were parked at a traffic light, my friends saw a girl who was walking kind of funny, and commented on her shoes. I remarked, “She’s not wearing any pants!” at which both Kevin and Kristen mentioned they had not noticed until I pointed it out. Apparently they didn’t notice because, despite it being cold, and winter, this is pretty common in California.

It was probably after 1am by the time I checked into my hotel and got my room. Good thing for 24 hour reception! My friends came up with me to see me to my room, and then headed off. I’d probably be seeing them early the next day anyway. Not long after they left, and I was checking stuff online, I discovered I had a noisy neighbour. Well, I heard someone knocking on a door, and thought it was my door, but no one was there when I checked through the peep hole. It ended up being for the room next door. A woman was staying there, as I could hear her talking a lot, though I didn’t specifically listen to what she was saying. Needless to say, she kind of made it difficult for me to get much sleep. Paper thin walls. And perhaps also the sleep on the plane, which I shouldn’t have done.

Saturday February 18, 2012

Since we’d been up so late the night before, we had a bit of a late start to the day. Kevin and Kristen ended up collecting me and taking me to a Del Taco for breakfast around 11am. But that’s okay, because although Knott’s Berry Farm – where we would be spending the day – opened at 10am, it also closed at 10pm, so we knew we would still have plenty of time at the theme park.

After breakfast, and a quick stop at an ATM for my friends, we were at Knott’s Berry Farm. Kristen and I are both huge roller coaster fans, so this was something we both knew we wanted to do together if we’d ever had the chance to meet, since neither of us have much opportunity to ride roller coasters with other people. Kevin has a few understandable issues with riding them himself, and I normally go to theme parks with children, so Jeremy and I tend to have to take turns looking after our children when we want to ride roller coasters.

Still, Kevin decided he would try and brave a few of the roller coasters with us, and he rode a lot more than I expected him to! Our first ride of the day was GhostRider – a very large wooden roller coasters. Wooden coasters are actually my most feared coasters, because I don’t like how it feels like it’s going to fall apart beneath me. Despite the fact the line didn’t look that long when we entered the queue, we ended up waiting over 2 hours. We hoped this was not a sign of queues for the other rides! But eventually we got to get on, and even Kevin rode it with us. Kristen and I both got a copy of the photo taken on the ride, since the cheapest deal on the photos was to buy two of the smallest photos. And it was a great photo, even if Kevin claimed he looked like a gorilla and wouldn’t let us share it with anyone. I was amused by the smile on my face looking like I was from a teeth-whitening commercial.

Next we headed over to Camp Snoopy to try and find Snoopy, since Kristen wanted to meet him. Unfortunately we only found a different Peanuts character that no one could remember the name of. So we wandered past all the kids rides and food stalls, until we came across Montezooma’s Revenge, which is sort of a roller coaster that takes you a little backwards first, then straight ahead around a 360° loop, up a 90° angle, then backwards all the way around the loop and up another 90° angle, before taking you back to the start. This queue was very, very short in comparison, so we all waited in the line, though Kevin didn’t join us for this one. He watched from the side, and I think took a photo of us once we were up on one side.

Even though we took the map out to look at and talk about where we wanted to go, as we walked, I saw the entrance to the Jaguar roller coaster, which didn’t look especially long. So, even though it wasn’t the ride we were aiming for next, we headed there. This was another coaster Kevin willingly rode with us. It was probably the tamest one in the park, so he didn’t have any problem with it at all.

Then we headed toward the Boomerang coaster, stopping by the Xcelerator so I could watch and see if I might be game enough to ride it with Kristen, since it was the only one that I knew I’d have second thoughts about. The Xcelerator also has 90° angles, but it is much higher than anything else in the park, 200 feet straight up, over a curve, and then another 90° drop back down again before taking you on a bunch of twists and turns. Oh, and it starts off from 0 to 80mph in 2.5 seconds… yeah, I said I’d need some time to think about that one, so we headed to the Boomerang coaster next. Boomerang was like a longer version of Montezooma’s Revenge, with more loops, but the part that made it scarier was not that so much as it was taking you backwards up the 90° angle and leaving you hanging there for a couple of seconds before shooting you forwards, and then backwards to the start again. Still, it was a very cool ride, even if it was a bit scary! This was another one Kevin sat out for.

So, as we seemed to be alternating rides Kevin would and wouldn’t ride with Kristen and me, we opted for a non-coaster next, called Wipeout. This was a spinning ride and, though I’m not usually a fan of such rides, I have learned how to stomach them and not throwing up by making sure I focus looking at one spot the entire ride. Luckily in this case, we were able to sit in the same section, with me facing Kevin & Kristen, so I fully just looked at them and chatted the entire time.

Next was another coaster Kevin wouldn’t ride, as it had an over-the-head harness, since it was one of those hanging coasters. I love coasters like that, with the feet hanging feeling. Also, if you’re not in the front, you can barely see anything anyway, so it doesn’t seem as scary. This one was called Silver Bullet, and probably one of the tamer versions of these types of coasters I’ve been on. I think that Kevin would have enjoyed it, and the way he talked afterwards, it sounded like something he’d like to conquer so he could ride it one day.

After that ride, we started thinking about heading somewhere to get something to eat, and headed back towards Camp Snoopy. Since the line for Sierra Sidewinder didn’t look too bad (though probably the longest line we’d had since Ghost Rider), we decided to stop in there first. It got dark while we were waiting in line! But that was fine. Riding it in the dark was cool, though given the spinning effect while also moving on a roller coaster track, it was a bit scary even for me. I was surprised Kevin was happy to ride it with us! But he loved it!

So after that, we headed to Lucy’s lunch box to get something for dinner. I got myself a giant foot long corn dog (because I always seem to have to get one when I’m in the US), and some water, since I felt like I was coming down with a cold. We chatted there for a while, and took a few photos, and when we finished eating, we embarked on a mission to find the funnel cakes. We’d passed two stands for them throughout our journey in the day, and I was sure I knew where one was, but ended up being wrong. We asked someone for directions, and we were pointed one way… I’m not sure I followed the right one, but I ended up leading us toward the second one we’d seen. However, before arriving there, since the Calico Mine Ride was just nearby, we decided to give that ride a go first. Even though this was the tamest ride we went on in the park (we didn’t even need seatbelts!), it was still pretty cool. It was like we were inside an actual mine, and we got to see models of people digging in there. It went a lot longer than I expected it to.

Finally, when we got out, I found the funnel cake place I’d been searching for, and we got a couple funnel cakes, then took them inside one of the restaurants so we could sit down and eat, and not freeze to death! This was some good chatting time, too, not that we hadn’t been chatting a lot all day, waiting in lines and such!

When we’d filled ourselves up enough, and I stopped being embarrassed at all the icing sugar I spilled over myself, we headed towards the Pony Express, which is a roller coaster with seats such that it seems like you’re riding a horse! I was made to take my glasses off on this one, which meant I put them in my small shoulder bag I keep my phone in… and they ended up being crushed out of line. Thankfully I was able to bend them back into place later, but it took a while, and I worried I’d snap them in half doing it. The Pony Express was the last ride we went on with Kevin.

The final ride of the night was… well, okay, we walked back to the other end of the park to check out the Xcelerator again. Since Kristen really wanted to ride it, we decided we’d all go wait in the line with her, and I’d still have time to decide if I wanted to go with her, or chicken out. I was pretty sure I would regret it if I chickened out, but I was so, so nervous. Especially listening to the screams coming from everyone as the ride took off. Remember – 0 to 80mph in 2.5 seconds! In the end, I got on the ride next to Kristen, and though I was nervous, I calmed myself down by slowing my breathing. I put a big smile on my face and then… we were off! They take your photo right at the start, too, because that’s the scariest. After the initial speed shock, it’s actually not so bad because the whole ride is over before you know it. And it was actually pretty cool going down the 90° angle at night time and seeing the surrounding lights. Kristen and I walked off to check the photo, because I was pretty sure I’d want to get one. Well, I did have that giant smile on my face! But Kristen didn’t have the best expression, so we decided we’d take a chance and ride it again the hope of getting a better photo the next time around. Which we did! Probably the most amusing part of this ride was that the second time we went on, behind us was a mother and teenage daughter combination, and the mother swore pretty much the entire time. Afterwards the daughter congratulated her mother for not swearing as much as she expected! Kristen and I turned around and then empathised with the mother, letting her know that we also swore the first time we rode it – using the same phrase (though fortunately not quite as much as the mother did!)

Since we then managed to go on every ride we’d wanted to try while we were there, and there was still a bit of time before the park closed at 10pm, Kevin spent a bit of time with the basketball game they had there.

Then we headed back to Kevin’s car, and they drove me back to my hotel. I had Kevin & Kristen wait in my room for a little while because, after the previous night’s neighbour disturbances, I was unsure what to expect for the night. We chatted for a while, and I had them sign my copy of Idol Meanderings (since they both have a few stories in there), but when it seemed there weren’t going to be any more issues, they left, and I got some sleep.

Sunday February 19, 2012

After the late night, we didn’t get an especially early start to the day. I hadn’t been able to sleep too well, but I waited until I had my shower before I texted Kristen to let her know I was awake and she and Kevin could come whenever. We talked about having breakfast together again, so other than that, I just stuck around my room until they came by to get me. In the interim, the noises I heard through the paper-thin wall, including word-for-word dialogue, after my neighbour had another visitor in the morning were such that I was able to determine I was likely staying next door to a prostitute. As much as I was unsure how to react to this realisation, I considered that it was probably at least less dangerous than staying next door to a drug dealer, which had been my initial thought. I suspect, though, that if I end up going back to visit again, next time I might be more likely to take up Kristen on her offer to sleep on her couch! By this point, I was glad I would be checking out soon.

I got a text from Kristen to let me know they were on their way, so headed downstairs to check out and then waited for Kevin & Kristen to arrive. We first headed over to a dog-sitting place to collect Kristen’s enormous dog Annabelle. I’ve never been a dog person, especially big dogs, but I’ve gotten more comfortable around them over the years. Anyway, though I’d seen photos of Annabelle online before, encountering in person for the first time, where she was jumping up on the counter before being let out, she certainly seemed bigger than I expected! She was very excited to see Kristen again, and I just shyly kept my distance. Kristen and Kevin seemed to think my behaviour was hilarious, and I couldn’t blame them really.

So we all packed ourselves back up in the car, with me sitting in the front now so Kristen could sit with Annabelle. Then we headed over to a supermarket to pick up some food for breakfast (bagels and cream cheese) and dinner (Kevin wanted to treat me to his special home made fried chicken). I also had to buy some cough drops and tissues while I was there, since my cold was clearly getting worse.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at Kristen’s apartment, which was nice and relaxing after the day we’d had the day before. We had our bagels and cream cheese, and just sat around chatting most of the day away, as well as mucking around teasing each other online where our online friends could see how much fun we were having. I also made sure I shared the Australian TimTams I brought with me.

Jeremy also found me online at an appropriate time that he could call me on Skype, so I got to talk to him and the boys for a little while before he had to take Doyle to school. Then Kristen dug up various YouTube videos of roller coasters and other rides, including the Xcelerator, so we could compare and also share, thus others could see what the ride was like for us. After that, Kevin started making dinner.

I just want to say, Kevin is a great cook. Absolutely delicious dinner that made me want more. It was really great to be treated to his fried chicken, plus the sides of potatoes, gravy and green beans.

My flight wasn’t scheduled to depart LAX until around 11pm, so we still had more time to sit around and chat. I was getting pretty tired by then, though, so my talkative quotient lowered quite a bit. I still had fun listening to them chatter away, and in the car on the way to the airport, too. They parked the car so they could come into the airport with me, but there’s not really much to do in LAX until you get past security – I don’t know if that’s every terminal, or a United thing, but I suspect it’s the airport. I used the self-check-in again, and we stood around chatting for a bit longer until I decided I may as well go through the security and wait for my plane.

The overnight flight was good for two reasons – I wouldn’t have to worry about paying for accommodation, and I didn’t have to feel like I was wasting quality meet up time. I only wish I could’ve slept a bit better on the flight.

Monday February 20, 2012

My flight landed at Dulles airport around 6:30am or so. The first stop after getting off my plane was to the bathroom, so I could add some layers of clothes, knowing that the east was going to be far colder than the west (I had, at least, added tights at LAX, for a bit of extra warmth on the plane). Of course, by the time I actually got outside and looked at the bus timetable, I realised just how freezing it was. It didn’t seem to matter that I was rugged up in two jackets, a scarf, gloves, and hat… it was still too cold for me! And the bus timetable didn’t mention whether public holidays (of which today was one) followed the weekend schedule, or the weekday schedule. I soon found out that when the bus didn’t come in five minutes (weekday schedule), however, that I would have to wait an extra half hour. I stupidly didn’t decide to go back inside the airport to wait for twenty minutes before coming back. I’m not entirely sure why.

Anyway, eventually I caught the bus, and texted Jeremiah (whom I met back in September) to let him know I was on my way, so that he could be on his way to meet me in Alexandria by the time I got there, as he’d also be using public transport. I took the bus all the way to L’Enfant Plaza, even though I later discovered I could’ve got off at Rosslyn to get a metro train to Alexandria quicker, but that didn’t matter too much because the extra time meant that Jeremiah had been able to fetch me a hot chocolate while he waited for me. This was something much appreciated in the cold!

We wandered around the familiar area, up King St, until we found a place to stop for breakfast, since neither of us had eaten yet. I think I must’ve accidentally offended the waitress at one point because she seemed a bit annoyed at me afterwards, which made me glad to leave when we did.

Next we headed up towards my hotel, which was the same one I stayed at last time, so I’d have somewhere to dump my bag before I was allowed to check-in. I’d sort of hoped they’d let me check-in early, but no luck there. So I dropped my bag off, and we headed across the street to Starbucks, wherein Jeremiah discovered there was going to be a Presidents Day parade nearby in a short time. It seemed like a good way to spend the hours before I could check-in, so Jeremiah finished off his coffee and we headed down to that part of Alexandria to wait for the parade to start.

Before the parade started, there were various folks wandering around telling people to register to vote and such. Then there was a running race, for whatever reason. We took a quick break and headed into the town hall, where I perused some art children at local schools made for Martin Luther King Jr Day, and then headed back to the main parade area. We waited on the corner and listened to the announcers telling us how it was more about George Washington’s Birthday than honouring the other presidents.

Then the parade started. Various government employees passed us by, children’s groups like bands and such… it was very much a celebration of the community, as well as AMERICA and its GUNS. There was the unfortunate aspect where they kind of celebrated the losing side of the civil war, too. We picked up a hotdog set each from a vendor who was selling them on the same corner we watched from so we could have lunch while watching the parade. Once we’d decided we’d had enough, we followed the rest of the parade backwards until the end, before heading back to my hotel so I could check-in finally. Plus, I kind of needed a nap after not sleeping so well on the plane. I was most amused when given my room number because it turned out I’d be staying in the exact same room I stayed in last year.

After I woke up, I believe I got the chance to video skype with Jeremy and Leo after they’d taken Doyle to school. Jeremiah was kind enough to let me borrow his computer for that.

When I got off the call with Jeremy, Jeremiah and I hung out chatting for a while, until it got pretty late that we realised we should probably get some dinner. We headed back out to King St and went to the only place I could find that was open late enough to still serve us. This meant we ended up with Mexican, but I didn’t complain because I love Mexican food. It was a good meal, even if the service was a tad slow.

And that’s pretty much the end of the day, though I guess I didn’t sleep so well.

Tuesday February 21, 2012

I was up far too early, what with jetlag and such, so after heading downstairs for breakfast, I came back up to my room for a nap, making sure I was rested enough to enjoy my plans with Jeremiah for the day.

Jeremiah and I took the metro into Washington, DC around lunch time, stopping at the station nearest to the Occupy Washington camp, since he knew I had been following the Occupy movement and was curious about seeing it first hand. Unfortunately the camp was nowhere near as full as the last photos I’d seen of it online, so I guess they’d ended up being partially evicted. There were still a bunch of tents around, including a couple of libraries, but there didn’t even seem to be people in many of the tents. We didn’t stick around here too long, and so started heading toward the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, which was one of the main reasons I wanted to come back to Washington again so soon.

We stopped along the way to grab some lunch, and I picked up a soup and hot chocolate simply because it was still freezing cold by my standards, and I needed something else to keep me warm.

Then we set off toward the museum again, in the direction of Jeremiah trying to find Ford Theatre to show me where President Lincoln was assassinated… but unfortunately we ended up walking down the wrong street. Oh well! We didn’t bother going back because I was more keen to get through the museum, and we had another place I wanted to get to by 6, so we didn’t really have that much time anyway.

My reason for wanting to return to the Natural History Museum was entirely personal. When I was last in Washington, visiting a few significant sights that I had previously seen with my mum brought back a lot of emotion and memories for me. However, when I went to the Air & Space Museum dressed as my pirate character, it hadn’t had the same effect. I reasoned that it was perhaps because I wasn’t there as myself, and they’d changed the displays around a bit. I have photos from when I was at the Natural History Museum as a kid, so I specifically remembered a taxidermied tiger, and visiting the gem stones, and in particular the Hope diamond. These were the things I wanted to make sure I saw again on this trip.

We started off with the taxidermied animals. Like the Air and Space Museum, this section had been completely rearranged – I found the tiger in question, but it was now at a great height so that you could no longer stand directly in front of it and pretend it was about to pounce on you (like my siblings and I did in the photo I have from when we were kids). The room was also much brighter. Still, looking at the stuffed animals is one of my favourite things to do at natural history museums (even more so when I’m taking Doyle). The animals at this museum were often moved into amusing positions for the way they were displayed, too. Unfortunately I didn’t get too many photos of them, but the ones I did take amuse me. The giraffe bending down to drink from a waterhole, however, just looked wrong!

Following that, we headed upstairs to the Hope Diamond and gem stones. I took a lot more photos here. They have some of the most incredible gems from all over the world, of varying sizes, in this museum. It was nice to get to go through it again.

That’s all we really had time to see before heading on to the next place. I’d been relating to Jeremiah how much I enjoy going to karaoke boxes with Jeremy in Malaysia, as well as playing Singstar, and so I thought it would be fun to take Jeremiah to a place like that, too. He didn’t believe karaoke boxes (ie, places where you can hire rooms to sing karaoke in, rather than embarrass yourself in front of people you don’t know) existed in the US, but I managed to find one when I did a search online before I left. It was a fair distance from anywhere, including metro stops, but of course I insisted. We had to get the metro all the way up to U Street (from roughly D Street, if you feel like working out how many alphabet blocks that is), and then walk a bunch more blocks (stopping at a pharmacy, so we could get water… and I made Jeremiah ask about what might help my sore, raw nose. We were told vaseline, so I got some petroleum jelly as well), but we still managed to get to our destination just after 6pm. I wanted to get a couple of hours of singing in, and their cheap hours were between 5-8pm.

Despite the fact my cold was now horrendous, when I used the petroleum jelly on my nose, it really cleared things up for me. I think it probably improved my voice at least a little bit, though I’m sure I still sounded terrible. It was a lot of fun, though. Even Jeremiah thought it was more fun than he expected it to be.

We finished at a bit after 8, and hadn’t eaten yet, so we decided to try and find somewhere decent to eat dinner on the way back to the metro. We ended up stopping at a pizza place. I had wanted to just order a pizza to share, but Jeremiah thought that would be too much… so he opted to order pizza by the slice. Bad idea! The “slices” were so enormous, they were probably the size of an entire pizza anyway! And Jeremiah had ordered two for himself. Understandably, we were unable to finish it all.

By the end of that, it was certainly about bed time, so we headed back to the metro, and took that back to Alexandria.

Wednesday February 22, 2012

I managed to sleep in a bit later today, which meant a later breakfast than expected, and… discovering I’d gotten the time difference mixed up with Jeremy, so he thought I’d be skyping with him earlier than I did! I still got to skype with him, but Leo and Doyle had already gone to bed by then. I also had to wait for Jeremy to get home after dinner. I felt really badly making that mistake, but understood why I did it – I was still thinking of the 13 hour time difference as if I was in Malaysia. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d gone to Washington during daylight savings time!

I think I ended up having another nap after that, though for not quite as long as the previous day. Since we didn’t get through all of the Natural History Museum the day before, Jeremiah headed back to the Smithsonian area with the aim of seeing a couple other sections. When we got off the metro, though, we ended up at the Smithsonian castle first, yet there was little to see inside. We exited out the back and had a look at the nice garden, as well as having the chance to take a decent photo of the castle without worrying about how the sun made it look dark.

Then we discovered there are actually museums underground on that side of the castle! So we went downstairs to the Arthur M Sackler Gallery, where we went and had a look at their temporary exhibit on Persian artefacts. The other part of the museum was on Asian art and, given I live in Asia, I figured it wouldn’t be much different from what I often get to see when I travel around the region in which I live.

So then we headed back upstairs and finally back to the Natural History Museum, to check out the exhibit on dinosaur fossils. The museum cafeteria was around here, too, and since we hadn’t had lunch, we stopped for an afternoon tea snack. Then we finished looking at the dinosaurs, and had a look at their deep sea exhibit, which was something Jeremiah was keen on.

When I’d checked in on Facebook to mention I was at the castle, Sean (from Hawaii) said I should go to the Museum of the American Indian, which was something I’d been thinking about doing anyway, so since we still had a bit of time before the museums closed, that’s where we went next. I was amused once again at my amazing sense of direction, and the fact I knew the museum was on the other side of the Air and Space museum, and didn’t even need a map to figure out how to get there. Jeremiah thought it was in the complete opposite direction, and he lives out this way!

The security at this museum is ridiculously tight compared to all the other Smithsonian places I’ve been to. We had to wait in line for ages, and I felt we were under a lot more scrutiny. I couldn’t even understand why. So that sort of limited the amount of time we had left for the museum. We only had enough time to wander around the top floor. Once we’d finished with the exhibits, I was getting tired again and needed to sit down and rest a while anyway. So we sat on a bench for a while, where we just chatted until the museum closing. I guess I’ll just have to go back another time to see the rest of the museum. I liked that they had exhibits on the various tribal groups and explained the areas they’re from.

Then we got the metro back to Alexandria, and went for the early dinner (for once!) at the Asian restaurant we went to last time I was in town. It was super busy, though, so the service for the sushi was particularly slow (and this was all Jeremiah ordered to eat!) So I sat there a while munching down on my deep fried crab dumplings, which Jeremiah didn’t want to share. We also seemed to end up with the sushi that was meant to go to the couple sitting next to us (who were very upset at how long they had to wait and not get their sushi – we didn’t realise it was theirs until Jeremiah’s other sushi arrived and they’d already left!)

After dinner, though, I was well and truly exhausted, so I went back to the hotel and completely zonked out. I later had some trouble sleeping throughout the night, but I think the fact I had my alarm set for before 5:30am had something to do with that.

Thursday February 23, 2012

Given how early I had to be up for even just a taxi ride to Dulles airport, for my 9am flight, I didn’t fancy trying to navigate the public transport to get there, even though it would have been far cheaper for me. As it was, I had to wait a while for the reception clerk at my hotel to get hold of a taxi service to send someone out. But I still had one arrive a bit after 6am, and arrived with plenty of time. I conveniently used my card in the taxi so I didn’t have to pay cash… the machine even asked me how much I wanted to tip! So I was glad for the ease of that process.

After checking in for both of my flights, I headed over to Cinnabon to grab some breakfast, since I had to leave too early to be able to take advantage of the free hotel breakfast. I spent some time mucking around on the Internet while I was there, before heading down to the security.

I mainly tried to sleep on my flight back to LAX, since I hadn’t slept well the night before. I only had about an hour between flights at LAX, too, but I thankfully didn’t have to worry about changing terminals, or even which section of the terminal I was in! My connecting flight’s gate was only two gates away from the one I arrived at. Still, I did walk a bit further than that because I wanted to get something to eat for lunch. After all, I didn’t really fancy having to pay for the boring food United offered on their flights. Since I didn’t have much time, though, I sadly gave in and bought something quick from McDonald’s (I’m really not a fan of the place and try to avoid it whenever possible).

While waiting at the gate, I sent R Kevin a text to let him know my flight was scheduled to depart on time, since I was expecting him to pick me up from the airport in Honolulu. Of course, by the time I was on the plane and had turned my phone entirely off (not just on airplane mode), we were told we would be delayed somewhat… and then by the time I got around to turning my phone back on to let R Kevin know, we were told to turn off all electronics again!

This, at least, didn’t affect the arrival in Honolulu. We only arrived a little bit after we were scheduled to, and I wasn’t expecting R Kevin to arrive until at least 6pm anyway, since he’d said he had to stay back at work until 5:30pm. I texted him once I did finally land to let him know I was there, and he let me know he was able to leave work earlier, but he still ended up arriving about when we originally expected him to because of the traffic.

Since R Kevin had been feeling unwell, he proceeded to tell me about the horrible, disgusting sores in his mouth, which were part of the reason he’d have to have a root canal on Monday (the dentist wanted him to do it sooner, but he didn’t want to risk being able to perform for the Oil in the Alley show on Friday night!) I think he might’ve just enjoyed grossing me out so much by going into so much detail with how bad his mouth sores were, so that I wouldn’t be too disappointed he was only able to drop me back at my hotel so he could go home and sleep off his illness.

When getting my room key at the hotel, I was informed that the entire building I was staying in was without water! This did not exactly please me, considering I’d been flying all day and sort of wanted a shower, but I lived with hope the water would be restored sometime before I’d have to film for Oil in the Alley so I at least didn’t stink at the show. After dropping my stuff into my room, I headed out to the nearby corner store and picked up a wrap and a large bottle of water for my dinner, then headed back to the hotel lobby to catch up on Internet stuff and let people know I was safe and back in Honolulu. I made a comment on Facebook about the water, and R Kevin’s solution to the shower problem was to go to the nearest beach and use their showers… yeah, I don’t think so!

Honolulu is 5 hours behind the Eastern US winter timezone, so before long, I ended up back in my room, crashing out from exhaustion again. I do recall waking up again around 1:30am and discovering the water had been restored. This pleased me mostly because it meant I’d be able to flush the toilet!

Friday February 24, 2012

I had a pretty easy morning, mainly occupying my time with the free breakfast, having a shower, and using the Internet some more. R Kevin came by around 11:30am so we could have lunch together, though his lunch entirely consisted of a large juice drink. He took me to the food court at Ala Moana shopping centre, which is the place Jeremy took me and the boys to and we tried a bunch of Hawaiian foods last time I was in Honolulu. This time I went to a Chinese place and got what I usually ordered from the refectory at my former university (rice, noodles and sweet and sour pork). R Kevin didn’t have much time for his lunch break, due to a scheduled meeting at his workplace, but it still seemed like we talked about a bunch of things in that time.

He dropped me back at my hotel after that, and I debated how to spend the rest of the afternoon. Since Jeremy had requested I buy him a new iPhone while I was in the US (he still had an original model iPhone because I hadn’t let him upgrade sooner, but that was getting on to over 4 years old!) and I wasn’t sure how much more time I’d have to myself, I walked out to the Waikiki shopping area, sure that I remembered where the Apple store was that we went to last time.

After picking up the iPhone, I walked across the street to the markets, and picked up some souvenir Hawaiian books to bring home for my boys (two of them were children books, and another was about the Hawaiian language). I also got myself some earrings from another place. As I was walking back to my hotel, I reflected on how friendly everyone seems in Honolulu, in particular the store clerks, and was suddenly struck with an overwhelming feeling that I had missed Honolulu more than I could have imagined. Certainly when I’d been home, or elsewhere, in the last year and three months, I don’t even remember thinking about desperately wanting to be back there. It may have occurred in the first few months, but by the time I was actually back there, I had forgotten how much I wanted to go back. Of course, every time I think about how much I love Honolulu, I also think about how I know I could never actually live there, if that even became an option. It’s fine to visit, but given my insatiable desire for travel, and the great expense of travelling anywhere from Honolulu, coupled with the high living expenses… it just wouldn’t be feasible for me to live there and still get to travel as much as I do now. Not that there would’ve been any likely reason for us to move there in the first place, but I tend to think about such things when I visit other places I fall in love with. For example, New York would at least be more likely to have various job opportunities for Jeremy, and we both like New York. We’re not looking at relocating away from Malaysia for some time yet, but I don’t expect us to live here indefinitely, so thinking about where else I might like to live is something that crosses my mind from time to time.

Once back at the hotel, I started getting ready for the Oil in the Alley show I’d be filming that night. Sean had advertised it as an 80s night and told people to dress up in 80s fashion, so I had intentionally brought out some ridiculous 80s clothes I thought I’d wear, and hoped not to embarrass myself in the process. The most 80s aspects of my outfit were probably the pastel tights, and the sideways ponytail.

While I waited for R Kevin to arrive, I waited in the outfit, with all my equipment, in the lobby area. At pretty much the time of day where everyone who was staying in the entire building seemed to be coming and going. I felt mortified, but pretended not to realise how tragic I looked to all the other guests. Eventually he and his wife arrived, and R’s reception of my outfit made me feel at least a little better. I only hoped the rest of the audience would be just as terribly dressed as I was.

Of course, they weren’t. But hey! Sean and R liked it, and I was really only there to please them anyway (not like that, get your mind out of the gutter!), what with being their fangirl and filming for them again. I’m so shy, though, so I kind of followed them down the street to watch them warm up a bit, and I’m not sure they actually wanted me to do that. Random people wandered past who happened to know them, or at least Sean… one of which amused me by asking if I was Sean’s daughter. I was amused mainly because his daughters are nearly 20 years younger than I am… but then I later learned that Sean is 20 years older than me, so it was certainly at least plausible! And I probably looked younger than my age with the sideways ponytail and ridiculous makeup anyway. I did feel a little bit like a groupie/hanger on just standing there with them while they warmed up, though, so eventually I got my camera out and started filming bits and pieces on the street, since Sean asked me to film some things that would help set the scene for the video anyway.

Eventually the previous act finished their set, and we were allowed upstairs in the venue (The Dragon Upstairs) to start setting up. I had brought two cameras and a tripod with me specifically for this event, so I set up my small camera to capture the wide shot on the tripod, and used my large, more professional camera to take on shooting the types of shots Jeff Orig shot on the last music video I filmed with them. That is, handheld, more close ups of various instruments and faces and so forth. Having watched Jeff’s footage in the editing room last time around really helped me figure out more of the types of shots I should be filming this time. Of course, having to pay more attention to what I was capturing, including manual zoom, looking through the lens viewfinder (rather than using the LCD screen), and just balancing the heavy camera in my arms meant I wasn’t really paying attention to the lyrics of the songs, or enjoying the show anywhere near as much as I would be if I was a mere audience member. I still enjoyed the filming, but I think next time I’m in the vicinity of Oil in the Alley, I’m going to have to just watch the show and decline filming. As much as I enjoy working with them, I would like to have the opportunity to just be a fan, and maybe prompt one of their song titles (in case I haven’t been clear on this in this entry, Oil in the Alley are an improv rock group, and they improvise every song from scratch, using titles they come up with by exchanging banter with the audience).

As a special treat for the night, Oil in the Alley also invited their friend, Miss Fortune, a burlesque dancer, to perform at the end of each set. The other thing to note about this show is that, since the last time I was in Honolulu, Sean and R Kevin added a drummer (Eric Folk) and a bass guitarist (Bri Smith) to their ensemble. So the show sounded considerably more like an actual rock group, rather than a pair of singers with a guitar.

After their show, I stayed back with Sean while another act playing 80s cover music performed, until he was ready to pack up his equipment and head back. I think I didn’t end up getting to sleep until around 2am. That was such a late night!

Saturday February 25, 2012

I was woken up far too early this morning due to some hammering or something like that going on in the next room, around 7am. I was not especially happy about this, given the time I went to bed. But since I couldn’t sleep, I went downstairs for breakfast.

The plans I had for the day were only really tentative. R Kevin had told me about there being some comedy workshops I could do downtown, the first of which started at 10am. But whether he was able to give me a ride to that one or not would depend on whether we could be awake in time. I sent him a message once I got back to my room to see how he was doing, and he let me know he needed to sleep longer. With that in mind, and the hammering over now, I decided to go back to sleep too. I didn’t wake up again until about the time R Kevin messaged me to let me know what the next plan was.

So, eventually around 11:30am, R picked me up, because the other workshop was scheduled for 12:30pm. On our way there, I realised that I’d forgotten to do anything about lunch, so he gave me a choice of drive-thru places, and I ended up going for Burger King just because I wouldn’t have to think about the menu. R himself was undecided about whether or not he would do the workshop, but either way, he said he’d come back after finding somewhere to park. He dropped me off at the ARTS, which is one of the venues I’ve heard of a lot due to the amount of improv they seem to have there, including as part of their improv festival.

I was kind of shy at first, because I hadn’t really met anyone there before. I just sort of hung around at the front, waiting for R to come back. Before he did though, someone came out to talk to me and said I could go inside where the workshop would be. That happened to be Alissa Joy Lee, whom I’d heard of through Facebook due to her being part of On the Spot, who are an improv group I’d really like to see perform someday. Anyway, it turned out she’d heard of me too, as she asked if I was R Kevin’s friend, and she asked if R had yet given me the t-shirt I was owed for donating to Improvaganza the previous year (he hadn’t). After that discussion with her, and also Garrick Paikai (who runs the festival with R Kevin, and is also part of On the Spot), I felt a little more at ease and welcome.

The workshop was called “Naked Comedy Lab” and was led by Deanna Fleysher, who was visiting from LA as the director of a show called “Red Bastard.” The workshop started out with a couple of games, but the main content had everyone individually, one at a time, go behind a screen, put on a hat and clown nose, then come out in front of the rest of the group. Then, without talking, communicate first with Deanna (responding to questions she voiced), and then making eye contact with everyone else in the group, as if to have a voiceless conversation with everyone else on their own. Watching how difficult this task seemed to be for a good portion of the group kind of petrified me, though there were other people, like Scott Hanada, and Cindy Ramirez, who seemed to take everything in their stride.

It was really cool watching the whole process, but of course, since I was petrified, I ended up being the last one to have my turn. And I ended up being one of the people who took it in their stride. It’s really hard to capture with words how much fun, and how incredible the whole experience was. I hadn’t even performed stand up comedy in about two years, and suddenly I was back performing (in a way), albeit in a safe group of only about 12 people, and eliciting laughs out of everyone. I’d come out mostly relaxed and peaceful, deciding to just go where things took me. It didn’t take long for Deanna to get me in the space it took others longer to get to, and even my responses to her questions seemed to make people laugh. When I went around the room to have my little conversations with everyone, I laughed a lot, which in turn made them laugh back. And everyone else seemed to respond to my laughter at the others. I remember that by the time I got to R Kevin, I was laughing so hard (well, he seemed to be pulling a funny face at me, too) that I kept lifting my leg up and looking away.

After the conversation part of the process, Deanna liked to have us sort of mime an activity or hobby we’re good at. Since I’d come to Honolulu to film, I decided to mime operating a video camera. It took a little while for people to work out what I was even trying to do, but eventually Cindy got it. Deanna somehow turned that into suggesting I was a bit of a pervert, and from past improv workshops I’ve done, I’ve learned you’re supposed to just go with what you’re offered, so I fully went with it. I ended up being asked to swap the video camera for a photography one, and acting out being proud of my filthy perversion. Deanna even asked me to get the other participants to do sort of sexy poses for me to photograph, and I still can’t believe some of the things I made them do. It was just an amazing feeling to be that in the moment, and getting laughs for things I hadn’t even planned to do. I was asked if I had any other interests, so I sort of did my pirate thing at the end, but the sexy photography got the best response, so that’s what I finished on, to more laughter.

After the workshop, a few people said that I really should also go see the Red Bastard show that night, but I was unsure since R had something else he found out he had to go to at the last minute and wouldn’t be able to give me a ride. R told me that after the workshop, I’d probably be able to get a ride from anyone else there (though I’m not sure if he was just flattering me), but by the time I decided I’d go to the show, most people had already left. But we worked out it would be possible for me to come by bus anyway. I just hoped R would be able to come late and give me a ride back to my hotel after. I could have just stayed in the area (since the show was also at the ARTS), but I wanted to get back to my hotel to have a chance to freshen up and find some dinner. The workshop had also run over, so even though R had intended to give me the aforementioned Improvaganza t-shirt when he dropped me back, he ended up not having time to.

Meanwhile, Sean had sent me a message on Facebook to let me know the sound he’d tried to record for the show had not actually worked, and he needed me to watch over my footage to see if any of my sound was useable, and if so, which of the songs he mentioned was the best one for us to turn into the music video. So, after freshening up, I quickly went through his selected songs, and sent him a message back to let him know the best song was the last song they did on the night, “He Makes You Laugh.”

At some point, I also picked up a sandwich for dinner, which I ate in my room. I think I also called and left a message with Sean to see if it would be possible for him to take me to Pearl Harbor the following day, since I would be spending the day with him for the video shoot anyway, and I hadn’t managed to fit it in the rest of the time I was in Honolulu. Pearl Harbor was the one thing I wanted to do most in terms of being a tourist.

Then around 7pm, I walked down to the Ala Moana Center to find a bus – there were actually several bus numbers going in the direction I was headed, and would stop at the Aloha Tower, which is where I was told to get off. And since the buses seemed to come so infrequently, I ended up taking a number I wasn’t familiar with. Still, I got off when they announced Aloha Tower, and eventually worked my way over to the street the ARTS was on, and found my way there.

Scott (from the workshop, who is also the guy who introduces Oil in the Alley at their shows) was manning the ticket counter, so after I got my ticket, I talked to him for a while about the workshop, and the fact there’s only one improv group in Malaysia that I’m aware of. He said I was really good in the workshop, and when I told him I hadn’t even performed stand up in two years, and have barely any improv experience, he was surprised. He told me I was a natural, so I felt incredibly flattered by that, especially since, not only did I enjoy him in the workshop, but I had seen him perform improv last time I was in Hawaii and I enjoyed him then as well. It’s always nice receiving compliments from those whose work you respect.

After I took my seat for the show, I messaged back and forth with R Kevin to find out if he was going to be able to make it (he wasn’t), and then how I’d be able to get back to my hotel, since I didn’t fancy finding out if the buses still ran that late. Since I’m shy, he asked (by text, I presume) Garrick and Alissa if they could give me a ride, so it was nice that that got sorted out. Then Deanna came over to talk with me for a while about how the workshop went and how I enjoyed it. I sort of realised that probably the reason it seemed so much easier for me than some of the other people there is the fact I am shy and don’t really know how to talk to people I don’t know well in social settings. Talking like that takes me out of my comfort zone. I didn’t have to talk in the workshop, which seemed to make it a lot easier for me.

On that note, On the Spot do a show called Hush, which I’ve seen them describe as silent movie improv. I’ve not seen any of those shows, even online, though I believe this was the show they took to the Seattle Improv Festival the previous weekend, which earned them a standing ovation and lots of applause. I would absolutely love to see this show, especially after doing Deanna’s workshop.

Then it was time for the show to start. It was a sold out performance. I don’t really know how to describe Red Bastard because it was unlike any other comedy show I’ve seen before. It was challenging, interactive, and bizarre. It made me think a lot about things that tend to cross my mind a lot, and how I see the world. Other than that, I don’t really want to give away too much of the show, just in case someone wanting to see the show should happen across this post. I think it was better that I didn’t know what to expect going in.

By the end of the show, I was sitting next to Garrick and Alissa (we had to change seats a few times), which made it easy for them to bring up giving me a ride afterwards. We stayed back after the show and talked to Deanna again, and met the performer of Red Bastard, Eric Davis.

When we headed off, rather than taking me straight back to my hotel, Garrick and Alissa decided to take me to another hotel, where the Mac 24/7 restaurant is – famous for their “Elvis” pancake. It was cool getting to go out with them afterwards, and even though I’m terribly shy, since I’ve followed some of the things they’ve done via FB, I found there was a lot of improv stuff we could talk about. One of the shows they did last year was a Wes Anderson film style of improv show. As a bit of a Wes Anderson film fan, that was one show I was terribly sad to have missed seeing due to not living in Hawaii. So it was cool to get to talk to them about that. We also talked a bit about the workshop, and Garrick told me he would pay to watch me in a show where all I did was laugh. I don’t know how sustainable something like that could be, but the compliment totally made me want to come back to Hawaii and try it. I had a lot of fun, and they made me feel very welcome. Also, Garrick ordered the giant Elvis pancake because he decided he wanted to show off… it was so big, he didn’t even get a quarter of the way through it. But I got to take some funny photos of that, and he got to take the rest of it home with him. Oh, I also told them about my pirate character, and Alissa seemed especially interested in that.

It was a bit after midnight by the time I got back to my room, so yet another late night!

Sunday February 26, 2012

I didn’t know until I got up and checked Facebook that morning, but Sean had let me know he would take me to Pearl Harbor with his daughters. He’d originally said 9:30am pick up, but it was probably closer to 10:00am. When we got there, the parking was pretty full, but we got really lucky. They don’t let you take bags into the memorial area, so I had to leave pretty much everything in Sean’s car, and just took my phone in so I could take photos.

Sean picked us up our free tickets for the 12:30pm tour, and then we checked out their eating facilities – which was a lot to be desired, so Sean decided he’d have to take us out of the area to get lunch at around 11:30am to make sure we’d still be back in time for the tour. Next we had a look around the “book shop” (it was more like a gift store) because that’s what one of his daughters wanted to do first. Then we went through the first museum about the war. It was mostly filled with things I’d learned about at the US Army museum on the last trip, but it was good to have the refresher history lesson, and in particular with the context of the location where we were.

After that, it was time for us to head out to get lunch. Since Sean works in the area, he knew exactly where to find a McDonald’s, and given the amount of time we had, that was certainly our best bet for getting back on time (and finding a parking space again!) Of course, we got really lucky when we got back to Pearl Harbor, as someone was just pulling out of their parking bay, which we could pull into straight away. We had plenty of time to spare!

We didn’t have to wait too long for the start of the tour, however. And then we were let into the theatre to watch a short film about the bombing at Pearl Harbor. It was a very engaging documentary, and informative. I seem to take in information better through films like this, much as I also enjoy the museums. I’m a slow reader, so it takes me longer to get the information that way. After the film, we headed out onto a boat, which took us to the USS Arizona Memorial. This structure, I tend to think looks a bit like a white telephone, but it’s more like a bridge that sits over the top of the sunken USS Arizona, which is the grave site for more than 1,000 sailors. Being there was quite a sombre and solemn experience, especially seeing all the names of those who died listed in the far room of the structure. And seeing the drops of oil leaking from the ship. You can also still see the very top of the USS Arizona still above the surface, and some of it a little below the surface of the water. I was very much blown away by the magnitude of this historic event, just by being there.

After the boat ride back to land, we took in the second museum, and then walked down to get a closer look at the USS Bowfin submarine. I realised that, even though I had initially wanted to go to Pearl Harbor with R, going with Sean and his daughters was probably better, since Sean hadn’t taken them before. It ended up being a really good experience for them, and they seemed quite engaged. As we left, Sean quizzed his girls on things we read and heard about as part of our time there. Considering I didn’t learn anything about World War II until I hit high school, and Sean’s daughters are younger than that, I’ve got to say they’d know more about the war than I did at their age!

We headed over to Sean’s family home after that, so Sean and I could go over the video footage I had from “He Makes You Laugh.” He was glad to have the chance to see it, and hear that the audio I had wasn’t too bad at all. He also gave me the pirate cutlass I had ordered from Amazon and had him look after for me until I got there. And it was such a cool sword! Apparently his daughters had thought it was awesome, too.

Whilst there, I also got to meet his wife, Lurana, better this time. I had only met her briefly on the last trip before filming the Oil in the Alley show. This time, Sean had cast her in the music video to play the woman Sean and R sing about in the song. Sean also told me about the ideas he had for the actual video, and what we’d be filming that evening, and I liked his ideas so I was happy to go along with them.

On our way to our first location of the shoot, we picked up dinner at Subway, which we ate at our location. It was a little rainy when we arrived, but luckily it cleared up well before we finished the shoot. It was a really lovely coastal location, with large grey rocks instead of a beach. The windy weather actually worked really well with giving us waves, even if the visibility of them may not end up in the finished product. It still looked really cool. This kind of location is probably not somewhere tourists would go, which is one reason I’m glad I know locals. Of course, as Sean said, it was very close to a homeless camp… and I wasn’t especially pleased by the lack of doors on the toilets!

Sean had asked a friend, Meilin, to be part of the shoot at this location. She’s a fire dancer, so we got some really cool shots with her fire dancing around Sean and Lurana (in separate shots). Also, as with the last video shoot on Round Top, we ended up with more random people watching what we were doing. I think they were more interested in Meilin’s fire dancing than the music video/band aspect, though!

Our next stop was a hotel where the drummer Eric Folk was playing with another group so we could film some scenes with him. Then we went to the Sheraton to film some scenes with just Sean and Lurana at a restaurant there. Since I had to film them making out, I absolutely felt like the pervert Deanna had turned me into in the previous day’s workshop! At least I finally got the chance to have Sean sign my Oil in the Alley CD while we were here, too.

If R and Bri hadn’t been busy, we probably would’ve filmed some things with them as well, but that was not to be. Sean said they would film those scenes separately after I left, and get the footage to me another way.

After the shoot, Sean and Lurana took me back to my hotel. On the way there, I talked a bit about the novels I’m working on, and Sean sounded interested in reading them, so that made me happy.

Monday February 27, 2012

Since I’d brought my pirate costume all the way to Hawaii with me, and had yet had the chance to use it… and at Sean’s extra encouragement the previous day, now that I had my sword, I decided to spend my morning after breakfast dressing up as Jaclyn and filming some stuff with her in my hotel room.

As I was finishing up, R sent me a text to let me know he was done with his root canal and find out if I was free. Since I was still completely in costume, and he needed to give his wife the car by 11:30am, I suggested he just come by my hotel, so I didn’t have to leave it in costume! When he came by, I finally got my Improvaganza t-shirt, and had him sign my Oil in the Alley CD, as well as had him take some photos of me as Jaclyn now that I had the sword.

Of course, since today was my last day in Honolulu, I had to check out by noon. So after R left, I finished packing up everything, and made it to reception pretty much right on noon. I had the guy at reception order me a shuttle to the airport to collect me at 3pm, for my 6pm flight, and left my bags in their locked room while I just mucked around on the Internet and grabbed some lunch for the rest of the time I had left.

When I checked in at the airport, I had to tell the lady that I had a sword in my box (it was too big to fit in my checked bag), but that seemed to not be a problem at all. She simply wrote on the bag tag what was inside. Then going through the airport security afterwards was an absolute pain, since not only did I have to remove my usual computer and liquids from my bag, and various articles of clothing from my person, but they also had signs up to remove video cameras that use tapes – and I had two of them carefully packed in my backpack. Removing them and then repacking the bag afterwards was a bit of a nightmare. But at least I had plenty of time before my flight was scheduled to depart.

I was fortunate enough to get a window seat right at the front of the economy class for my flight to Tokyo. And given the time of day for my flight, and the fact we were headed west, I got an amazing extended sunset over the clouds. The clouds in particular were formed so beautifully.

After the sun went down, I tried to get as much sleep as I could, since I knew I’d be staying overnight at Haneda airport, and there wasn’t really going to be anywhere comfortable for me to sleep there either. But there was no point getting a hotel since the departure time of my flight in the morning was around 6:30am. So rest, and eat when food was served, was about all I did on the plane. At least I had a nice amount of leg room due to being at the front of economy.

Wednesday February 29

So, given the 19 hour time difference between Honolulu and Tokyo, I almost completely skipped the 28th of February. I did arrive on the 28th, but with only about an hour and a half or two hours to go for the day, so it’s not really worth separating the days out for the sake of this blog post. My check-in clerk in Honolulu had issued me boarding passes for my subsequent flights, which made it easy for me to go through the transfer security upon my arrival in Tokyo. I didn’t realise this immediately, but the transfer security people issue you with a ticket that even gives you your next departure gate number – yes, even 8 hours in advance! This was highly convenient and made it easy for me to wait by my gate shortly after.

Haneda has free wifi Internet, and although it took me a while to figure out that, haha, there was an English version of the registration/login page in order to use it, I did eventually get access to the Internet. I didn’t really fancy trying to sleep too much, even after I was the last passenger who appeared to be left in the building, after all the evening flights departed. Luckily I had company from Jeremy and Jeremiah via skype for a good portion of that time. Once Jeremiah had to go, though, I eventually got closer to my gate, and laid down on the floor for a little while, until other passengers started arriving.

When there were employees at the gate, I went up to the counter to find out if they needed to re-issue my boarding passes, since I was now flying a different airline, and they did. Then it wasn’t too much longer until my flight to Singapore.

Singapore Airlines is actually one of my favourite airlines due to the multimedia system they provide their passengers. Despite the fact I’d already watched the better part of three films on my flight to Tokyo, and the same selection of movies were available on my way home, I still found more I wanted to see. I started off by watching the end of The Big Year, which I watched the majority of on my flight from Singapore to Tokyo. Then, despite my sleepiness, I also watched New Year’s Eve, and Drive (another Ryan Gosling film!) which were both films I’d wanted to see at the cinema but hadn’t been able to.

After the movies, I slept as much as I could for the remainder of the flight. When I got to Changi airport, I first headed to the terminal I’d be leaving from, and then straight to the information counter to see about collecting more Changi dollars for my flight, and an Internet login. Since I hadn’t used my $20 the last time, I ended up with $40 to spend at the airport. I looked through a few stores, but ended up deciding to use it all on books, and going a little over that. I ended up with a couple children’s books for Doyle, and a couple books for myself.

Then it was almost time for my flight back home to KL, so I headed much closer to the gate, which was good since it was so far away! The flight home was only about 40 minutes, so I just rested some more.

At KLIA, for once, the expat lane was open in immigration! That is the only time I have ever seen the expat lane available to use at KLIA and LCCT combined. But I was pleased, because it meant I knew exactly which lane to use for once, and it didn’t take too long go get through immigration.

When I got to the baggage claim, I found my main bag easily, but my sword box was not there. I worried for a little while that it had been confiscated from me somewhere along the way, because I know swords aren’t allowed on some planes (I did check on the web sites of the airlines I was flying before I left, though, and it didn’t look like they didn’t accept them). And I had seen a sign at Langkawi airport saying swords weren’t allowed even in checked bags there, so I worried that might have been a Malaysia-wide restriction. However, the airport baggage people ended up going to the bulk baggage section and retrieving it for me. Thank goodness! I didn’t have to worry at all. I did, however, discover the box had been opened by US security back in Honolulu once I’d got home.

From there, it was an easy trek back to the KLIA Express, and Jeremy met me at KL Sentral. And home sweet home. I was utterly exhausted, so I slept well that night!

In case you’re wondering, I didn’t manage to finish reading Idol Meanderings while I was away, but I did once I got home. If you’re interested, I also reviewed it on Goodreads.

We booked the flights for this trip well in advance during some AirAsia sale, and it’s probably been the shortest trip (that included flights to the destination) that we’ve had for a long time. Not that that’s a bad thing. Since Bangkok didn’t have any specific sights I was desperate to see, and I hadn’t bothered to research what there was to see and do, I decided to leave our entire schedule up to Jeremy’s capable hands. After all, when we’ve been married nearly six years, he’s got a really good idea about what I’d enjoy doing anyway.

Tuesday 3rd January, 2012

Our flight was delayed by 20 minutes or so, which actually made another flight to the same destination on the same airline that was scheduled to leave 20 minutes after us, depart earlier than us. That just seemed stupid to me. Why couldn’t they give us that plane instead? Of course, this time was likely made back up when we arrived in Bangkok, and some airport employees guided us to a queue at immigration that had no waiting time, just because we had a baby with us. I know airports are meant to have this sort of special courtesy for people travelling with infants, but you’d be surprised by how many we’ve been to where they just let us wait in the normal queue with everyone else. So I was already impressed with Bangkok from this point on.

Since Jeremy had done his research in advance, he hired us a taxi and knew what the deal was when he had to choose between the toll road and non-toll road to get to our hotel. He chose the tollway, which was conveniently empty. In fact, when we got off that road, and entered the main streets in Bangkok that led to our hotel, the driver commented on little traffic there was compared to normal, and credited it to the time of year, and people still being away on vacation. Even so, I doubt in regular times that the traffic could possibly be as bad as it is in Manila.

I’d also booked our accommodation well in advance, and completely forgotten what I’d booked. When we arrived, it turned out that I’d got us a two bedroom unit (with kitchen)… and inclusive breakfast. Well, that certainly seemed like a treat, considering we’re used to having to share a room with the boys when we travel most of the time. It even included free Internet, which helped Jeremy figure out plans over the next three days.

Once we had settled into the hotel, it was already time for dinner, so we headed out to see what we could find. We passed quite a number of restaurants, browsed the street markets, and ended up settling on a small Thai restaurant, where Jeremy and I tried the Pad Thai, Doyle had Thai satay, and Leo munched on chips.

Across the street from the restaurant was a supermarket, and since we had a kitchen in our unit, we decided to pick up some food that we would be able to make there, hopefully saving a little money by not going to restaurants for all our meals. Whilst there, I determined that Bangkok must have a high concentration of American expats, considering how many American food items they stocked. They even had Lucky Charms and Hot Pockets, both of which I’d never before seen sold outside of the US (both of these things had become something of a regular part of my diet when I was living in Laramie in ’04). We didn’t buy much at the supermarket – just some fruit, stuff for sandwiches, and some pre-made burritos.

It was certainly getting late by then, especially considering we’d had to adjust the time back one hour, so Leo especially was getting tired and fussy. After that, we just walked back to the hotel, and headed to bed.

Wednesday 4th January, 2012

Our first stop in the morning was the free buffet breakfast, in another building of the hotel. I gotta say, as far as buffet breakfasts go, this one was pretty good. There was a good variety of food, both hot and cold stuff, and enough that even both boys liked.

Then Jeremy took us on the train, changing at Siam station, and eventually getting off at the ferry stop, where we caught the ferry down the river. There were still signs of the recent floods, with sandbags around, and vegetation in the water. Anyway, we got off the ferry near Wat Pho, admired Wat Arun on the other side of the river, and wandered through some small markets until we reached the temple. I was a little disturbed by the man I saw peeing on the tire of a bus, but otherwise tried to stop myself from watching him.

We went in to Wat Pho, paying the entrance fee, and getting our free water. We had to remove our shoes in order to go in to one of the buildings and have a look at the largest reclining Buddha in the world. It was gold plated and enormous, but probably the most interesting aspect was the designs on the base of its feet. We then wandered around most of the rest of the temples, admiring the architecture, though Doyle was most interested in the room that had stacks of water bottles in it. Go figure.

It was around lunch time when we finished up there, and we were getting hot and thirsty, so Jeremy walked us around the outside of the Grand Palace to find an air-conditioned place to stop for lunch. By the time we arrived, Leo had fallen asleep in the backpack carrier on my back, so I ate my meal while he slept, and then took him out once he’d woken up so that he could eat what we ordered for him.

The restaurant was just across the street from the Grand Palace entrance, so after lunch, we crossed over and paid for our entrance tickets. When we walked through to the main temple area, we discovered a free tour starting in a few minutes, so we signed up for that. As we were guided around the complex, we learned that the various temple structures were built over the course of several reigning kings. One of them, who was the first to travel as far as Europe, brought gold back from Italy for the outside of Phra Siratana Chedi. The decorations on these structures were so elaborate and colourful. Just stunning to look at.

In the middle of the temple area, they had a model replica of Angkor Wat. Having already been to the actual Angkor Wat site in October 2010, I thought it was cool to see a miniature version of it! The open hallways were especially cool.

The tour took us around most of the temple area, stopping every so often to have things explained, and then the last stop inside this part of the Grand Palace was the Emerald Buddha temple. Inside is a small emerald Buddha statue, sitting up on a gold throne. They change his costume depending on the season (summer, rainy, winter) it is in Thailand. Since it was January, we got to see his winter costume. Unfortunately, they don’t let you take photos inside this temple… on the other hand, the statue is so small, that you’d need a camera with a good zoom lens to get a good photo anyway.

After this part of the tour, we were told if we continued on, we wouldn’t be able to come back into the same area to keep looking. Since we felt like we’d seen enough in this area, though, we stayed with the tour, which then went in to the Amarindra Winitchai Hall, where we saw a throne.

We probably could’ve stayed a lot longer at the Grand Palace looking at everything, but it was already getting to be late afternoon, and the boys were a bit unsettled (especially Leo), so we wandered around a little longer, taking photos of various halls and pavilions, and checked out the armoury museum inside Chakri Maha Prasat Hall. Then we headed to the Royal Thai Decorations and Coin Collection Pavilion/museum so that we could have a look at the emerald Buddha’s other costumes. Since the rainy season outfit wasn’t there, I figured our tour guide must have told us (it was hard to listen when looking after children) that he wears that one under the winter costume.

By the time we headed back toward the pier, and look at the nearby markets, it was almost time for the last tourist ferry to run. Not that we were at the right pier for that, but that’s okay because our ticket allowed us to ride one of the regular ferries, too. It turned out it would’ve been a lot cheaper for us to do that in the first place, and Jeremy was a little bothered by the fact he’d been hustled into getting the tourist tickets, until he chalked it up to experience. I wouldn’t have known any better regardless.

After such a long and tiring day, we simply headed back to our hotel, and made sandwiches for dinner (especially after discovering that both our stove and microwave didn’t work so we couldn’t eat the burritos). When the kids went to bed, Jeremy had some work he needed to get done, so I just played on my phone for a while as he did so, before deciding it was time to go to sleep.

Thursday January 5th, 2012

While Wednesday had been a day pretty much to satisfy things Jeremy knew I would enjoy, he decided Thursday would be something a little more entertaining for the boys… indoors, especially, since we’d gotten so hot walking outside most of the previous day. So, after our buffet breakfast, we took the train to Siam station, and wandered through a few malls (Siam Paragon, Siam Center, and Siam Discovery), until we arrived at the place we would spend our morning… Madame Tussauds! I’ve wanted to visit the famous wax museum for some time, but never actually gone to one due to the high cost for entry. Thus, I was very excited when Jeremy had pre-booked our tickets and decided to take us there.

The boys really enjoyed it; especially Doyle. He liked that there were various parts where you could dress up to pose with the various celebrities. At one point, he and I got to pretend we were in Beyoncé’s backup band, and Doyle loved playing the drums. We all had our photos taken with various wax people, including (but not limited to) Ghandi, Princess Diana, The Queen of the United Kingdom, President Obama and his wife, Picasso, Albert Einstein, Mozart, Pavarotti, David Beckham, Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Britney Spears, Spider-Man, Captain Jack Sparrow, Doraemon, Nicole Kidman, Jim Carrey, Oprah, Jackie Chan, Lady Gaga, Will Smith, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie. You can check out all our photos here. At the end of the tour, we were able to choose two collectable photos to have printed and emailed for us, as part of the package Jeremy purchased, so we went with one with Obama and one with Jack Sparrow.

It was lunch time by the time we left Madame Tussauds, and Jeremy decided he wanted to take us to Sizzler, since it’d been such a long time since we’d been to one. The great thing about eating at buffet places is that there is always a good selection of things that children will eat. It may not always be fun having to choose a restaurant based on what your kids will and won’t eat, so as to limit their disturbance to other customers, and make sure they’re fed (and not screaming because there’s nothing they’ll eat and they’re hungry)… but that’s what dates without the children are for. Anyway, they both ate very well here, as did Jeremy and I, so it was definitely a good choice of restaurant for lunch.

Next, we left the malls, and walked along the overpass to the Art & Culture centre. Here we saw an exhibition of photographs taken by a Thai princess when she travelled around the world. Probably the most striking photos were the ones of the recent flooding in the Bangkok area; particularly of the ancient city of Ayutthaya. Some of the other photos were rather… ordinary (in comparison to those, Jeremy takes far better ones, though I may be biased), but it was still a worthwhile visit.

Unfortunately, while we were here, Doyle had a couple of massive accidents in his underpants, which we were not happy about, especially since he wouldn’t listen to us when we kept asking him if he needed help/to go to the bathroom. At least I’d had the foresight to pack a spare pair of underpants for such an occasion. And a bag to put dirty ones in.

After the Art & Culture centre, Jeremy took us across to the MBK mall, where we did a little shopping for various things, before hopping back on the train and heading back to the hotel.

Since we’d had our microwave replaced that morning, we were able to have our burritos for dinner (thankfully we weren’t that hungry), and then we got a babysitter that night so that Jeremy and I could go out and enjoy a bit of the nightlife without having to worry about the boys. We checked out some of the local area, and then popped in to Terminal 21 – a shopping mall designed to look like an airport! Various sections were themed like cities from around the world, and escalators were like airport gates. It was pretty cool, though we didn’t hang around too long. Eventually we ended up in a bar that had a show that included a man who breathed fire. Even though the bar was one train station away from the closest one to our hotel, we decided to walk back the whole way, which was rather relaxing. We got back around midnight.

Friday January 6th, 2012

Since we were up late the night before, we had a bit of a late start to the day today, including a late breakfast, but that’s okay. Jeremy took us back on the train and ferry to get to the same place we got off on Wednesday. From there, he walked us out to the Museum of Siam, though we stopped at the semi-attached restaurant, Black Canyon, for lunch. Black Canyon is a Thai restaurant chain, which we’ve enjoyed a couple of times in Malaysia, so it was good to have the opportunity to try it in Thailand as well. Leo, unfortunately, didn’t much care for the food we ordered for him, but that was probably because he was a bit tired and wanted a nap by that point.

The Museum of Siam was rather interesting, and took us through the history of Siam/Thailand, from early archaeological discoveries, to today. We learned a little about the American influence, too. I think the part I found most interesting was from back when the country was still known as Siam, and Ayutthaya was the capital. Where their religion became a combination of Buddhism and Animism. We learned about how Ayutthaya was eventually attacked and overtaken by a neighbouring kingdom, though not why it then became abandoned. That’s something I would’ve liked to have known about.

When we finished looking around the museum, Jeremy took us on a walk to find a flower market. It was a little hard to find, and he almost gave up, but we kept going and eventually got there. This would be a place where Thai people would likely buy flowers for their offerings, and they had some pretty amazing arrangements around to choose from. We didn’t, however, buy any. Near this area, there were also some interesting monuments and buildings, so we walked closer to them to take photos, though I’m not sure what they were called.

After that, we found the closest pier and took the ferry and train back to our hotel again. It was another day of being a bit hot and bothered, so we all went to the rooftop swimming pool, where Jeremy and Doyle had a swim, while I watched Leo on the deck. From here, I watched the sun set over the Bangkok skyline, and got to take some nice photos of one of my favourite things to photograph (sunsets).

We headed back to our room so Jeremy and Doyle could get changed, and then went for a wander to find somewhere to eat dinner. We stopped at a restaurant called Det 5, which serves both Dutch and Thai food (an interesting combination!) Of course, I’d discovered on this trip that Bangkok seems to be a popular destination for Dutch and Scandinavian tourists. I think it’s interesting to see which Asian cities cater to which Western tourists best.

After dinner, we went back to our hotel again, where the boys promptly fell asleep because they were so tired.

Saturday January 7th, 2012

We didn’t really have any time to do anything tourist related today because of our flight departing in the middle of the day, so we just settled for having the buffet breakfast, and leisurely checking out of the hotel. We walked for a bit until we found a taxi that was reasonably priced willing to take us to the airport, and arrived with plenty of time.

Bangkok airport impressed me even more this second time around. They offered free colouring in pictures and postcards at an information desk, and there was a children’s area in the wing where our flight was scheduled to depart from. We spent most of our time here, so that both Doyle and Leo could play while we waited. It certainly kept them out of mischief! Doyle even made a few friends with various other children who came by; particularly ones who wanted to share colouring in. The most friendly ones were twin boys from Hong Kong, and it was good to see that their father was also involved and interested in watching them, unlike the parents of the other children who came, who watched from farther away.

Our departing flight was also delayed, and then Leo struggled to nap for long whilst we were on the plane, but otherwise the trip back was fairly uneventful.

This trip is a new instalment of my “spend my birthday in another country” routine that is now in its 5th year.

We started out the trip with a late afternoon flight to Denpasar airport on the 28th of November, which is the day before my birthday. The flight from Kuala Lumpur was 3 hours long, and since we were staying in Ubud, about an hour away from the airport (if the taxi driver knows the exact location of your destination, which ours did not), we arrived at our hotel reasonably late in the evening. By the time we got settled into our room, since it took so long for the hotel staff to try and set up a cot for Leo, we didn’t have dinner at the hotel restaurant until about 10pm. After that, it was straight to bed! Our poor tired boys being up way past their bedtime.

Tuesday November 29th, 2011

This morning I woke up as a 28 year old. We didn’t have any plans set yet, so I looked through a bunch of the brochures we picked up at the airport to see if I could find a tour that would include exciting things to do on my birthday. We didn’t really get up early enough to organise a full day tour, though, which included more of the sorts of things I was particularly interested in doing, but I ended up finding a good afternoon tour, and decided to save a full day tour that I liked the look of, by the same tour operator, for another day.

Jeremy called in to organise the collection from the hotel, and we enjoyed our complementary breakfast from the hotel’s restaurant. This was the only day where the breakfast was not a buffet.

After breakfast, and since we were not going to be collected for our tour until 2pm, we decided to go for a wander out of the hotel. The first stop on our walk was an old looking shrine on the side of the road, and over the fence we found a whole bunch of adorable ducklings.

We continued on our way toward more central Ubud, admiring some of the nice Balinese architecture and graffiti murals along the way, until we reached the Antonio Blanco Museum, which we stopped in to see his paintings and former studio. Upon arrival, we were offered some special ice tea, which was very nice. After drinking the tea, and admiring the birds and flowers, we climbed the stairs to enter the gallery. What I found most fascinating by the artwork was how many of the frames were crafted to become part of the art themselves. The gallery itself wasn’t too large, so we didn’t spend a huge amount of time there, and soon set off wandering closer into the town again.

We crossed a bridge and passed some souvenir shops, browsing some of them, and bought a few things. Then we stopped for lunch and enjoyed bebek betutu, which is a special Balinese-style smoked duck dish. After we finished our meal, we headed back to our hotel, and Jeremy decided to take the boys for a swim to cool off before we were due to be collected for our tour.

Our driver, Ketut, arrived at just after 2pm. Both Doyle and Leo must have been tired from our morning expedition, since they both fell asleep on the ride to our first stop at Taman Ayun – a temple that was constructed in 1634 by king Mengwi. We didn’t really want to wake up the boys, though worried about what would happen if we left Leo behind and he woke up, so we left Doyle in the van to sleep, but moved Leo into his carrier so that Jeremy and I could wander around and take in the sight of the temple grounds, photographing different parts of it. It was a remarkable looking structure, and we certainly got some good photos.

When we got back to the van, Doyle was still asleep, and Leo had remained asleep the entire time. Though by the time we arrived at the next stop – Alas Kedaton, to see monkeys and flying foxes – Leo had woken up. I believe we had to wake Doyle up, however, especially since he was the main reason I had decided we should go to this particular part of the tour. It was raining a little, so when we got out, we were given a local guide, who provided us with umbrellas. It didn’t rain too badly for long, though, and we were soon able to give back our umbrellas. The highlight of this stop was seeing several mothers and baby monkeys sitting on a wall together. The not so great part was having to go back to our guide’s shop, and feeling like we couldn’t leave until we bought something from her. At least we bargained her down a lot, since we didn’t really want to pay her original asking price. Both Doyle and I ended up with shirts.

The final stop on our tour was the Tanah Lot area, on the west coast of Bali, overlooking the Indian ocean at sunset. Doyle wasn’t too interested in wandering down to the temple and shrine area, so he stayed with Ketut by the seafood restaurant where we would be having dinner, while Jeremy and I wandered down that way with Leo, to take a number of photos. Since I love photographing sunsets, this was a particular highlight for me.

The meal at the restaurant was included in the tour price, and provided a range of BBQ seafood items, from fish, to scallops, prawns, and oysters. Despite the fact I generally dislike having to pick at my food to take out the bits I can’t eat, like shells and bones – which I had to do for just about everything we were served – I really enjoyed the meal. Surprisingly, Doyle and Leo managed pretty well themselves, though they mostly stuck with rice and soup. The only thing we had to pay for extra was drinks, and we tipped the musicians who played a song for us, as we left.

On our journey back to our hotel, we told Ketut about the other tour we wanted to do with the company he worked for, and asked him if he would be our driver again, for the tour on Thursday. He accepted, and provided his number for us in case we needed it.

Since it was pretty much time for both boys to go to bed by the time we got back, Jeremy treated me by looking after them and making sure they went to sleep, while I took his computer out into one of the gazebos in the courtyard so I could skype with a friend who wanted to wish me a happy birthday that way.

Overall, I can definitely say I enjoyed my birthday.

Wednesday November 30th, 2011

Our breakfast this morning varied from the day before, in that we had a buffet spread to choose from, and were offered cooked meat and eggs, at our preferred style. I wondered if the reason the buffet had not been available the day before might have been to there being fewer guests staying at the hotel.

We had a much more relaxing day today, so rather than getting out and about too far, we opted to use the hotel’s free shuttle to the Ubud market area. As soon as we arrived, however, Doyle was busting to use the toilet, so we had to quickly find a place that had one that we could take him to. Starbucks didn’t, but Café Lotus next door did, so we stopped in there for drinks, and took in the beautiful sight of an old looking temple behind it while we drank.

After our drinks were finished, we wandered along the main street in the town to have a look at some of the shops, until we reached the markets. Doyle was a little troublesome here, wanting to do more of his own thing, or buy things that actually didn’t really serve any purpose for him, but we eventually managed to get him to calm down a little, long enough to look around most of the markets.

Across the street, we found a nice place to stop for lunch, where I got to try some mie goreng and enjoy something called hummingbird cake. Doyle made friends with a little girl who was about one of two years younger than him. After we finished our lunch, we wandered some more about the local area, until we got tired and decided to wait for the shuttle to take us back to our hotel.

Jeremy had an appointment for a work related skype call in the afternoon, so I took the boys for a swim while that was on. They had lots of fun splashing the water at each other, but when Leo decided to start biting me, I decided it was time for him to get out. I had to look after him while Doyle played on the steps of the pool, and I had to make sure he didn’t fall in and drown too. Luckily by then, Jeremy wasn’t gone too much longer, so he joined us at the pool.

We then went back to our room and put on a DVD of Elmo’s Christmas for the boys to watch, before we headed out to the hotel restaurant for dinner. If it hadn’t been raining, we may have travelled farther than that for our meal.

Thursday December 1st, 2011

We had to have an early start to the day today, due to the time Ketut said he would pick us up for our tour to make sure we got to our first stop on time. This meant having to wake Doyle up so we could have our included buffet breakfast to start.

Ketut collected us at 8:30am, and drove us to Batubulan to see a Barong and Kris dance. Though the singing and speaking parts were in Indonesian, it was still fun to watch and see the amazing costumes of the Barong and Rangda. We were also given a programme that explained the play to a certain extent – unfortunately it didn’t explain why it seemed like all the men stabbed themselves to death at the end. At one point they also had a funny joke that involved the monkey’s tail between its legs. Doyle and Leo both seemed pretty enthralled by the show, so I’d certainly recommend it for children.

The next few stops on the tour took us to various places where they make things for tourists to buy – batik paintings, cloths, and clothes, where we got to see some people hand weaving and painting the cloth, at Tohpati; a gold and silver shop at Celuk; and paintings in Ubud. We perhaps spent a little too long in these places considering we didn’t actually buy anything, but then we were taken to a garden at Temen village that grows fruit, spices, cocoa, and coffee. They gave us free tastings of five different drinks – coffees, teas, and hot chocolate. I’m someone who generally hates coffee with a passion, and I did dislike the regular coffee, but I actually really liked the ginseng coffee. I’m usually a fan of hot chocolate, but I needed a lot of sugar in this one to like it a little bit. Then with the tea, I thought the lemon tea was nice, but not being a fan of ginger, did not appreciate the ginger tea. Since both Jeremy and I enjoyed the ginseng coffee and lemon tea, we decided to buy a small pack with both from the gift shop, as well as some of the vanilla chocolate they let us taste, and vanilla essence. We figured these purchases made up for the fact we didn’t buy anything at the other stops.

We were well and truly hungry by now, so fortunately for us, our next stop was a restaurant in Kintamani, where we had a buffet lunch overlooking the Mt Batur volcano and lake. It was a really beautiful view, and the food wasn’t too bad at all. One of the things I love most about buffets when travelling with children is that there’s pretty much always going to be something on offer that they will eat, no matter how fussy they are. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily stop a baby from being messy…

It was already getting to be quite a long day, and we were sort of running out of time to fit everything in. By the time we arrived at the next stop, Doyle was complaining and said he didn’t want to get down, so we left him with Ketut again, since they’d sort of become friends. I carried Leo in his carrier on my back, and had to wrap my scarf around my waist (despite wearing long pants), as was the custom to go to the grounds of the Besakih temple area (also known as Bali’s Mother Temple). Jeremy also had to wear a sarong around his waist, but that was included in the “donation” that we had to pay in order to have a tour guide, which we essentially had to get in order to see more of the temple area. Despite the fact it was kind of like a bit of a con, and they didn’t like how little we wanted to donate for this feature (eventually they accepted when it was obvious we wouldn’t pay more), the temples were pretty cool to look at, and our guide was pretty knowledgable and told us a lot about them. On the other hand, it took me a long time to work out what Hindu God he kept referring to, since he pronounced it in a rather bizarre way. It was quite a hike to get up to the main temple area, especially with a baby strapped to my back, but we didn’t want to accept the motorbikes in case they wanted to charge us extra for those as well.

When we got back to the van, Doyle whined about wanting to see the temples too, but it was too late now! And given that we were already running short on time, and Doyle walks a lot slower than us, it probably worked out for the best this way. We quickly headed off to Kerta Gosa to have a look at the court hall of justice, though most of the gates were closed and locked, and it looked like we wouldn’t be able to get in. There were still a few interesting things around to take photos of. Then Ketut found an unlocked gate, so we quickly jumped inside to snap a few extra photos, before heading back to the van.

Both boys were terribly restless by this point, but we still had not been to the one thing I wanted to see most on the selected tour – Goa Gajah, the elephant cave temple. It was originally meant to be in the middle of the tour, but I guess we took too long at our earlier stops to fit it in then. Well, despite the kids’ whining, I insisted we still go there, and did my best to make Leo stop crying by feeding him all the food I still had in my handbag for him.

When we arrived at Goa Gajah, all the shopping stalls were shut because it was so late, but that suited us fine since we didn’t fancy having people trying to sell us more things anyway. There were very few other tourists there, which made taking photos easy. The design of the cave entrance was both cool and a little creepy looking. We had a little wander down toward the sort of water areas, then headed back to the van so we could head back to the hotel, stopping at an ATM on the way so we could pay our driver.

That’s when Jeremy discovered he’d accidentally left his ATM card in an ATM the day before. And he didn’t have a spare one on him; nor did I know the PINs for the cards I’d had on me! So we had to go back to the hotel first for Jeremy to collect another ATM card, while I looked after the unsettled, tired boys. We were too full from the buffet lunch to worry about dinner, so we pretty much just went to sleep once Jeremy had sorted out the payment.

One of the things I sincerely enjoyed about having Ketut as our driver was getting to use some of my Indonesian vocabulary, with words and phrases I’d learned in school and since forgotten coming back to me. I also enjoyed making him laugh when I told Doyle to say “Ibu cantik.”

Friday December 2nd, 2011

After the exhausting, full day the day before, we decided to have a pretty easy day today. After the usual buffet breakfast, we had a relaxing morning while I read one of the books I brought for research for my novel, and Jeremy took the boys for a swim. Then we went for another wander outside the hotel, in the opposite direction than Tuesday, but didn’t find anything too interesting. Rather, we ended up hot and bothered, with a sleeping baby, until we decided to stop at a restaurant across the street from our hotel for lunch.

The afternoon saw us relaxing more, with Doyle watching Elmo again, and playing a bit with Leo, until Leo got hungry, so we took the boys to the restaurant for an early dinner. As soon as their meal was finished, we left them with one of the hotel workers, who babysat them for us after her shift, so that Jeremy and I could go out and spend some time together just the two of us.

We caught the free shuttle into Ubud and arrived at Bodyworks for a couples massage therapy session, which was really nice and relaxing. We both had a different therapist working on us at the same time, in the same room, and it ended with a nice relaxing bath together. As an added bonus, they gave us the leftover oil they used to take home with us!

We’d booked the very next shuttle back to the hotel, so after the massage, we had to head back to the meeting point for that. We still had more time before the babysitter was due to finish, however, and hadn’t eaten dinner yet ourselves, so we went to the Round Bar, which was next door to our hotel.

After a while of looking around the bar, it occurred to me that the entire interior was made out of recycled materials, which I thought was really cool. The seat coverings were denim, the lights, and other decorative items, they all used things like plastic bottles and tin cans. Jeremy and I shared a couple bar snacks, and had a drink each, before heading back to our room and relieving the babysitter of her duties. She hadn’t managed to get the boys to sleep, so we had to do that ourselves.

Saturday December 3rd, 2011

Today was our last day in Bali, and we managed to get a nice sleep in before our usual buffet breakfast; probably thanks to everyone having a late night the night before. We took the shuttle back into Ubud because I wanted to check out the Museum Puri Lukisan, even though I didn’t know what was housed there. I just tend to be a fan of museums. It turned out to be another art museum, but this time it showcased local art by Balinese artists, and in some cases, had cloth calendars and sculptures dating back a few centuries. Included in the ticket price was a free drink from the attached restaurant, so we got some drinks before heading off.

On our way back toward the shuttle pick up location, we stopped at a convenience store to buy some things we could make ourselves in our hotel room for lunch, which we did as soon as we got back to the hotel.

Jeremy still had more work to catch up on in the afternoon, so the boys and I did a combination of playing, relaxing and napping, until we found a spider in the bathtub! We had to call the reception to send someone to fetch it out for us, because it looked like a rather large huntsman so typical in Australia, and we didn’t fancy having to deal with it ourselves.

In the evening, we went for another walk outside of the hotel, crossing the street to book ourselves a 3am taxi to the airport for our 6am flight. Then we continued along the direction we took our first day, until we found a restaurant attached to someone’s house, which we decided to have dinner at. Both Doyle and Leo were unfortunately fussy with the food we ordered for them. On the other hand, I enjoyed my chicken & pineapple ala Martini with Balinese sauce.

We headed back to the hotel again to pay our bill, and had an early night due to the 3am pick up. We were actually ready right on 3am, but our driver wasn’t… Jeremy ended up having to wake him up by knocking several times on his door! I suppose that’s one advantage to your driver living across the street from your hotel… Fortunately, the taxi was also pre-paid, and at that time of night, we still managed to get to the airport before 4am, which is about the time the airport actually opened. There were a bunch of other passengers already waiting outside until security let us in.

I had previously researched that there was a departure tax to be paid at the airport, and how much it would be, but the research I found also told me we wouldn’t have to pay for the kids. The research was wrong. We didn’t have enough money for Doyle’s departure fee (Leo was still free), so Jeremy had to get more cash from the ATM in order for us to leave. Oh well!

On a final note, I was most impressed with Doyle when we were waiting to board the plane, and he read all the Chinese characters on a bottle of orange juice bottle Jeremy had bought to use up our leftover Rupiah.

Monday October 31st, 2011

Our flight to Langkawi, an island in the north of Malaysia, close to Thailand, was due to depart in the evening. It lasted all of an hour. What interested me most about the process was the fact that our ID was never checked. I supposed that it was because it was a domestic flight, but I saw other people getting their passports out when they checked their bags in. Is this the future of the self-check in process?

While waiting to go through security at LCCT, Doyle was bothering a little girl around his age, and Jeremy told Doyle, “When a girl says no, she means no.” Then the girl’s father said, “Actually, she means maybe.” Whilst I knew he was taking a dig at his wife when he said it, since he was looking at her and the look she gave him back wasn’t a pleasant one, I couldn’t help thinking that it’s this sort of attitude that my friends who speak out against rape culture all the time have a problem with. In truth, it also bothered me, too, because Doyle is only four, and I don’t want him getting messages like that from anyone, least of all from strangers. It seems to be hard enough with what kids are exposed to in the media to teach boys respect for women.

When we arrived in Langkawi, I noted that the domestic and international arrivals were right next to each other, which would make it very easy for an international arrival person to sneak in undocumented (presuming they didn’t have any luggage to collect). Sure, they wouldn’t be able to leave the country again very easily, but what if they didn’t want to? This isn’t something I advocate, but when I notice things like this, I can see why there are statistics of unknown but large numbers of undocumented workers in Malaysia.

Since we had such a short and turbulent flight, no food was served on board, so we stopped at Marrybrown, a local fast food chain, at the airport for dinner. Then we got a taxi to our hotel to check in, and they drove us around a couple of blocks to the apartment building where we’d actually be staying. I’d booked us into a 3 bedroom apartment, despite having read bad reviews.

I probably shouldn’t have ignored them, though. The kitchen facilities left a lot to be desired, supplying us with a fridge, kettle and toaster, and incomplete cutlery set. The dishes were okay at least. I was a little disappointed at the lack of wardrobe space, and the only furniture in the bedrooms were beds. Still, it’s accommodation, and it was near enough to some shops where you can buy the food you would want to stock your fridge with. It also had a beautiful view of a nearby mosque.

Tuesday November 1st, 2011

I ended up spending most of the night sharing a bed with Leo in his room, as he’d been unable to rest well for long without me.

In the morning, we wandered around the block we were staying on to see what was available for breakfast. Instead of stopping at one of the small local style restaurants that we’re already familiar with after living in Malaysia for three years, though, we just picked up a few things from the bakery, and drinks from 7 Eleven, and took them back to the apartment to eat.

Later on, since we were staying in Kuah town, I decided to lead us on a walk down past the nearby mosque to CHOGM Park – which I only understood the meaning of due to the recent CHOGM meeting back in my home city of Perth. This meeting being pretty significant in the history of the Commonwealth because it was decided that in the future, if the eldest person in the family in line for the throne is female, she can become Queen, even if she has younger brothers.

Anyway, in CHOGM Park (such named for the meeting held in Langkawi in 1989), we enjoyed looking at some nice lily flowers and lily pads in a stream that runs between CHOGM Park and Legend Park. Then we looked at some of the plaques for various Commonwealth countries, before wandering over to the playground region of the park. We spent a lot of time at the playground because there was a Malay girl there with her mother, who Doyle wanted to play with. I thought it was really sweet, but he kept trying to talk to her in English, which the girl didn’t speak. He asked me how to say, “I want to play with you,” in Malay, but that I didn’t know. Instead I taught him to introduce himself by saying, “Nama saya Doyle,” which he then said to her a lot while following her around on all the playground equipment.

After the girl left, waving goodbye to Doyle, we took Doyle to try out the rest of the playground equipment, and Leo got to try sliding down a slide with his Daddy for the very first time.

We kept wandering down past the Legend Park entrance, which I made a note to go back to sometime, and stopped at Eagle Square to get a photo of the giant eagle that faces the sea. Then we wandered through a small market, and headed down to Jetty Point for lunch. We had a quick glance around the duty free shopping, and ended up in Kenny Rogers’ Roasters to eat. Leo had fallen asleep between the playground and here, but woke up in time to eat.

After lunch, though, both boys seemed rather fussy, so we just walked back to the apartment.

I stayed and looked after the kids while Jeremy went out to get some food for dinner and breakfast, and we spent the rest of the afternoon/evening inside. Travelling with children and having a week in a place means you can take it a little easy rather than cramming in too much to your day. And besides, Jeremy had a bit of a flu.

After I put Leo to bed, Doyle and I watched “Mr Bean’s Holiday,” which we had brought with us on DVD, while Jeremy had an early night. Though that didn’t last too long, as Leo was even fussier than the previous night, and Jeremy had to help him sleep while Doyle and I finished the movie.

I relocated Leo back to his room after the movie, but that also didn’t last, and Jeremy ended up sleeping next to him in his room for the rest of the night.

Wednesday November 2nd, 2011

Jeremy had an even tougher time sleeping next to Leo than I’d had, so much so that he said he didn’t get any sleep. So I looked after the boys in the morning while he tried to sleep some more.

Around 11:20am, we got a taxi, which we’d ordered to take us on a tour around various locations on the island. 5 hours = RM125, and any additional hours were RM25 each.

Doyle was very friendly with our driver, even asking him his name, which is something even his socially awkward parents don’t bother to do (the driver’s name was Romi). It’s really nice seeing Doyle’s social skills develop where I in particular tend to fail. He was also very friendly with a flight attendant and other passenger on the plane, and especially seems to enjoy telling people about his baby brother.

Our first stop on our self-decided tour was the Bird Paradise Wildlife Park. This place proved to be an absolute hit with Doyle, who got to feed several animals throughout the park, including: flamingoes, porcupines, rabbits, birds, peacocks, mousedeer, and monkeys. At one point, Jeremy had his hand out and fed six budgies at once!

Whilst in the gift shop, I picked up a cute plush lemur toy for Leo, hoping it would help keep him company so he could sleep better, since we didn’t bring the plush frog he’s very attached to and sleeps with at home.

We ended up staying a lot longer at the bird park than we thought we would, but we kept to our preferred stops, despite it already being lunch time.

Our next stop was the Perdana Gallery, which is home to over 9000 collections given to former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad during his tenure as PM, though only 2000 can be on display at any given time.

I really enjoyed looking at much of the collections, seeing what sorts of things were given from various countries, and guessing the origin of some of them. Doyle preferred to follow around three boys in red shirts. The gallery’s camera policy was interesting in that if you wanted to use a camera to take photos, you had to pay extra… unless you used your mobile phone’s camera function, in which case it was free. My phone camera is better than any of my previous digital cameras! Jeremy had to check in our DSLR camera, though, because he didn’t want to use it.

I managed to photograph some of the most interesting pieces, despite Leo’s fussing, which made me want to speed through until he fell asleep. Still, the time of day and Doyle’s disinterest kept us moving through the rooms fairly quickly.

It was raining pretty heavily when we exited the gallery, so I was worried this would mean we’d have to skip our next stop, which was outdoors. Luckily, the rain let up right at the time we had the choice to stop or keep going, so we stopped at Pantai Pasir Hitam (Black Sand Beach) so I could snap some pictures. Some of the sand there is black due to large iron deposits. When I got to the lower part of the stairway that leads to the beach itself, I was interested to see some information about a local legend that involved a war with mermaids and the land people burning the sand, making it turn black, as well getting to see a praying mantis close enough to snap a great picture on my phone.

I went back upstairs to find Jeremy and Doyle, who hadn’t noticed where I’d gone, and I took them back down to see the praying mantis. By this time, it had begun walking along the rail, which was just such an amazing sight that I ended up having to film it. How often would I get to capture on camera something like that?

After that quick photo stop, we went all the way to Perdana Quay for lunch at the USSR restaurant. We’d seen it advertised in Kuah the day before and thought it seemed like such a strange cuisine to have here, especially since we’ve never seen, let alone been to, any Russian themed restaurants anywhere else in the world. It was perhaps a little overpriced considering the portion sizes, but I still enjoyed the Pelmeni (dumplings) I ordered, and I enjoyed watching Leo feeding himself mashed potatoes… with his hands. I didn’t really have a choice. He refused to let me feed him after a while. Jeremy’s beef stroganoff was also really nice, and not anything like the stroganoff I’m used to. If you think in terms of Aussie dollars, I suppose the meal wasn’t too badly priced. Food and drinks for two adults and two children for AU$35. You’d pay more than that for an equivalent restaurant in Australia.

Our next stop was the Oriental Village, but we didn’t stay here too long, just long enough for a quick look around and some snapshots. The cable car was closed, but even if it hadn’t been, we probably would have skipped it due to time.

The final stop was the Seven Wells Waterfall, which was a bit of a hike to get to up some stairs, but still quite nice to look at, given the height. We got in some good photos before several other visitors came and got in the way.

Back in the taxi to the apartment after that, and all up we were away for just under 7 hours. We paid the equivalent of about AU$58 for that time, which, to me, sounds like a bargain.

Jeremy needed another nap once we got back, so I took care of the kids and fed them until Leo’d bed time, which is when Jeremy got up and made our dinner. Leo seemed to find it easier to go to sleep with his new toy, too, so I had high hopes for the rest of the night.

After dinner and putting Doyle to bed, Jeremy and I watched The Terminator, another film we brought with us and I had never seen. It was very clearly dated, given the time periods the film was set in, but I could see why it’s popular.

Thursday November 3rd, 2011

The good news is, Leo didn’t need either Jeremy or me to go in to see him in the middle of the night. He did cry once, and I got up, assuming I’d have to go in to see him, but then he went back to sleep on his own. The new toy had done the trick!

We had an easy day today because my back was hurting from carrying Leo around like a backpack the previous two days. Jeremy and Leo headed out for more groceries in the morning while I stayed with Doyle, but then we didn’t head out together until lunch time, to find a place with free wifi, where we could also eat. Unfortunately, this meant we had to go to McDonald’s, which I generally try to avoid. At least Doyle enjoyed the playground and playing with the other children. Unfortunately it was very difficult to pull him away afterwards.

Before heading back to the apartment to relax for the rest of the day, we looked around the Langkawi Fair shopping centre, but it wasn’t that interesting. Doyle rode on a kid size car, and bought a hat, and we got a few extra groceries.

The highlight of the day was watching Leo gain a little more confidence in his learning to walk. He managed to take one step on his own from me to the bed, and several steps while holding my hands. It shouldn’t be too much longer before he graduates from furniture walking to walking on his own.

The most disturbing thing of the day was spending an hour and a half trying to get Leo to go to sleep because he seemed to be too busy getting entertained by a ghost.

Friday November 4th, 2011

Today we had booked a boat tour in the Geolocation UNESCO area with Dev’s Adventure Tours. Initially on arriving in Langkawi, I thought the tours with the eagle feeding other companies offered sounded appealing, but then I read about how it was bad for the local ecology, and decided to look at the tours that cared more for the environment. The reason I’m naming the company we went with is because I think they did a really great job. Our tour guide was a conservationist and told us a lot about the environment and why we have to take care of it, which is a lesson I want my children to learn, so I hope Doyle was paying attention.

We had a small tour group, with one couple from Syria, and a family of five from Lebanon, who live in Dubai. Doyle made friends with their youngest son, who was only about six months younger than Doyle. They were both as friendly as each other, and it was adorable to see them together. We ended up giving them Doyle’s email address at the end in the hope they could keep in touch because they were even talking about visiting each other! The mother said she would at least email some photos they took of the boys together.

The boat ride itself was a lot of fun. We first stopped at the bat cave to see some bats and learn about the mangrove trees, then we spent quite some time on the boat spotting animals such as kingfishers, crabs, monkeys, Malaysian dingoes, eagles, snakes, walking fish and a lizard. Then we were taken out into the open sea to take in some gorgeous views of the islands.

Next we were taken to the spot where other boats go to feed the eagles, and watching them all fly around and swoop and dive to the water was just breathtaking. Since eagles were my Mum’s favourite animal, I know she would’ve loved it, too. All of the eagle items on sale in Langkawi, and now seeing them in action, really reminded me of her a lot. If she were still alive, I’d have bought her something. Or framed one of the amazing photos Jeremy took for her.

We then stopped at a fish farm to look at some spitting fish that jump out of the water to eat, some large blue fish, and some stingrays. Our final stop on the boat tour was a floating restaurant for lunch, which also had an attached fish farm. I really enjoyed the tour, and our guide was very friendly and accommodating to the kids, which was great considering almost half of the party were children! All up, it was about 5 hours, and it only started raining toward the end, when we were headed back to the jetty where we started.

After they transferred us back to our accommodation, we stayed there for the rest of the afternoon/evening. The only significant thing to happen this evening was Doyle accidentally smashing a glass plate on the floor so that we had to wear our shoes and not allow Leo on the floor, since we kept finding more and more slivers of glass.

Saturday November 5th, 2011

Another fairly quiet day today since we had now done the main highlights I had been keen on doing. We headed out across the street for roti for breakfast to start, then hung about the apartment until it was a reasonable time to go to Langkawi Parade, the shopping mall that’s inclusive of a cinema.

First we stopped in at the duty free department store where we picked up a couple of clothing items and some alcohol to take back to KL with us, then re-stocked some of the kitchen since we were running out of food.

For lunch, we ate at the Elephant Café so we could take advantage of their free wifi. Leo had fun crawling around the floor there, since they didn’t have any high chairs, it it wasn’t particularly sanitary. He got SO dirty that I wondered if they ever bothered to mop their floors. I did enjoy the pizza and caramel smoothie I ordered, though.

Next we headed upstairs to get tickets for Tintin before wandering around the rest of the small-ish mall. There wasn’t too much more to see so we just went back upstairs to wait for the movie.

Despite having to chase Leo around the cinema for half the film, I really enjoyed it. I was a fan of the Tintin cartoon series growing up, but was unfamiliar with this particular story… funnily enough, it also happened to be based on the book I picked up in America. The fact there was a pirate aspect to the film was also of interest, since I’m taking in a lot of pirate media right now, while I’m working on my novel about a pirate.

After the movie, we took a taxi back to the apartment, where we stayed for the rest of the day. Leo went straight to bed since he hadn’t napped all day, waking only to have dinner, though it was a little difficult for him to go back to sleep, too.

Jeremy had an early night, so I decided to stay up and do a couple things on my own, like writing this and reading without interruption. I’ve been slowly getting through “On Stranger Tides” by Tim Powers, though I am a little bothered with some of the editing. For example, he incorrectly spells Anne Bonny’s name as Ann, and there are occasions when Blackbeard’s ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, has the same Ann misspelling. I’m unsure if this is intentional to keep it more obviously fictional, but to me, even with the little research I’ve done to date on piracy in the Caribbean, this seems like a glaring error (as well as later discovering Powers didn’t use Blackbeard’s correct surname either). Despite that though, I enjoyed the book (I finished reading it after I got home), and how different it is from the Pirates of the Caribbean film, despite it being the book the 4th film was based on. It was good to get to read about different characters – the only one in the book who is in the movie is Blackbeard.

Before going to bed, I ended up getting quite a lot of ideas for my novel and having to jot them down so I wouldn’t forget them. The story is now pretty much fully formed and my mind just keeps filling in the gaps. It’s a pretty incredible feeling to experience all this inspiration. It’s really the first time I’ve had this much thought about a project this long.

Sunday November 6th, 2011

Today we headed into the Kuah town shopping area, where Doyle used some of his pocket money to buy a toy Angry Birds game, since he’s such a fan of the phone version of the game. Most shops were closed due to the Hari Raya Haji public holiday.

Then we caught a taxi to Pantai Cenang (Chenang Beach) so we could actually have a beach swim whilst on this island. Pantai Cenang is actually a fair way away from Kuah, so it’s not something we could do every day. Leo enjoyed splashing in the water and making everyone get wet.

Once we’d had enough time in the water and sand, we found a nearby Western and Korean food restaurant to have lunch, before getting another taxi back to the apartment. When we got back, Jeremy and Leo had a nap while Doyle and I tried out his new game.

When it got to be around dinner time, we all headed out for a walk. We returned to the shopping area we were at earlier to buy some chocolates I’d eyed in the morning (I was curious about the cactus flavour Korean chocolates) and then found a place to eat dinner.

It was time to put both kids to bed by the time we returned to the apartment again. After that, Jeremy and I tried out a couple of bizarre flavours of Vodka Cruiser, as well as the cactus chocolate. I suspect it’s an acquired taste… I didn’t especially like it myself.

Monday November 7th, 2011

Today was our last day in Langkawi, and there was only one thing left that I’d wanted to see – Legend Park. We found an alternate entrance behind the mosque that is near where we were staying. The park has fallen into a bit of disarray, but it was still interesting to walk through and see the various sculptures and ponds. We also got to see a couple of wild hornbills fairly close to us, which was really quite incredible. I just wish I’d been able to get close enough for a photo.

Once we made it through the park, we stopped in at the reception of our hotel to ask about checking out and getting a taxi to the airport for our early flight the next morning. Whilst there, we took advantage of their free wifi.

Then we walked back to our hotel for lunch, played a round of Old Maid (teaching Doyle in the process) and I put Leo down for a nap while Jeremy had one himself. Meanwhile, the cleaners came, and since I’d fallen asleep with Leo, Doyle was the only one awake to talk to them… and he told them to go away. So much for having a fresh bin (it was overflowing) or towels. Doyle did say they were going to come back, but I wasn’t so sure.

When Leo and Jeremy woke up, they went out for a walk and I did my best to pack up most of our things. After they returned, I swept the floor, since we assumed the cleaners wouldn’t be back, but then shortly after they did return. Oh well! At least we got our bin emptied, beds made, and new towels.

I managed to get more reading done in the afternoon, too. So much so that I completed the first of three books within “On Stranger Tides.”

For dinner, Jeremy led us to a food court, where I got to try nasi goreng Pattaya (Pattaya fried rice) that was different from what I’m used to in KL. When we got back to the apartment, we put the kids to bed.

The rest of the trip for the return home the next morning was uneventful. We also arrived at the airport so early that nothing was open yet.

To understand the significance of this trip for me, you first need to know about a little thing called LJ Idol. LJ Idol has played a major role in my life over the last two years, to bring me to where I am today. Some people see it as a writing competition. Some people think it’s a popularity contest. In reality, it’s a little bit of both, set up like a reality TV show with various twists and turns so that you never know what to expect. Though I came 12th (out of 262) in season 7, which ended in July this year, and around 43rd (out of 243) in season 6, my primary reason for joining the competition in both seasons (which lasted for months, meaning you need both talent and stamina to stay in the game until you’re voted out) was to make new friends rather than see how long I could last.

Given my goal, I more than succeeded. I didn’t form shallow friendships; I formed meaningful ones. Sharing our lives with each other through the competition allowed us to get to know our fellow competitors in ways that I seem to be incapable of doing in the real world. It was a place I felt safe to open up and share The Real Me, so I knew that when I met people who wanted to be my friend, they were accepting me for who I am, including parts of myself that I find harder to talk about to people who already know me. The competition also allowed me to explore other forms of writing, too, and whilst I shared anecdotes and information about my life experiences and who I am, I also wrote screenplays, fictional prose, poetry, and shared videos. Apparently this variety made me seem interesting and stand out, and tended to be what people complimented me on most.

Anyhow, through the course of season 7 in particular, I met a guy called Jeremiah who ended up being one of the biggest supporters of my writing, and he continually encouraged me to explore some fictional characters I created and then revisited every so often. It got to the point where I realised I was writing about those characters essentially for him, and another friend, Sally – whom I first met at a friend’s birthday party in Melbourne in 2009, and re-met through season 6 of LJ Idol, and is worth mentioning now because she’s someone I also planned to meet up with again on this trip. Since the end of season 7 of LJ Idol, Jeremiah’s encouragement of my writing and characters continued, and he has been helping me with the process of trying to turn their story into a novel. Given that he works as a professional editor, and he’s been working with me for nothing, his encouragement and help has meant so much to me. I really wanted the opportunity to meet him in person. It also happened that he lives in the same city as a few of my other friends who participated in LJ Idol. For the hell of it, I also decided I should knock off another US state from my list I haven’t been to now that I knew people from LJ Idol who lived nearby the city I wanted to see there – Philadelphia. So I organised meet ups in Philadelphia, PA; Alexandria, VA; and London in the United Kingdom, since fate allowed me to have a 12 hour stopover there on my way home.

From the time I left home on Friday the 9th until the time I arrived at my final destination in Exton, PA, about 36 hours had passed. I picked up Jeremy and drove to KL Sentral where we could have a final dinner together before I left Malaysia. It was really convenient that my first flight was on Malaysian airlines because that meant I got to check my bag in at the train station, and collect my boarding pass to London there. I took the express train to the airport and was able to go straight through to the security, and then on to my gate.

My flight from KL departed at 11:40pm and arrived into London around 5:40am the next day, London time, a flight that lasted about 13 hours. In between trying to get some sleep, I watched two movies – Midnight in Paris, which featured my favourite comedy actor, Owen Wilson, who played a writer who got to experience life in the 1920s when he waited in a particular spot in Paris at midnight, meeting a lot of famous creative types that helped him on his journey to becoming a better writer; and Jumper, a movie starring Hayden Christensen about a kid who has the power to teleport over the world, and a film I’ve been wanting to see since it was released at the cinema. I also had printed off some of Jeremiah’s writing to read on the plane, since talking about his writing with him was something else I was looking forward to doing in person.

Saturday, September 10th

There was only about two hours between my flights at Heathrow airport. My biggest fear was that I wouldn’t be able to make the connection. When I arrived, I learned I was even going to have to change terminals, and I still had to organise my boarding pass for my next flight. Despite the fact that Heathrow is an incredibly big airport, they actually make it really easy to change terminals and make connecting flights. If I’d had my children with me, I think the whole process might have been a lot more stressful, but doing it alone was very easy. By the time I got my boarding pass, I only had to wait about 10 minutes before they announced the gate I was leaving from, so I then wandered out that way. I was flying United, which is the airline my frequent flier program is with, and when I first got a glimpse of one of their planes, I got a bit teary. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with America. Sometimes I like to take ownership of the fact I am technically American, even though I’ve never lived there, and so for this trip I guess it got to me emotionally, as if I was going home. Other times I can’t stand what has become of the country and prefer to just mention that I’m Australian, since that’s usually what I identify as the most, and is also technically true. I love being a dual-national. Interestingly, this time, I even used my US passport when checking in in London. Typically in the past, I’ve only used that passport to clear immigration in the US itself.

Probably the coolest thing I saw at the airport was a guy who had what I have no idea how to describe other than metal robot legs. I had no idea that technology had actually advanced in our world this far already that it was possible to give someone a working substitute for missing legs. It just about completely blew my mind that we have come that far.

Anyhow, my next flight lasted around 8 hours and arrived into Washington Dulles airport at 10:50am local time, Saturday. I didn’t do much on this particular flight; just more sleeping, reading, listening to music, and then occasionally chatting to the passenger next to me. I always find it interesting when someone as shy as me actually is the instigator of striking up a conversation with a stranger. I also took some photos from the plane, since I had a window seat, and I kept seeing this amazing rainbow effect in the clouds that I wanted to capture. On the ground, as we were flying over New York State, I noted a lot of muddy looking water and wondered if it was still some of the after effects of Hurricane Irene.

Dulles airport was kind of eerily quiet for the airport that is the international hub for the capital of the country. I started to wonder if the date, September 10th, only one day prior to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US, had anything to do with it. On the other hand, at least it made it a pretty quick process to get through immigration and collect my checked bag, to the extent that I got to catch the Metro bus an hour earlier than I thought I was going to have to. I was very thankful that my friend Katie, who I was also planning to meet on this trip, had helped find out the information I needed in order to use that bus. It was only $6 and dropped me right in the middle of Washington, near the L’Enfant Metro station. I’d intended to take the Metro a couple of stops from there to the stop closest to where I was catching a bus to Philadelphia from, but it turned out to be closed! Then I felt a bit lost. Luckily, an African American couple from Virginia were there and also unable to use the Metro, and the lady was kind enough to use her phone to look up the directions for me so I could figure out how to walk the distance I had to go. I really like encountering kind Americans who disprove the theory that all Americans are only out for themselves and “me, me, me, what’s in it for me?” And she was really helpful.

It actually wasn’t that far of a walk for me to go, and given how much spare time I had, I’m glad I wasn’t able to use the Metro. After close to 24 hours on planes, I could definitely use the walking time. I saw a police vehicle parked outside another entrance to the L’Enfant Metro station and I quietly wondered what that was about, and if it could be terrorist related. I guess the 9/11 anniversary was making a lot of people edgy, too, since I noticed there were a lot of police cars around everywhere after that. The walk to the bus was nice, though, as I got to see some Smithsonian buildings, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol. It was nice to get some photos of them without having to go out of my way to do so. By the time I got to my bus, I had about 90 minutes to wait before it was scheduled to leave, so I just did more reading while I waited.

The bus to Philadelphia was a little over two and a half hours long. Conveniently, it included free wifi Internet, which I used on my phone briefly, but I also needed to conserve power on that so I could keep in touch with Dan, the man who was picking me up in Philadelphia.

Dan came third in LJ Idol last season, and is married to another competitor I enjoyed reading, Jess. In the most convenient of circumstances, my bus arrived at pretty much the exact same time Dan did, so he didn’t get in trouble for stopping on the side of the road rather than parking to collect me. I just quickly dumped my bags in the car, and off we went to his place. Jess called while we were en route, and the joys of bluetooth meant she ended up on speaker in the car, so Dan joked about me running off and him having to chase me and so forth. Dan’s humour in his entries in the competition was a big part of what drew me to following them, being excited about reading them, and eventually befriending him. It was awesome to see how that translated to the real world. So Jess ordered some pizza and curly fries, and we picked that up on the way back to their place to have for dinner. I got to meet both of their children, Veronica and Danny, who were absolutely adorable. Veronica seemed completely enamoured by me, sharing some of her toy flowers and just generally showing off and trying to impress me. Danny made excited laugh sounds when dinner came, much in the same way my son Leo has a tendency to do, so it was nice to be reminded of that.

Around the time the kids had to be tucked into bed, I opted to have a much-needed shower after more than 36 hours travelling and thus, without that level of cleanliness. It was fantastic to freshen up like that, and helped keep me going until about 10pm chatting with Jess and Dan. They are just such fun people to talk to and I didn’t want to go to bed, but I got tired. Even if I did wake up a couple of times in the night due to jet lag.

Sunday, September 11th

First thing in the morning, since I’d been unable to sleep well, I was able to have a brief Skype call with Jeremy and the boys, who had gone to Australia for the first week of my trip away. This was a great way to pass some time before the rest of the household got up.

Today was our scheduled day for our Philadelphia LJ Idol meet up, where we had plans to meet Denise, the winner of season 7, and Alyce, a former Idol competitor I met during season 6 but hadn’t competed in season 7, plus Alyce’s husband and son, who was born the week she was voted out in season 6! Jess and Dan didn’t want to worry too much about their kids during the day since we had a lot of plans, so our first stop that morning was to drop them off with Jess’ father and his wife, who both seemed like lovely people.

As GPSes are inclined to do, it confused us trying to get in to Philadelphia, but since they needed petrol, we stopped for that and Jess texted both Alyce and Denise to see how they were doing and to let them know we would be a little late. Well, as seems to be the case with Idol related activities where Denise is concerned, she had gotten into a bit of trouble. Missing her train by 2 minutes, she decided to drive into Philly instead, and ended up with a flat tire, and having to wait for several hours. It wasn’t until we were on our way to lunch around 2pm that we heard about her finally getting on the road again, but the situation being so dire that she decided it would be best for her to go home rather than catching us in the city, and hoping we would be able to meet her at Jess and Dan’s place in the evening instead.

We’d been informed there was meant to be something on in the city for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, yet it didn’t seem very busy at all, and parking was very easy to find. On our way to meeting Alyce and her family, we passed by Ben Franklin’s grave, as well as a lot of steam coming out of the ground, which Dan joked came from underground volcanic activity.

When we got to the street we were meant to find Alyce on, instead of finding her, we saw a group of people dressed entirely in white walk past us. It was rather an odd sight, and I don’t think we were able to figure out why they were dressed like that. After some more communication between Jess and Alyce, I spotted her on the next block over from where we were, and we were united at last! Together we walked down to the Liberty Bell area, stopping for directions, and learning we needed to go to the visitor’s centre for tickets.

Once we got to the visitor’s centre, it turned out we didn’t actually need tickets if all we wanted to see was the Liberty Bell, but while we were there, we picked up tickets for the Philly Phlash trolley, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which I was particularly interested in visiting. Then we walked back across the street to wait in line for about an hour to see the Liberty Bell. Alyce’s son, affectionally nicknamed Kung Fu Panda, or KFP for short, online, loved the red hat I wore and therefore loved trying it on himself, which was simply adorable. But then he became restless, so Alyce had to walk around with him for a while, while the rest of us waited in line.

We had to go through security screening to get to the Liberty Bell, which meant Dan had to wait outside for us, since he’d accidentally brought a pocket knife with him. The Liberty Bell turned out to be smaller than I’d pictured it, but still interesting to look at with its giant crack. We only really stayed long enough to get a few photos, but that’s all we really needed to do.

By the time we left, it was definitely well past time to have lunch, so we headed toward Reading Terminal Market, stopping at K-Mart on the way so that Alyce could pick up some diapers for KFP in case he needed them. The market itself was rather large and we didn’t really have time to look around at everything that was there, but we did find a Philly cheesesteak place that was a necessity to try while I was in town. This place turned out to be where President Obama also had a cheesesteak when he was in town (at some point during his presidency)! There were far too many cheesesteak options to choose from, and so I decided that the best choice for me to order was the original kind. The cashier said I needed to include the incredibly runny cheese whiz, rather than the type of cheese Dan and Jess got on their cheesesteaks. The place was so busy that Alyce and her family had to eat elsewhere, but the rest of us were able to eat there. I enjoyed the cheesesteak, but it was entirely unhealthy, and filled me up incredibly well to the point that I’m sure I ate too much, so it’s certainly not something I’d repeat with any urgency!

By this time, it was already close to 3pm, and the art museum closed at 5pm. We didn’t want to waste the tickets we’d already purchased for that, so we headed out to catch the Philly Phlash trolley all the way there.

Since we only really had a couple of hours to view the museum, which was nowhere near enough time to look at everything, everyone let me decide what to look at first, seeing as I was the visitor. I’m a big fan of modern art, what with Salvador Dali being my favourite artist ever, so that was the wing we visited first. Thankfully, everyone else seemed to enjoy it too. There was a lot of art there in particular by Pablo Picasso, who I also like to note because my dad is a big fan of his work. There were a couple of pieces by Joan Miro, who I usually enjoy. Probably the piece that struck me the most in this section, though, was in room by itself and you had to look through two eye holes to see the actual painting, which made you feel like a Peeping Tom.

We then moved on to the European Art 1850-1900 section, where we saw a lot of paintings by Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, as well as one of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous sunflower paintings. I suppose the piece I looked at most in this section of the museum was Edvard Munch’s Mermaid, as well as some Ancient Egyptian themed household antiques that had me wondering if the makers knew what they hieroglyphs meant, or not.

With still some time to spare, and at Dan’s recommendation, we headed upstairs to the arms and armour section of the museum. I admired the intricate carvings on some of the suits of armour, and paid particularly close attention to the flintlock pistols, since those were the weapon of choice for one of the characters I’ve been writing about.

We had initially decided that we were going to leave immediately after that, but then Dan wanted me to see the Japanese teahouse and other architecture they had in the museum, since I’d been happily snapping away at the beautiful Philadelphia architecture earlier in the day. I always find it fascinating to see things like that inside other buildings. And the way they organised the rooms, it really looked like you’d walked outside to see these buildings.

It was pretty much closing time by the time we left the museum, so we headed out to get some photos together on the steps, and Jess telling Dan and I to fake running up them as is apparently the thing to do from the movie Rocky. Once we reached the bottom of the steps, she also took a couple of photos of us with the statue of Rocky. Then we all took the Philly Phlash back to the Liberty Bell, and I shared some caramel Tim Tams with everyone before we said goodbye to Alyce and her family.

Then we collected Dan and Jess’ children on the way back to their place, and got in touch with Denise to see if it was too late for her to come by and meet the rest of us. It wasn’t, so once we got back to their place, and the kids were settled in bed, Denise arrived and we ate corn chips and salsa for dinner, and Denise brought a Philadelphia icy dessert called water ice to share with us – cherry and peach flavours. It was all rather yummy.

After we’d had enough to eat, we headed outside where Dan lit a fire so we could all sit around it and chat… until it started sprinkling with rain and we had to head back inside. Denise stayed until around 10pm or so, and we all marvelled at the luck that she had at least been able to come and meet me. I was utterly exhausted by this point, but glad to have gotten to meet her. She had a lot of nice things to say about New Mexico, and encouraged me to visit specific locations there, since that’s where she’s from. I’d commented about it being a state I’ve yet to visit on my travels, seeing as I have a lifetime goal to get to all 50 US States. Now that I hit Pennsylvania on this trip, I only have 16 to go.

Monday, September 12th

Veronica had a brief appointment with her parents at her new school in the early morning today, so I met Jess’ mother, who came around to look after Danny while they did that, and got some reading done until they came back.

This was also the day I would be meeting Jeremiah, who had been up in New York City for the weekend, and had decided to come down to Philadelphia to meet me rather than wait until we both got back to the Washington, D.C. area. I suppose I should point out here that Jeremiah was able to take some time off from his editing and art work so that he could spend the next several days with me, just so I could have some company, get to know him better, and have someone to help show me around.

Jeremiah’s bus was running late, which he was thankfully able to communicate with me, so that Jess and I left half an hour later than we had initially planned to go meet him. Dan had wanted to come, too, to meet Jeremiah, but he unfortunately had to work. Leaving Jess and Dan’s place a bit later meant that when we did arrive, Jess was able to find parking not too far away, and walk with me to find Jeremiah, who was already waiting, before we headed back to the car. The car park attendant managed to snap a couple of photos for us, and then Jess drove us to the hotel we were going to be staying in that night so we could drop off our bags and see if we could check in early.

Somewhat surprisingly, we could check in early. Then, rather than go out and find something for lunch, we ended up spending a few hours just getting to know each other better by being able to talk and communicate in a way that the Internet doesn’t really allow until we got too hungry to ignore that feeling. At that point, we headed to the hotel restaurant, which was reasonably priced, for a very late lunch/slightly early dinner. I delighted in the quesadillas and got a hot chocolate with far too much whipped cream on it.

Since we had eaten too much, as tends to be the case when you’re given American portion sizes, we decided to walk it off. We headed out into the streets to just wander towards City Hall, taking numerous photos of the architecture along the way. I really was enamoured with how beautiful a city Philadelphia is. We stayed out until a while after the sun went down, when it was too dark to take more photos, but I really do like taking photos at that time of the day. Jeremiah tended to compliment my photography and how I was able to take such good photos with a simple point and click, but I think it really just says a lot about how good the camera on my phone is. And maybe a little to do with my filmmaker mind that likes to think about framing from time to time.

Once we were tired of walking, we headed back to the hotel so we could get some sleep.

Tuesday, September 13th

The first item on the agenda today was breakfast, which Jeremiah and I enjoyed in the same hotel restaurant we ate the previous day. I was most amused when we both decided to order the exact same item on the menu. Perhaps it was because we’d had previous conversations online about how we tend to dislike the same foods (mushrooms, olives, etc) and so it was funny to see just how similar our tastes actually were.

We didn’t have time to do any exploring around Philadelphia after breakfast, because prior to breakfast, Jeremiah needed to talk to his wife, who has been working overseas for the past few months, on the phone. When we checked out of the hotel after breakfast, we headed down to Arch Street, where we would be catching our bus to Washington, D.C. from. This was in the Chinatown district, and having been through there briefly before, and still having a little time on our hands, I decided I wanted to snap a few pictures of dragon statues I hadn’t been able to capture previously. Then I found a bizarre Barbie doll display in the window of a building, and I had to capture that, too.

Our bus, which was scheduled to depart at 11am, arrived a bit late, but that was fine because we didn’t have any specific plans waiting for us when we arrived in Washington. We just had a pretty easygoing day, talking a lot and enjoying each other’s company. I’m not someone who finds it easy to connect with people and build strong friendships with them, so it was pretty amazing how easily Jeremiah and I fell into that kind of friendship.

The bus was about two and a half hours, and we spent some of the trip with Jeremiah going over the notes I made on one of his stories I’d printed to read on my journey. It was really nice to be able to give him back the kind of feedback he had been giving me on the novel I’m working on, and he seemed to really appreciate that, too. There was also one stop, just at a truck stop, on the way to Washington, where people could get food, I guess for the lunch break. I didn’t bother getting off the bus, but Jeremiah did, to feed his coffee addiction.

When we arrived in Washington, since it was well past lunch time, we popped into Nando’s for a meal. I was kind of stunned the chain even existed in the US, and regaled Jeremiah with my stories of my experiences with the restaurant – namely, when I used it to go into labour with my first born, but it didn’t work the second time around.

After our lunch, we caught the metro into Alexandria, Virginia to the station where Jeremiah had left his car for the weekend, and he drove me to the hotel I’d be staying in for the remainder of my time in the US so that I could check in. We stayed around there to just talk more until he had to go home, feed his cats, and assure them that he hadn’t deserted them just because he’d been away for three and a half days.

Jeremiah popped back after that so we could go out for dinner together. I was staying in the lovely, historical “old town” part of Alexandria, so we walked down to King Street, which seemed to be the main shopping and restaurant strip in the area, and stopped in at a nice Italian restaurant to eat. Since American portion sizes are so ridiculously huge, I was unable to finish my whole plate of delicious ravioli. Indeed, I was so full after that that I suggested we walk it off once we left. So Jeremiah took me down King Street to the dock that overlooked the river there, and it was just beautiful to see in the evening. We sat down on a bench, talking and joking about things for a while, before he walked me back to the hotel.

It was really late by the time I got back to my room, but it had also been a few days since I’d been able to Skype with my family in Australia, so after a bit, I managed to Skype with Jeremy. Doyle, unfortunately, would have none of that, breaking my heart when he told me he thought my being away meant that I didn’t love him any more. At least Leo was more considerate and loved seeing me.

Wednesday, September 14th

I’m such a sucker for the continental breakfast you find at some of the American hotel chains, and I was glad to see this one had my favourite bagel and cream cheese offering, which ended up being my breakfast every day that I ate it whilst I stayed in Alexandria.

Talking to his wife while she’s overseas is a daily ritual for Jeremiah, so I didn’t see him today until he met me at the hotel around lunch time because of that. So I spent much of the morning catching up on a few things online.

There was a burrito/Mexican restaurant on pretty much the opposite corner of the street from where I was staying, so we walked over there for our lunch. I’m a big fan of Mexican food. I ordered one of their burritos, and it was the biggest burrito I had ever seen – as fat as my fist and maybe 2/3rds the length of my lower arm. I grew up with the mindset that I should try and eat everything on my plate, so I tried very hard to do that here… until Jeremiah’s insistence that I didn’t need to eat it all finally got through to me.

Jeremiah then had to run out to the DMV to renew his car’s licence, and I opted to join him and keep him company, which made the half hour wait go so much quicker. Then, since I’d been keen to see a movie while I was there, and it wasn’t too far from the DMV, we headed over there next to see when the movie I wanted to see was playing. It was nearly 3pm by this time, and Crazy Stupid Love started at 4pm, so I decided to go ahead and get tickets. Since we had an hour to spare, though, we walked to a nearby ice cream place, where I ordered a milkshake that was flavoured something like “cake batter,” which surprisingly tasted like cake batter. It was delicious, but far too rich for me to finish.

I really enjoyed the movie, for the most part. The ending with the way the main kid’s storyline was resolved bothered me, but the use of subtle humour throughout was generally done incredibly well. It may have helped that I’m a big fan of Ryan Gosling.

After the movie, Jeremiah dropped me back at the hotel so he could go feed his cats again before dinner. I used that time to Skype with Jeremy and Doyle. Thankfully Doyle was in a much better mood this time, and was very happy to talk to me. I guess he realised I did still love him. I was also most amused when I asked Leo if he missed me, and he shook his head, and then when I asked if he liked seeing me on the computer, he nodded.

Since I’d decided I wasn’t really in a good mood to go out for dinner, Jeremiah just picked up some Chinese food to bring back to the hotel for me. I told him about how what I asked him to pick up for me was the same thing I ate when Jeremy and I first met. Yes, I remember things like that. But it probably helps that it was the thing I most regularly ate at my university refectory.

Thursday, September 15th

Most days pretty much started out the same way as Wednesday, so it’s not really worth repeating that every day. Instead, I’ll move straight on to when Jeremiah comes around after talking to his wife.

Today we didn’t really do too much, again, but Jeremiah wanted to take me down to Falls Church for lunch at a burger place he’s quite fond of. It was a pretty neat restaurant because it’s pretty much a build your own burger, and choose your own ingredients in a milkshake. The milkshake I had was a chocolate base and cherry extra, because I thought it would be fun to make it like a black forest cake. And boy was it delicious!

Then we popped over to a comic book shop Jeremiah wanted to go to, to see if they had some comics he wanted. Unfortunately their shipment had arrived damaged, so most of the books he wanted weren’t there. For my part, I picked up a Christmas present for Doyle, as well as a Doctor Who comic book for Jeremy, and a Sonic the Hedgehog comic book for Doyle.

Once we got back to Alexandria, we spent some time with Jeremiah showing me some of his art in a sketch book, which was something I was particularly interested in doing while I was there, since I’m a big fan of his art – especially when it’s of his characters I enjoy reading about in his writing.

Again I Skyped with Jeremy and my boys while Jeremiah went home to feed his cats, and later he returned so we could walk to the Whole Foods grocery store to get something for dinner. On our way there, we walked down King Street again so that he could point out a shop to me that I wanted to see. Now, this probably seems like an odd thing to want to do, but this particular shop, called “An American in Paris,” featured in one of my favourite entries Jeremiah had written for the LJ Idol competition. The humour in that particular entry had really stood out for me, and, I guess, was one of the reasons I wanted to get to know Jeremiah better through the competition.

Then we picked up some salad from Whole Foods, and took it back to my hotel. We ate our dinner there whilst watching an episode of Doctor Who I needed to see in order to catch up enough before we could watch more Doctor Who with his friends on Saturday.

Friday, September 16th

Today was the day another friend of mine, Katie – who I initially met online through a Harry Potter community in 2009, but had also competed in LJ Idol due to my encouragement – was able to take a day off work to spend some time with me. So that gave Jeremiah a break from me for most of the day.

Katie collected me from my hotel and drove us up to Crystal City, where we caught the metro into Washington. I’d picked up a few flyers from the lobby in my hotel prior to this, and one of them was for the Spy Museum, so I asked Katie if she was cool with going there with me, which she was. We got there around 11am, not really expecting it to take too long to get through, and ended up staying until around 3pm – and that was with us not even seeing most of the bottom floor!

I really enjoyed the museum, though, as it starts out with a kind of role play where you can pretend you’re a spy being briefed on a mission, because they tell you to memorise a bunch of things about one of the identities they provide you with, and then you get tested on it in the next room. For the record, I remembered everything about my false identity, which I thought was excellent. There was a point in my childhood where I had wanted to be a spy and so it just gave me a moment to feel like I could have been had I actually pursued that. So that was part of the first section of the museum, along with other activities and artefacts that real spies had used in the 20th century. The next section upstairs took you through the history of spies from basically ancient times, though more from the 15th century onwards, and there was a lot of information about how spying occurred during the time that America fought for its independence, and how cryptography and so forth was used during World War II.

Since we were getting really hungry by the time we got to the bottom floor (the museum starts at the top floor), we skipped most of it, but for the last section on the present, which could’ve been interpreted as a fear campaign targeting Internet hackers, suggesting that’s where they need to fight now, since one small move by someone could take out a lot of public infrastructure for months. There were statistics on how many roads and so forth in America really need to be fixed up, and it makes me sad that America is spending money on other things rather than those necessities.

We popped by the museum shop on the way out and, whilst I hadn’t intended to buy anything, I ended up trying on a hat in a style that I’ve been wanting to buy for a long time, and finally found one that suited me! It also came with a bonus t-shirt, so I ended up buying that.

Then we finally went somewhere for lunch. A family chain restaurant across the street called Gordon Biersch. I ordered their cajun pasta, which was absolutely delicious. I can’t recommend it enough.

From there, we decided to just wander toward the National Mall, down the same street I had walked when I caught the bus the previous weekend. This meant I had the opportunity to stop in and see the sculpture garden I had walked past that day and wanted to see, without worrying about my bags this time. I really liked the art they had in there, and in particular, the metal tree and the crouching rabbit.

After that we walked through the National Mall toward the Washington Monument, without any specific plans in mind. I started exchanging texts with Jeremiah to find out where and when we’d be meeting up afterwards, and he offered to collect me from Crystal City after he fed his cats, and we’d aim to be there at 7pm. So, once Katie and I knew what that plan was and how much time we had left, I suggested we walk all the way up to the Lincoln Memorial. My memory of the layout of this part of Washington, despite the fact I had not been there since 1998 when I was fourteen, started rushing back to me, and I knew the directions. Everything was as clear as my mind as if I was still there, then. That’s when I started thinking about how much I needed to be there for the memory of having visited with my mum, and how lucky I was to have that memory. I took a number of photos throughout the walk, which felt right.

As we passed the Washington Monument, there were a few differences from my memory. For example, the WWII Memorial did not exist in 1998. The large body of water in front of the Lincoln Memorial was also under restoration, and looked horrible. But the Korean War Memorial I remembered vividly, just as I had the Lincoln Memorial. And it was just so important for me to be back there. Interestingly, when Katie and I were leaving the Lincoln Memorial, I noticed there was a small museum beneath it, which I did not remember from a past trip and hadn’t even known existed. I didn’t have a lot of time to look around there, but it was cool to see and learn a bit about Lincoln’s involvement in the Civil War. I may have heard of him as being one of the most famous presidents in American history, but seeing as I never actually studied American history, I didn’t know why. So I enjoyed learning about that.

Then it was time for us to head back to the metro so we could get it back to Crystal City and meet Jeremiah. Due to my late lunch, I hadn’t needed to worry about dinner, but it was good to be able to have somewhere to talk with Jeremiah for a few hours about how the day had affected me, and that I had someone I could talk to about my Mum. The day had led to me recalling enough memories that I asked if it would be okay if we went to the Air and Space Museum sometime before I went home, since I remembered that that had been the museum Mum had been most excited about for her own personal interest when we visited Washington in 1995.

I was also able to Skype with Jeremy and the boys again while Jeremiah went out to get dinner for himself.

Saturday, September 17th

Whenever I’m in the general Washington/Virginia area, I like to be able to catch up with my Mum’s cousin Judy, who lives in Fredericksberg. I’d informed her I was going to be in the area well in advance, and since she lives only about 45 minutes away from where I was staying, she was able to come up and see me. We had organised to meet for brunch today because that was the day and time that suited her best, and Jeremiah recommended a place called Carlyle in Shirlington, which was even a bit closer to Judy than where I was staying in Alexandria. Jeremiah collected me a bit earlier than normal this time, due to the time we were meeting Judy, and this meant he had to talk to his wife on the phone rather than Skype with her. Their call started before Judy arrived, so I waited inside for her while he used his phone.

When Judy arrived, Jeremiah told us to go ahead and get a table while he finished up his phone call. I didn’t mind waiting for him because it was nice to have the opportunity to catch up with Judy on my own. Although I was somewhat amused when Judy asked me whether my husband was actually okay with me spending so much time alone with another man. I supposed that some men could be jealous about things like that, but Jeremy and I are secure in our marriage and tend not to worry about such things. Besides… Jeremy had met Jeremiah only a couple of weeks earlier when he had been in the area. Jeremiah had picked him up in from his hotel in Baltimore, took him to lunch, shopping, and then dropped him off at Dulles airport all in the same day. Anyway, I mention this in case anyone else might be wondering the same thing.

When Jeremiah finally joined us, he apologised for taking so long, but I honestly didn’t mind. We ordered our brunch and I was again amused by the fact that Jeremiah and I wanted to order the exact same thing again. There just must be something about our taste in breakfast type foods. So we had the french toast with eggs, bacon and potatoes, and it was absolutely delicious. Yet, unfortunately too much for me to finish again!

After saying goodbye to Judy and our all too brief time with her, Jeremiah and I headed back to Alexandria’s old town and walked around, taking photos of the beautiful buildings for a while, with our goal destination being Gadsby’s Tavern, a place significant in history since George Washington occasionally frequented it. It was really interesting to see what taverns were like in the late 18th century, and I learned a lot like how the inn part of the tavern was actually a dorm like situation with several men staying in the same room, rather than having private rooms. And did you know they had toothbrushes back then? It was fascinating, and for only $5 entry, I really enjoyed our tour.

Following on from that, we wandered around more of old town, taking photos, and after stopping at the visitor’s centre to see what else we could do, we headed back down to the dock area to find the archaeology museum. On our way there we stopped to watch a man play Ode to Joy on a series of glasses filled with water, which was just so incredible to watch that I had to film some of it and Jeremiah left some money for him. Then we popped in to a souvenir shop and I picked up a pirate themed spyglass and compass, which I thought were apt for the pirate character I’ve been working on, and would be walking around Washington as on Monday.

The archaeology museum was in an old torpedo factory, which also housed hundreds of artworks in various small stalls. I was able to briefly admire the art on our way to the small but still interesting museum. It was a good thing it was small, though, because we didn’t have a lot of time to go through it before we had to go on to our next thing.

We walked back to my hotel, where Jeremiah’s car was parked, stopping in at a couple of other shops along the way. Then Jeremiah drove me to a coffee shop called Panera, where I drank a chai latte and started reading a novel Jeremiah had previously written with one of my favourite characters he often wrote about for the LJ Idol competition. This was so I’d have something interesting to do while he fed his cats, before we were scheduled to have dinner and watch Doctor Who with his friends.

After Jeremiah collected me from Panera, we immediately left for his friends’ place, having already collected the pizza he was bringing for our dinner. I really enjoyed meeting Steve and Meredith and thought they seemed like cool, fun people. Plus, they were very clearly geeks, and that’s pretty much never a bad thing as far as I’m concerned. After our pizza, I shared the black forest Tim Tams I brought on the trip, and Steve and Meredith introduced us to the hilarity of Ask a Ninja. Then we ate some cake Meredith had baked, before settling in to watch Doctor Who. I… made a bit of an embarrassment of myself when Jeremiah fell off his folding chair when he went to sit down. How? Well, after realising he was perfectly okay, and had somehow magically caught the tea that was in his hand so it didn’t go everywhere, I started laughing at him so hard that I couldn’t stop. Schadenfreude.

The episodes of Doctor Who that we watched were both the episode that aired the previous week, and the episode that aired that night. I was utterly exhausted by the end, though, and started to fall asleep on the couch. So, although I enjoyed the company, Jeremiah took me back to the hotel pretty soon after we finished watching Doctor Who.

Sunday, September 18th

Still utterly exhausted, I spent a good portion of the morning napping. But that’s okay. I was also still incredibly full from the previous day that I didn’t even bother to have breakfast. Nor did we bother with lunch since we knew we’d be eating at our next meet up with other folks from the LJ Idol competition.

When Jeremiah collected me, we headed out to the Whole Foods Market to pick up some food for the “cook out” which I was essentially expecting to be the same as an Aussie BBQ. I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce my friends to Australian sausage rolls, so we got as many of the ingredients as I needed for that as I could find. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any plain puff pastry – just chocolate flavoured. So I got filo pastry instead, hoping that would be a decent substitute.

We then drove to Crystal’s house, who was a fellow season 7 competitor, and got to meet her husband, also named Dom, as well as a few kids who happened to be there (they weren’t all related). As I started to make the sausage rolls, I opened the filo pastry box and realised that it really, really wasn’t right. Luckily by that point, Dom had headed out to the grocery store himself and Crystal called him to ask him to pick me up some puff pastry while he was there.

The only other Idol person who joined us was Brian, who was actually the guy who introduced Jeremiah to the game. Brian had participated in a couple of seasons prior to the one I joined, took season 6 off, and then I met him through season 7. Katie had also been intending on joining us, but she ended up deciding to stay home to recover from a cold.

Some of the highlights from the afternoon involved meeting Dom and Crystal’s gorgeous but giant dogs, hearing about Crystal’s experiences at the recent Dragon*Con convention in Atlanta, Dom’s hilarious storytelling, and sharing yet more Tim Tams. The sausage rolls, once I’d been able to make them with the puff pastry, ended up being a huge hit, which I was quite excited about. Jeremiah watched me make them well enough that I suspect he’ll attempt them himself sometime. They are pretty easy to make.

Jeremiah had had to duck home to feed his cats again in the middle, but I stuck around, and it was after he got back that we finally had the barbecued meat; also delicious. But I may have pigged out far too much on the snack food earlier in the day because I was definitely stuffed by the end!

We ended up having so much fun with just the general conversations that it wasn’t until about 10:30pm that we left and Jeremiah took me back to the hotel. I was again so exhausted that I passed out almost immediately.

Monday, September 19th

Since Jeremy and Jeremiah had already met, and Jeremiah often tells me about how awesome his wife is, I had wanted to be able to meet her, too. So this morning we Skyped with her together when he dropped in to my hotel. It may not have been the best of circumstances given that I was dressed like a pirate, but it still went well.

Now, I’ve previously alluded to the pirate character stuff, so I suppose this would be the time to explain that a bit further. My pirate, Jaclyn, started out as a character I wrote in a stand alone short film screenplay I wrote a) as an entry for one topic in LJ Idol and b) as something I hoped I could film with one of my friends in Hawaii who I had shot the music video with last year. The screenplay ended up being so popular with readers that I had several people ask for more, so I wrote another screenplay in a future week, at which point along with the requests for more, Jeremiah had said he wanted to know about her back story. In future weeks still, I wrote two more pieces in the actual competition, switching from screenplay format to prose, and from the present (the screenplays were set in 2011) to Jaclyn’s past… in the 17th century. It was the first screenplay that had revealed she had travelled through a crack in time. After I was voted out of the competition, I continued to write about Jaclyn with every week that remained until the competition ended. So by that point I knew quite a lot about her as a character, and also started finishing off an actual outfit with clothes and accessories I was able to buy in Malaysia.

As I mentioned in my introduction to this entry, I’ve been developing these pieces further, with Jeremiah’s help. So it just made sense to me to become Jaclyn for a day and see Washington, and the Air and Space Museum in particular (since air and space travel would be science-fiction to her, in the 17th century) to get into her mind and help me as extra research for the novel I’m writing about her.

The extra bonus about doing this on this particular day was that it turned out to be International Talk Like a Pirate Day and, though Jaclyn doesn’t actually sound like we perceive pirates to sound, I figured it was the best day to get away with it.

I guess one of the things that excited me most about the day was that I had somehow also wrapped Jeremiah up in the fun so much so that he decided to roleplay as Max, the main character from his aforementioned novel. I’m not entirely sure how I managed to get him to do something so weird and bizarre along with me when he kept telling me it’s not the kind of thing he would ever do normally.

So, after meeting Jeremiah’s wife on Skype, we walked to the nearest metro station, which was only a few blocks away from where I was staying, and caught the train into Washington. Jeremiah and I were both keen to have him document the experience with both photographs and video, so he started taking photos of me whilst on the metro.

We got off the metro at L’Enfant, which was the closest stop to the Air and Space museum, but it was lunch time, so we first walked several blocks, snapping pictures of Jaclyn holding a traffic light post, as well as in front of the Capitol and the Washington Monument en route to finding somewhere to eat. The first block that had restaurants on it happened to have a “Sports Tavern” and, since Jaclyn would’ve been familiar with the word “tavern,” I figured it was the perfect place for us to eat. So we headed in to the upstairs part, ordered our meal, and snapped a few more pictures. I took advantage of the fact I could access free wifi there and posted a picture on Facebook.

After our meal, we walked to a navy monument where Jeremiah wanted to get some photos of Jaclyn and took advantage of the spyglass and compass I had bought a couple of days earlier. Then we headed back down to the Air and Space Museum and saw a long line of people in wheelchairs protesting benefits cuts Medicaid and Medicare along the way. I remained in character for much of this time, only breaking out of character if there was something I wanted to say as an observation of what was happening.

When entering the museum, you have to go through security, which was fine, though it did end with a security guard asking us about what we were doing, considering the way I was dressed. If I remember correctly, he thought it was for some acting thing, but I let him know it was “novel research.” I liked how friendly he was about it. I jumped back into character after that, and Jeremiah captured a number of photos of me looking around at all of the models in the main entrance room full of complete awe.

After leaving there, we headed into a section about the history of flight, and Jaclyn was particularly intrigued by a model of a ship that had a balloon above it. Then we headed in to the area that focused on an aircraft carrier navy ship, which allowed Jaclyn to see both planes and how ships had progressed since her time. Following that, we had a look at the cockpit of a plane, and then it was back downstairs to see some space stuff.

When I had first mentioned to Jeremiah about wanting to go to the museum because it would remind me of my time there with Mum, it was the space section that I had most vividly remembered the displays of and, in particular, where the moon rock was in relation to that. Well, as I’m sure you can imagine, the displays had changed a lot in the last 16 years, so it didn’t have the same effect on me that walking to the Lincoln Memorial on Friday did. It was either that or me being so immersed in the character that Jaclyn didn’t have time to let me think about my mother.

Still, we got a number of good photos, and some video footage, of Jaclyn being more in awe of what she saw. I was amused when Jaclyn asked Max if the astronaut space suits were like knights’ armour.

Before we headed back to the metro and thus Alexandria, we stopped for ice cream, which was being sold just outside the museum.

Check out select photos of me as Jaclyn in Washington, D.C. on Facebook.

We got back to the hotel so I could get changed, and then Jeremiah took us to feed his cats (though I stayed in the car), and then to a different metro station so we could get back in to Washington where we were scheduled to go on a ghost walking tour.

We were the last people to show up for the tour, but thankfully we were only about two minutes late. We met right by Lafayette Park, which is the park right in front of the White House, and the tour essentially took us right around the park. Our guide was brilliant; I can’t praise her enough. I really enjoyed her storytelling at each location, and the way she explained that each of the stories had been heavily researched. There was a story about a woman ghost on a rocking chair at our first stop (where the tour started).

Our second stop was by St John’s Church, also known as “The Church of the Presidents” because every president for hundreds of years has attended there at least once during their tenure as president. This was one of the best stories we were told because apparently there have been countless witnesses corroborating that whenever a former (or current) president dies, the church’s bells ring, and four cloaked figures enter the church out of respect, then disappear.

After hearing that story, our guide told us about the building across the street, the now Hay-Adams Hotel, which used to be the site of two buildings, belonging to John Hay and Henry Adams. We were told about how the sixth floor is haunted by Adams’ wife, affectionately nicknamed “Clover,” who apparently committed suicide there in 1885. Yet, she also told us that there had been speculation at the time that Clover had been murdered by Henry due to his suspicious behaviour after she died. Such as that he did not want her grave to have any kind of marker, and he only gave in and got one for her due to public pressure. When he did, though, he had a sculpture commissioned and then disappeared overseas for a year. When he returned, the statue was erected, but Henry still refused to have it marked with her name. Our guide made a point of letting us know that the statue remained in the cemetery today, in the event that we wanted to go see how creepy it looked for ourselves. This was another favourite story of mine.

The next few stories, I don’t really remember the names of all the historical persons involved, but they were still interesting to hear about. Such as the man who was famous for his role in the war of 1812 who superseded a general who had made the wrong choice when he encountered the British, and died when the two of them duelled. Apparently his ghost haunted the room where he died so much that passers by complained. The window was bricked up, and still his image could be seen in the brick. The only solution was to have the shutters forever closed.

Then there was a story about a woman who had a revenge affair, and her husband killed her lover. Their love story was really rather sweet. And a story about a man who was with President Lincoln when he was assassinated. Around this location, Jeremiah started having problems with his camera, and later found out that another person on the tour had the same thing happen, and it seemed to be concluded that the camera had been affected by some sort of spookiness.

Our next stop on the tour was the White House, and there were a lot of stories told about White House hauntings. My favourite was when a British Prime Minister was staying there and met the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. I won’t recount all of these stories, but they were truly all fun to hear about.

Our final stop and story was another one that related to Lincoln’s assassination. Again, not having learned much about American History in my life, I really enjoyed learning more about the Civil War and Lincoln’s involvement.

Since we hadn’t had time for dinner before the tour, we were really hungry and wanted somewhere to eat, but late as it was, we had no idea where would be open. Our guide suggested the Capital Brewery, which was only a few blocks away, so that’s where we headed. I splurged on unhealthy American food by ordering mini corn dogs and onion rings. The food was good, but the service wasn’t.

By this time it was very late, so we went back to Alexandria on the metro, and Jeremiah dropped me back at the hotel so I could get some sleep.

Tuesday, September 20th

Since we had packed so much into the previous day, Jeremiah and I decided to take it easy today. We didn’t get moving until lunch time because it was raining a bit before then. When the rain let up, we just walked around old town for a while until I found an Asian place I decided I’d like to eat at. What I liked about this place was that it had a huge range of Asian food choices. Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese… even Malaysian! So I ordered curry puffs to share with Jeremiah, and a bento box with sushi and teriyaki chicken and rice.

After lunch, Jeremiah took me on a walk to see some of his favourite places, like a comic book shop, where he knows the guy who runs it – I bought a book and since I was a friend of Jeremiah’s and opted to pay cash, he gave me a nice discount! There were also a couple of stops that jeremiah figures most people miss. Like the 150 year old bridge that is still in use by cars, but not so obvious as a bridge. There were a few signs posted up near there that explain some of the archaeology and history of the area, so that was cool.

Then we crossed the street and walked around the old cemetery for a bit, before sitting down on a bench inside the grounds and talked. Since I’d opened up to him about my Mum a few days previously, Jeremiah told me a lot about his past, and I mostly listened, only really saying things when I wanted him to know what I could relate to. It was a really good conversation.

From there we headed on to a coffee shop that Jeremiah likes to frequent so he could show me more of his artwork. I got another chai latte, just savouring the fact that I could! The coffee shop was pretty full so we sat at a communal table. At one point, Jeremiah told me he had been admiring this ring another woman at the table had been wearing, and wanted to tell her as much before she got up to leave, so he did. What started out as a simple compliment ended up being an incredibly long conversation with the woman, who turned out to be a screenwriter/director who lives in California, and had recently been offered a deal to write a screenplay for Hollywood. With every detail she mentioned about her work, the more I wanted to know about her, because it just felt like we were interested in a lot of the same things. I guess it was one of those bizarre serendipitous moments that happen in my life sometimes. I ended up getting her email address because I figured she might be able to offer me some good advice about my own interest in screenwriting. We probably would’ve ended up talking a lot longer if it weren’t for the fact I wanted to get back to the hotel so I could Skype with Jeremy and my kids, since it would be my last chance to do that before heading home.

After Skyping, and Doyle’s refusal to actually talk to me, I settled in to watch the season 3 premiere of Glee. Then Jeremiah returned from feeding his cats to bring me some salad from Whole Foods for dinner.

Wednesday, September 21st

For my last day in America on this trip, Jeremiah and I packed in a lot. Our first item on the agenda was walking from the hotel to the Lyceum, a small museum with local history. The pieces that interested me most were basically how early things like telephones and transport were in use in Alexandria. Then I popped into their shop and found a book about a guy from Alexandria who Long John Silver from Treasure Island may have been based off of. Since I’m working on a story about a pirate, I thought this could be a really interesting read.

We walked back to Jeremiah’s car after that and headed over to a place called Busboys and Poets, which Jeremiah had been raving about wanting to take me to, so I kind of insisted that he actually do that. Busboys and Poets is a restaurant/coffee shop. So that’s where we had our lunch, with me ordering quesadillas again. They were yummy. We stayed there long enough to finish going through Jeremiah’s art books, which I really enjoyed. He has very varied and enjoyable techniques, and I particularly like the way he captures emotion on the faces of his characters.

The major destination we wanted to visit today was next. I’d previously asked Jeremiah if he was interested in actually seeing the creepy statue at Clover Adams’ grave, which we had heard about on the ghost tour. He said yes, so I researched where the cemetery was, and we headed out there, to Rock Creek Cemetery. When we arrived, there wasn’t really any easy way to find the section we were looking for, so we just drove slowly through the roads, stopping occasionally to take photos of angel statues that reminded us of the weeping angels from Doctor Who. Then we found section E, which we knew is where Clover’s statue could be found. Jeremiah stopped his car and we both walked off in separate directions to take photos and look for the statue. The sounds of insects and walking around seemingly alone gave me such an eery feeling. Then Jeremiah and I found each other again, and he directed me over to some hedges, where he said he thought we’d find the statue. He remained on his side taking photos, while I walked around to find the entrance.

As I walked in through the gap and turned to look at the statue, I stopped dead in my tracks and had to turn away. Jeremiah started laughing at me for the way I reacted, until he walked in through a second gap in the hedges, saw the statue, and yelped while backing out again. Eventually we both got enough strength to walk inside and get a closer look at the statues, and photos, but words can’t even really express how we felt inside that closed off section of the cemetery. I couldn’t look at the statue for very long periods. And when I walked around it, it looked like the eyes were watching me. Eventually I got to a point when I decided I wanted to film the experience, so I did, but I couldn’t even look the whole time I was filming.

After leaving the hedges, I took a few more photos, but then hurried back to the car while Jeremiah took more pictures because I couldn’t stand being around there much longer, I was just too creeped out.

By this point, we had about two hours before I wanted to be at Dulles airport to check in, and Jeremiah wasn’t sure what the traffic was going to be like on the way. He did opt to avoid the interstate, though, which took us instead on a nice scenic drive along the river. With a bit of extra time to spare, and noticing a sort of park along this route, we stopped in there for a while just to talk, figuring it would be a better place to chat than the arriving at the airport early. When we popped in there, we were the only car there, but then soon other cars followed, looking more and more suspicious. So we remained in the car while we talked… until one such car creeped us out too much by looking like it wanted to drive into us. We thought perhaps us being there was interrupting a drug deal or something. Who knows? All I know is that the car that tried to run into us left immediately before we did, and we had started to fret for our lives. Or at least I did. We headed straight for Dulles after that.

I was able to check in at the airport as soon as I got there, but given I have a tendency to check in three hours before my scheduled departure, I still had a lot of time to kill. Jeremiah and I found some chairs to sit on to chat for a while, then found a place for a light dinner. Then it was time for us to part so I could go through security, so we said our goodbyes, and I went through.

By the time I got to my gate, there wasn’t much time for me to kill before boarding, so I basically just listened to music. I started drifting off to sleep pretty quickly on the plane, so much so that I slightly missed the first meal, and had to ask a flight attendant to bring me one. I don’t like missing out on airplane food if it was covered in the cost of the flight. After I finished that, I went back to sleep, and slept for a good portion of the remainder of the flight.

Thursday, September 22nd

Initially I was excited about having a 12 hour stopover in London because it would mean that I’d get to meet up with a couple of other friends at the end of my trip. It turned out to be needed also in terms of it being great to get out of the cramped plane and stretch my legs.

Getting through immigration and customs was pretty easy, especially since I didn’t need to worry about my checked bag. And having been to London several times before, I was glad to be familiar with the Underground already, so I headed straight there and caught it to Covent Garden, where I was due to meet Sally and Meg. I already wrote about Sally in my introduction, so I’ll just explain who Meg is. I originally met Meg also through the same aforementioned Harry Potter community, but after she had watched me and another friend participate in LJ Idol during 6, she decided to compete in season 7, and ended up being voted out just after I was. Sally came second place in season 7, and 6th in season 6.

I got to Covent Garden about an hour before our arranged time, so I just wandered around the area taking photos and looking at the markets. I found Drury Lane, so I took a photo of that and posted it to Facebook and made a joke about looking for the Muffin Man. I looked for various places we could have lunch, and eventually settled on a cheap Mexican place to suggest. Then I headed back to the Marks & Spencer to wait. Both Sally and Meg found me at pretty much the exact same time, which was brilliant. I had them follow me into the M&S so I could change $20 and pay for my food, and then we headed to the Mexican restaurant.

We probably spent at least two hours there, even though we finished our meal well before that. We were all just really wrapped up in our conversations… despite the fact my ear was terrible and I couldn’t hear properly because it didn’t want to pop from the plane. This tends to only happen to me when I have a cold, and I had developed a cold. I was in a lot of pain as the plane was landing/the last 20-30 mins of the flight.

Figuring we had probably stayed well longer than the restaurant might have liked, we headed on to a coffee shop I had also found while I had been wandering, and I ordered yet another chai latte. We spent another couple of hours chatting and asked a random stranger to take our photo until I decided I should probably get back on the Underground and back to the airport.

Though my ear was still bothering me at the airport, by the time the plane took me into the air, the problem was fixed. Brilliant! And I slept for most of the 14 hour flight back to KL.

Immigration at KLIA was an absolute joke. I first queued up in the foreign passport line, until Jeremy said I should take the first class queue since I was an expat and the foreign passport line was so slow moving. Well, the first class queue was just as bad, so I ended up just saying screw it and went to the Malaysian passport queue. They accepted me due to my expat visa, and the best part was… there wasn’t actually a queue. I went straight through!

And that’s pretty much my trip in as much detail as I can manage. I met some pretty damn amazing people, some of which do plan to compete in the next season of LJ Idol. I mention this because, though I won’t be competing myself due to it being a very big time commitment and I want to focus on other writing endeavours right now, season 8 will be starting sometime this month.

It’s been a while since I’ve been anywhere to write a travel post for! Most of our first two days on this trip were spent travelling. We arrived to KL’s LCCT early in the morning for a flight scheduled at just after 7am, but ended up departing two hours later, after we had to swap planes due to our first plane needing some engineering work. This essentially meant we didn’t really have time to do much once we arrived in Quezon City, especially since the bus from Clark takes a couple hours to get there. Our friend Reileen met us at the bus stop, and took us to our hotel. She had also made us adobo and leche flan, two Filipino dishes, which we ate at the hotel, so we didn’t need to go out except for buying stuff for breakfast the next morning.

As I mentioned, the 11th was also a full day of travel. We headed over to Manila airport to catch a Cebu Pacific flight over to Cebu, and my first experience with that airline had me never wanting to travel with them again. We happened to get into a queue that had us waiting an hour, and almost missing our flight. They didn’t care to tell us how long this one group in front of us were going to take (they were the primary reason our line was so slow), and they didn’t care that Leo was screaming for about half an hour. In the end, it was other passengers choosing to let us in front of them that allowed us to eventually check in because the airline staff were appalling.

Anyhow, that meant we arrived in Cebu a little late, but that was okay since at least I’d insisted we not pre-book our ferry. The first ferry we tried was full, though, so we had to go to a different pier and wait an extra hour for the next one. We then ferried over to Tagbilaran, Bohol, which was about two hours, and the people at Bohol Bee Farm, where we were staying, picked us up at 7:30pm. So, another day gone to travel, and all we had time for when we arrived was to have dinner at the restaurant.

Friday, August 12th, 2011

The first day we had to actually do anything interesting! The first thing on the agenda was the included breakfast, which was mango pancake (in reality, it was a waffle) with scrambled egg and glazed ham, which we ate quickly to make our appointment on time.

The five of us – Jeremy, Reileen, Doyle, Leo and I – hired a car to take us around to various tourist locations in Bohol. We left the farm around 9am and our driver first took us to the furthest location on our list, the Chocolate Hills. These hills apparently look like chocolate when they’re not green, though they were green when we visited. There are quite a number of hills, shaped like giant mounds, spread over the region.

Our next stop was the butterfly garden, where we got to see some native butterflies, and learn a bit about how butterflies live. We had a tour guide, who took us through the garden, and showed us some butterflies up close. He gave me one to put in my hand to see it play dead, and then told me to move my hand as if to drop it, only to watch it fly away. There was another butterfly that the guide put on people’s hair and faces for photographs, which was pretty neat.

We skipped past the rice granary tour we could have done, though did see a number of rice fields, and then had a brief photo stop in the Bilar man-made forest. After that was a stop at a sanctuary for the Philippine Tarsier, which is said to be the smallest primate in the world. They’re pretty creepy looking things, with giant, alien-like eyes!

Lunch, at around 2pm, was a buffet served on a river boat that took us down the river in Loboc. We were meant to have a musician play for us during the ride, while we ate our lunch, but he was late so we finished eating before we even departed! There was one stop on the trip where we got to watch some locals dancing on a sort of jetty on the river.

The next place our driver took us was a very old church in Baclayon, where a wedding was being held and we weren’t appropriately dressed to enter, since Catholic churches in the Philippines have very strict dress codes, but we were able to have a look at the museum that is attached to the church.

Our final stop was a monument known as “Blood Compact,” which is a marker for the location where an agreement to be friendly between the Spanish and native Filipinos was made. The view out to sea at sunset from here was just stunning.

Once we got back to Bohol Bee Farm, where we were staying, we just relaxed for a bit and decided to get some things from the shop for our dinner rather than eat at the organic restaurant.

Saturday, August 13th, 2011

I was pretty easy going on the decision making for what we would be doing on this trip to the Philippines, but once Reileen had suggested we could go see live dolphins in the sea, that was the one thing I wanted to do most. Dolphins, of course, being my favourite animal ever since I can remember.

We had a 5am wake up call to make sure we could leave early enough to actually get to the dolphin-watching spot. The Bee Farm is right on the coast, which meant our dolphin-watching boats departed from a jetty just below the restaurant on the farm. It was highly convenient! And they packed us a breakfast that we were able to eat on the boat, which we got through before we arrived at the dolphins. With some difficulty, in my case, since I was also looking after a cranky baby, and the boat was rather bumpy.

It took a while to get to our destination, and there were a lot of other dolphin-watching boats, all moving around to try and get the best spot to see the dolphins. Whilst we didn’t have any right next to our boat, it was still an incredible experience to watch those animals jumping out of the water and diving back in. The waves moved in such a way that sometimes it was hard to tell if it was just the waves, or if we’d see dolphins, but I reached a point where I was spotting the families of dolphins at the same time as the people who took us out there on the boat. It was just such a magical experience for me.

When we were done spotting dolphins, we were taken over to a nearby island where the coastline was covered in shells rather than sand, which made for an interesting feeling beneath my feet. It was easier to walk barefoot than in the thongs I brought with me!

We were let off on one side of the island, and then one of our guides from the boat led us on a short journey across the island. It was nice having Reileen there to translate what he said in Tagalog, because otherwise we wouldn’t have known that one building we walked past had previously been used to house Spanish mistresses. Mostly we walked through farming areas with chickens and goats, but it was pretty interesting to see how the locals lived there. We ended up in a beach resort area, but we didn’t stay there too long because Jeremy was feeling ill and there wasn’t much to do. So we got back on the boat and went back to Bohol Bee Farm, arriving a little while before lunch.

Since the cleaners were in our chalet when we got back, we decided to spend some time by the pool, just relaxing, until lunch time. We ate our lunch right by the pool and it just felt rather serene.

We didn’t do much between lunch and dinner because Jeremy and Reileen had some work they needed to do, even though we were on holiday, so they took a break to do that while I looked after Doyle and Leo.

Then for dinner, we were back at the organic restaurant.

Sunday, August 14th, 2011

It was rather a rainy morning so we weren’t able to do much. We had to get to the restaurant for breakfast and back between showers. It also meant that we couldn’t do the farm tour until after the rain stopped. Luckily this happened with still enough time for us to do that before lunch. The farm tour included discussion and smelling of various herbs grown on the farm, followed by a visit to the bee hives where we learned a bit about bees, and Doyle, Jeremy and Reileen were all brave enough to hold part of the hive that held a ton of bees on it. The last part of the tour was a discussion and visit with the earthworms.

After lunch, we got a ride back to the ferry terminal where we caught a ferry back to Cebu.

There wasn’t really any time for sightseeing once we arrived in Cebu, so we checked into our hotel and then went out to a mall to pick up a few things we needed to get whilst in the Philippines, as well as found a restaurant for our dinner.

Monday, August 15th, 2011

The morning was uneventful for me because Reileen and Jeremy had more work to get done, so I looked after the kids again until we checked out around noon. Reileen had tried to organise a taxi that would try to take us around for the afternoon until we had to be at the airport, but she hadn’t been given the right phone number so we ended up going with a taxi that happened to be at the hotel right when we wanted to leave. It’s a good thing Reileen isn’t shy and is comfortable talking to strangers because she really helped us out in talking to the driver and working out things for us to do on our own self-guided tour.

The tour of Cebu was pretty much for my sake, since Reileen and Jeremy had previously planned to spend our whole time in Bohol. This had disappointed me a bit because I had thought, what was the point of flying to Cebu if we weren’t actually going to do anything there? So I was glad when they changed the plans for my sake. Originally we were going to try and fly to Bohol and then ferry to Cebu and back, but it ended up cheaper for us to fly to Cebu.

Anyhow, Jeremy was keen to try lechon, which is a particular Filipino way of cooking pig. So our driver took us to a popular place that locals like to eat lechon.

After that, we went on up to the beautiful Taoist Temple in an area of Cebu called Beverly Hills. I’m not entirely sure why but it amuses me how much of the Philippines makes me think of America… mind you, we also passed a sign between Clark and Manila that told us it was only x distance to Mexico. That caused a bit of a laugh out of me and Jeremy. Back to the subject matter, I really enjoy looking at temples like this one because I think the architecture is quite stunning. I especially liked the dragons on the roof; there was just something special about them that made me want to photograph them a lot. Architecture designed for specific cultural purposes is one of the many things I really enjoy seeing when travelling to different locations.

Our next stop was the Museo Sugbo, which is a museum that housed historical artefacts from Cebu, particularly in prominent points of their history, such as World War II. I’ve only learned about WWII and how it relates to the Philippines, Japan and America through visits to museums in the Philippines and Hawaii, but if I had more time, I think it’s something I’d be interested in learning more about. Sadly, it is hard to pay too close attention to some of the details at such museums when you are there with children who need to be looked after. I also find the history between Filipinos and certain Spaniards to be quite interesting, and that’s something else I wish I had more time to learn about. There really isn’t enough detail about it in the museums to get a complete picture – just enough to make me more curious.

On our way to our next stop, we passed an interesting monument in the middle of some streets, which we decided to stop at for some photographs. I have since learned that it was the “Colon Monument.” It was only a brief stop before we went on to another museum, which was unfortunately closed.

The next tourist stop for us was Fort San Pedro, which I had first seen from the window of our taxi on our way to the ferry a few days earlier, and was somewhere I specifically wanted to stop, because I love old structures like that. It wasn’t as big as the fort that we went to in Manila in 2010, but I still enjoyed walking through it and looking at the old stone that was used to build the structure. This is another architectural fascination I have when travelling.

Our final major point of interest stop in Cebu was the Basilica del Sto. Niño and Magellan’s Cross. Magellan’s Cross marks the spot where Magellan first planted a cross in Philippine soil. The basilica is where some Spaniards found an image of Jesus Christ, and therefore both locations are important spots in terms of the Catholic history of the country.

We still had a bit of time on our hands before we needed to be at the airport, but without anything specific in mind, so our driver then took us to a local market where we saw a lot of dried fish. I kind of don’t really understand who Filipinos can eat a lot of the things they do, but at least I don’t feel sick at the thought of everything they make… Anyhow, we looked through the market for a while and I took photos of really small chorizo sausages because it kind of amused me, and then Jeremy bought some otap to share with his co-workers when we got home. The way Reileen described it made me want to try it, so perhaps I should’ve spoken up and suggested he bought a packet for us as well. Such is life.

We then drove for much longer to stop at a mall on the way to the airport because there was one last thing Jeremy wanted to try and find, but the trip was unsuccessful.

Our airport arrival was well before check in time, but that was planned so that we would have enough time to have dinner there first. I shared a cheeseburger flavoured pizza with Doyle, which was actually quite nice, to be honest. Then we hung around and used the free Internet for a little while until we could check in. It was a late flight and we didn’t get back to our hotel in Manila until after 1am.

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

The late night/arrival back in Manila meant that it was a good idea to let Doyle and Leo sleep as much as possible before we headed out. Indeed, we didn’t even have breakfast until around 11am. The only item on our agenda for the day, however, was a trip to Ocean Park. We had been there on our last trip to the Philippines to meet some of Reileen’s friends for a drink and dinner, but we didn’t actually look at the attractions. This time, we did.

We first went to the aquarium section to see a lot of fish, and my favourite part of that was the seahorses, because I just find those creatures so fascinating to watch and look at. Then we followed the exit route and came upon the jellyfish attraction, before stopping for some fruit shakes.

The next attraction was a sea lion show, though we didn’t have especially good seats because we arrived just before it started. Reileen, Jeremy and Doyle were at least able to stand to see, but I was busy trying to keep Leo from crying, so I didn’t get to see much unfortunately.

Our final attraction that we could actually attend was the fish spa. I have never been to a fish spa before, but it is a very popular thing to do in various parts of Asia. There are a lot of places like that in Malaysia, but we had never gone. Personally, I didn’t like it very much. Sticking my feet in a pool of water where it felt like fish were eating said feet did not grow on me. It was ticklish and I had to keep removing my feet from the water.

After that, and since Leo was getting fussy again, we got a taxi back to our hotel. Then Jeremy and Reileen went out to try and get some ingredients from the shops so Jeremy could make Reileen sausage rolls. They didn’t quite end up with enough ingredients, particularly for the pastry, but Jeremy did a pretty good job of it considering it was the first time he’d ever tried to make sausage rolls!

And that’s essentially the end of the trip since we had to check out of our hotel early the next morning to catch a bus to the airport, where Leo flirted with some nice Filipino women. Both Doyle and Leo slept on the plane for most of the flight, which meant I had a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep. We pinched a sick bag from the plane, though, because Doyle had been sick on the bus to the airport and had been looking like he’d need to be sick again. And it was a good thing we took it because he used it in the taxi on our way home.

As I wrote about in my last entry, part of my trip to Hawaii was spent filming a music video with improv rock duo Oil in the Alley. I’m not sure how many Mega Fans can say they’ve had such an opportunity to work with people they admire so much like I did. I lived the dream, and did them proud.

Oil in the Alley finished up their “Reunion Tour” in Hawaii on January 29th and premiered the music video I filmed with them, Rule the World (Skulls and Dragons). Their next tour is named after the song.

When I first started following them on Facebook, I wouldn’t have imagined having any influence whatsoever, but improv being what it is, things tend to take on a life of their own.

First I discovered their animated series from the early 90s. Then the anime series that was made after the group originally split. When R Kevin asked if anyone had stills from their original SNES game, I even managed to dig one up. Those things were relatively easy to do from my home in Malaysia, but I wanted an even bigger part of the action, and Oil in the Alley are based in Honolulu. I flew there, and stayed in The Equus Hotel, which was named after their original Dos Equus song. Naturally this made it easier for the guys to find me when they had to pick me up or drop me off for the video shoot.

Words can’t really express how much fun these guys are, so I’ll just share the video now.

Prior to the official online release of the video, it had 50 views on YouTube, credited almost entirely to viewings and re-viewings by my friends. They started the comments of how “catchy” the song is and how “well made” the video was, and they’ve continued to be said by people I don’t know. It’s true, you will find yourself humming or singing the song over and over. That’s one of the reasons I chose the song over the other choices I had.

It’s been not quite a week since the video was released, and we’re up to 233 views on YouTube, and 116 people sharing it on Facebook. I’m not sure how viral I expected the video to get, but it’s certainly the most successful project I’ve worked on to date with those statistics. We’d still love for more people to watch it, so if you like the video, if you like the song, please share it with your friends, and encourage them to pass it on. There aren’t too many groups you can influence the history of, or their music collection. If you’re ever in the vicinity of one of their shows, check them out and give them an original song title you’d like them to sing. You won’t regret it.

Oil in the Alley is also in the process of selecting songs for the album they’ll be releasing later this year, so if you want to have a say, go check them out on Facebook, watch their videos, and vote for your favourite songs. Be a part of music history.

The direct YouTube link to the music video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsnasDsX_G4

In 2007, I was in the US for my birthday. The previous year, Australia. We’d moved to Malaysia by the time my birthday rolled around in 2008. By pure coincidence, I had managed to be in 3 different countries, 3 years in a row. That alone made me want to try being in a different country for my birthday every year for as long as I could. Last year I went to Vietnam. This entry is about where I went this year.

It did take me a while to decide where to go. We had a few options on the table, but I think as soon as my friend R Kevin, who lives in Hawaii, mentioned Robin Williams was going to be performing there a week before my birthday, there was not really any other option for me. Mind you, I left Hawaii before my actual birthday, but it was still part of the birthday trip.

We could’ve just flown to Honolulu from Kuala Lumpur, but it was cheaper for us to fly to Macau or Hong Kong first, and then fly from Hong Kong to Honolulu. And once the flights were booked, a few other things fell into place. See, Robin Williams wasn’t my only motivation for flying to Honolulu. I met R Kevin online a little over a year ago and we became friends through a mutual interest in improv comedy, which satisfied a need for me since we unfortunately do not have improv in KL. Sure, we’ve talked about it, but so far – despite the fact I know several improvisers in other countries who could potentially come over and lead workshops for us – nothing has really come from that. Basically that meant I got my improv fix by following R Kevin and one of his improv partners, Sean, on Facebook, for their improv rock duo, Oil in the Alley. As much fun as it was watching the videos and listening to the audio tracks Sean posted online, I knew that I really wanted to see them live. Luckily for me, Sean had announced their November performance date well in advance, and it was only two days before Robin Williams was performing. Two shows I desperately wanted to see made it too hard to resist.

About a month before I was due to fly out, and having fangirled my way into making Sean notice me by posting artwork of the two of them to their Facebook page, I asked them both if they’d be interested in having me shoot a music video for them while I was in Honolulu. Their excitement seemed to match mine, which feels like a rare thing for me – to connect so well with other creative people I’d like to work with. In fact that excitement made the music video the single thing I was looking forward to most about this trip, and the success of the shoot makes me want to work with them again on a second video. But I must edit the first one before thinking how we’ll manage that! Sean gave me a list of songs to choose from that we could shoot a video for, and I chose Rule the World (Skulls & Dragons), which was improvised in September during the Improvaganza improv festival.

Hopefully that is a satisfactory prelude before I share the details of each day of this most remarkable birthday trip.

Saturday, November 13th

An afternoon flight meant we didn’t have much time to do a lot for our first night in Macau. We took a taxi from the airport, but our driver didn’t know any English, and as such, he had to give us a list of hotels in English with their Chinese translation so he knew where to take us.

After we checked in and dropped off our things, and I discovered we had free Internet, we went for a bit of a wander around the nearby area to a) see where we might have dinner and b) be amazed at the number of casinos and all the dazzling lights.

We eventually found a restaurant that looked like it probably had an English menu with explanations of the food. The first couple of places we found kind of scared me off because I thought I might accidentally order something I really would not want to try if I knew what it was. For example, there were a lot of shark’s fin dishes on the menu at this particular restaurant.

Since this was my first time in China, albeit a section of China that does not require a visa for me to visit, and was once a Portuguese settlement, I decided to order my favourite Chinese dish – sweet and sour pork – to compare it to what I’ve tried in other countries. Now, I can’t say that sweet and sour pork in Macau is representative of that which is served throughout the entirety of China, however, I can say that it is certainly different from what I’ve tried in other countries. I suppose it was most similar to the kind I eat in Malaysia, but that is not particularly representative either. There were two distinct differences. First of all, it had chunks of apple in it. Apple! Normally the only fruit I get in sweet and sour pork is pineapple, which it also had, though it wasn’t as nice as Malaysian pineapple, unfortunately. The second distinct difference was the red and green capsicum (bell peppers). At least, they certainly looked like capsicum. The flavour, however, was a lot spicier than I was used to, so I figure it must be part of the same vegetable family as capsicum and chili, but it was more like a combination of the two. I couldn’t really eat it so I tended to stick with the deep fried pork, fruit chunks, and sauce. This is probably more information about the food I ate than I’ve ever detailed in the past.

After dinner, we wandered into the lobby of one casino hotel in order to marvel at the largest emerald in the world, as well as an incredibly large diamond, before we headed back to our hotel to get some sleep.

Sunday, November 14th

We had a pretty delayed start to our sightseeing today because Jeremy still had a work assignment he needed to complete before he could kick back and enjoy our holiday, and I didn’t want to have to take both of our boys out on my own since Doyle has reached quite a defiant stage. So we had breakfast together at the hotel, then I looked after the boys in our hotel room while Jeremy went to a business room to do some work, until he joined us when it was time to go out and try something for lunch.

Jeremy hadn’t quite finished his work, however, so we only walked a couple of blocks until Doyle picked out a small restaurant for us to try. Jeremy and I both had pork burger sandwiches, which Jeremy said was a Macau item, though it ended up being not exactly what he expected. However, this place also let us try yoghurt soda drinks, which I’d never heard of before. We figured it must be something particular to the area, so Jeremy and I both ordered a different flavour, and they were absolutely delicious. Highly recommended to anyone who gets the chance to try it.

After lunch, we popped into a supermarket to buy a bottle for Leo, since he would need one in Hawaii and I forgot to pack one, and then we went exploring some more of the casino area for a little while. We were lucky when we came up to the StarWorld Hotel because, as we were there, we got to see a musical fountain show that runs every 15 minutes. That was pretty cool!

We didn’t stay out and about too long, though, because as I said, Jeremy still had a bit more work to do. So we came back to the hotel for him to finish before heading back out again for dinner, though I don’t recall what we had. This was probably the night we went to the restaurant that was next door to where we had lunch.

Monday, November 15th

Being the navigator in our family, Jeremy gave me the task of directing us to the Portuguese areas of Macau for the first part of our day. This would have been a far easier task had Doyle not been misbehaving, though I was lucky that I was the one looking after Leo. The first part of the walk took us past part of the Macau Grand Prix race track, which was taking place (luckily, in my opinion) the day after we were due to leave Macau. Considering our hotel was positioned smack in the middle of the race track, I’m not sure how much sightseeing we could have done during the race had we been there for it! Anyway, as we were heading down to Senado Square, we walked past the Military Club and were intrigued by the Portuguese mosaics along a good portion of the footpaths we walked.

When we reached Senado Square, it was like walking into Portugal from China. The contrast is spectacular!

This whole general area had a lot of Portuguese buildings, so we wandered around for a while, then took a small street filled with shops (some of which sold both unusual Chinese meat and Portuguese egg tarts), noting bamboo scaffolding, up to have a look at the ruins of St. Paul’s, which is a prominent point of Macau’s heritage. There’s a small museum in the bottom of the ruins, which we visited, before moving on to Mount Fortress.

We climbed to the top of Mount Fortress, but since it was Monday, the museum of Macau, located at the top, was closed, so we just took some photos (the views of Macau from here are amazing) and then headed back down the hill. A lot of the day was spent wandering to see other notable sites on our map, such as St Michael’s Cemetary and Lou Lim Ieoc Garden, which happened to be hosting a bonsai festival while we were there.

From the beautiful Chinese garden, we walked a fair distance around Guia Hill and past the reservoir in order to arrive at Fisherman’s Wharf, an attraction with replicas of various sights around the world, such as the Roman Coliseum and some volcano. Tacky tourist trap? I don’t know; most of the area didn’t seem to have much open to even be generating business.

As we continued on, we were going to head back to our hotel until I decided I wanted to get a photo of the interestingly designed Science Centre, but since my camera battery had gone by then, that meant I needed to use Jeremy’s iPhone, and he wanted me to get as close as I could to the building so it was decent. Since we were already practically at the entrance anyway, we decided to go inside. It was still open for another hour, and Doyle was interested to explore it (yay fun learning!) so we rushed through the whole place to see as much as we could. Doyle really seemed to enjoy it.

Our final stop for the day was dinner at The Sands.

Tuesday, November 16th

As we seemed to do a pretty good job walking everywhere yesterday, and Macau appeared to be a pretty good city to walk in, we walked down to Macau Tower from our hotel, and paid the appropriate amount in order to take the lift to the top. This tower happens to accommodate the tallest bungee in the world, where guests are welcome to bungee jump or sky jump (this is when there is a harness around your body rather than the bungee being attached to your ankles) off the tower… for quite a hefty fee. I’ve considered bungee jumping ever since I watched my sister give it a go in Rotorua, New Zealand in early 2005, but I figured the tallest bungee in the world was probably not the best place for a first timer to try it! So it was just the tower’s views for us, though we did get to witness some people jumping.

We were just going to walk to our next destination, but since Doyle seemed to be pretty tired from all the walking, we instead caught a bus and got off by the A-Ma Temple. This temple is interesting because it is dedicated to Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and multiple folk beliefs.

After checking out the temple, which had been there since before Macau became a Portuguese settlement, we decided to walk to some of the nearby historical sites: Moorish Barracks, Lilau Square and Mandarin’s House. Lilau Square was a bit like Senado Square, just smaller. For Mandarin’s House, we got to admire some Chinese architecture and furniture designs.

Our final plan for the day was to visit The Venetian, which Jeremy informed me is the largest casino complex in the world. This complex is on Taipa, and as such we decided to catch a taxi to get there. We found our way upstairs to the main shopping area pretty easily, and sat down in the food court for lunch.

I didn’t go into the casino itself as they do not accept minors and I had two children to look after, but even the rest of the building where minors were allowed had the regular trappings one might expect to find in a casino � mainly a lack of clocks and bright lights so you don’t know what time it is. To add to that effect, the ceilings were painted blue, with clouds, so you would feel like it was always daytime.

The Venetian is pretty much what you might expect from its name, that is, it takes well known parts of Venice, such as St Mark’s Square and gondola boat rides, and encloses it in the building. Spread throughout this section of the building are many luxury brand stores, as well as a few more affordable ones.

I really don’t think the casino owners want their patrons to leave, as even non-gamblers like myself got lost just looking for the restroom and baby change room. There were coloured lines on the floor designed to help you find your destination, but the only help they were to me was when I had to find a way to entertain my three year old for the half hour I let my husband visit the casino. I must admit playing “follow the line” worked a treat, and it thankfully led us back to my husband right at our appointed meeting time. Entertaining a child throwing a tantrum is no easy feat in The Venetian!

There are also electronic touch screen maps spread throughout the complex, and I fancy myself as someone with a fairly good sense of direction. Usually I only have to look at a map a couple of times before it becomes etched into my memory. The Venetian, however, had me going in completely the opposite direction that I intended almost every time. And by the time you want to go downstairs to leave, you find that you can’t, if you have children in tow, since most of the downstairs routes lead to the casino.

In the end I magically navigated my way back to the lift that took us upstairs in the first place, and – four hours after we arrived – somehow managed to find Ramone and Flo from Pixar’s Cars movie before heading back to the entrance where the taxi had initially dropped us.

Wednesday, November 17th

We were on the move today, not long after our breakfast, since we had to switch to Hong Kong at some point, what with flying to Honolulu via Manila from Hong Kong rather than Macau. Our hotel was pretty good because it had a free bus to the ferry terminal, which we had to go to in order to ferry across to Hong Kong.

The terminal on the other side? Much bigger, and much harder to navigate. Plus we kind of made the mistake of not really knowing how to get to our hotel once we got to Hong Kong. So we stopped for lunch at a Japanese restaurant and then walked all the way to Hong Kong train station to try and figure out where to go next, figuring a train would be able to get us in the general area at least.

Jeremy picked us up some Octopus cards, which provide a discount for all rides on public transport, for our use while in Hong Kong, and then decided we should take the train to Mong Kok station, since our hotel booking indicated the hotel was in Mong Kok. However, the map we found in the train station when we arrived didn’t give any indication as to where we should go next, and Doyle was generally misbehaving to the extent we could barely walk anywhere. As such, we ended up hiring a taxi to take us the rest of the way.

We checked in and discovered I’d booked us the tiniest hotel room imaginable, particularly considering we’re a family of four. I’m relatively sure I’d looked for accommodation that was meant to fit at least two adults and one child, but I’d hardly believe this place should be classified as such. The room was basically the size of a double bed, doubled – one half of the room was the double bed, where Jeremy, Doyle and I had to sleep, and the majority of the rest of the space was the bathroom. We had to sleep Leo on the floor behind the door, which was hardly suitable but the best we could do since there wasn’t even enough room for his sleeping tent that we’d brought.

So, since the room was tiny, Jeremy took us out for a walk to an outdoor market a few blocks away, and then we went into a kind of IT mall area, which particularly interested Jeremy since he wanted to look at tablet computers, and eventually bought one running Android.

Unfortunately with Doyle’s misbehaving throughout the day, our stress levels were completely through the roof, which meant we didn’t get to try any more Chinese food for dinner. We all pretty much crashed (or tried to) once we got back to the hotel.

Thursday, November 18th

After a terrible night’s sleep, we got up early in order to catch a taxi to Hong Kong airport, figuring it was a lot less trouble than the bus with all the tantrums Doyle had been throwing. We arrived early enough that check-in hadn’t opened yet. I checked the board to see where our check-in counter would be and it didn’t list our flight yet, but the earlier Philippine Airlines flight to Manila had been cancelled. I started panicking that it might have to do with the strikes that had been threatened to take place and we might not be going anywhere. But it was too early to tell, so we headed back downstairs for breakfast.

Luckily there wasn’t a strike, and there were no real issues when we went to check in, though it did take us some time. Doyle still enjoyed misbehaving, which meant we pretty much had to head straight to the gate because we had no idea how much he was going to slow us down, and Hong Kong airport is huge.

A short flight to Manila. The weirdest transfer process I’ve ever encountered (we were escorted past immigration into the exit of the airport and then back into the security screening area to get back to the gates). A 9 hour flight to Honolulu. I tried to sleep but it wasn’t particularly successful. It was about 1am Hong Kong time when we arrived in Honolulu, but 7am local. I’m sure you can imagine how tired I must have been, though I was excited, too. Honolulu airport was pretty close to how I remembered it when I was there for a transfer when I was 7. In a way, it’s probably bad that it doesn’t look like it’d been improved in those 19 years, though I’m surprised I even remembered it at all.

I never know what lane to go in when I arrive in the US with my family. Can they join me in the US Citizen lane, or do I have to join them with everyone else? So I had someone show us where to go, and then she let us go into a shorter queue anyway since we had the kids with us. I must say, this is the first time I’ve been to the US with my family since ESTA was introduced, and now I know how that works, it really is an easier process than what was previously in place.

Once the immigration process was sorted out and we collected our bags, we got a taxi to our hotel. It was hours before you can generally check in to any hotel, but again, since we had the kids with us, they let us into our room immediately. This was fantastic since it allowed all of us to have some much needed sleep we didn’t get on the flight. Though Doyle and Leo got more sleep than Jeremy and I did. In fact, we didn’t even really get out of the hotel until around 4pm.

Armed with a passport sized booklet that included a map of the nearby area, we wandered down toward Waikiki Beach and found out where the US Army Museum was. It closed pretty much the time we arrived, though, so we just looked at the large weapons and tanks they had on display outside, and went down to the beach.

It was kind of funny going to Waikiki Beach because I spent my childhood growing up near Waikiki Beach in Australia, and now I was finally visiting the “real” one. It did feel a bit like the tourist beach that it is, but the views around the island from the beach are still beautiful.

Doyle was thirsty, so we sat down at a concrete table and chair setting while Jeremy fetched a pineapple ginger drink from a stall near the beach. Not being a fan of ginger, I didn’t really like it, but at least I tried it. I later asked R Kevin if this ginger drink thing was a Hawaiian thing like we assumed it was, but he’d never heard of it! So I have no idea if it is or not.

Friday, November 19th

The first item on our agenda for the day was for us to head back to the US Army museum and actually have a look around it while it was open. We were greeted by a friendly author who was there for a book signing, though I didn’t get a close enough look at what the book was.

The museum itself was interesting and less biased than I’d expect of the US government. It really highlighted the diversity in Hawaii, and included information about how Hawaii became a US territory. I was especially fascinated by the documentation on World War II, and found myself wishing the information included there was what I’d studied on WWII in high school, rather than just the Nazi Germany side of it. As an Australian, the Japanese involvement felt more relevant to me. I had no idea they’d occupied so much of China! Of particular note in the museum was the section on the Japanese Americans who went above and beyond expectations to basically help the US beat the Japanese in WWII. It was also a great companion to our trip to Manila earlier in the year as it included information about the Japanese occupation of the Philippines and how the US helped there.

The last section of the museum was about the US involvement in the Vietnam War, which I found an interesting companion to our time in Vietnam last year, and was the area I was particular surprised about the lack of bias, as well as the history of Japanese American and former army General, but currently the Secretary of Veteran Affairs, Eric Shinseki. Given I don’t closely follow US war efforts past and present, I didn’t know who he was, but I really found everything he had done in the US Army to be quite exceptional.

It was well after lunch by the time we were done with the museum, though we first went upstairs to learn about some of the efforts that have been made to help conserve some of the environmental areas of Oahu (the island Honolulu is on). We headed back to Waikiki Beach for lunch, where I picked up a corn dog, since I love those and can only ever find them in the US, and Jeremy and Doyle had Subway.

We then took the free Hilo Hattie trolley to the International Market Place to check out the stalls, and waited far too long for the trolley to return. When I got tired of waiting, I walked us back to our hotel via the Ala Wai Canal, which is stunningly beautiful.

In the evening, I took a taxi out to a warehouse to check out the play Closer, which was co-directed by my friend R Kevin, and I was particularly interested to see to compare to the movie version, which I’d seen in the cinema years ago. It was also my only chance to meet him before meeting Sean, which I thought would’ve been odd given I’ve known R Kevin longer. Perhaps I’m biased but I enjoyed the play more than the movie; I thought all of the actors gave really strong performances and was glad I had the chance to go. The other times it was playing whilst I was in Honolulu were times we would be shooting for the music video.

I’ve met a lot of Internet friends in my lifetime and consider some of them to be my closest of friends, to the extent that I usually drop the “Internet” part when I talk about them. I only include it here to point it out. Indeed, when I was last in Europe, I met three people I had known from the Internet. So with those past experiences under my belt, meeting R Kevin was no different. He was pretty much exactly what I expected, which is a very cool thing. And after briefly talking to him in the interval, the woman sitting next to me, who didn’t know him but knew he was the director, asked how I knew him. I think I had mentioned by this point, or she overheard, that I live in Malaysia. I guess I still feel a little odd mentioning when I’ve made friends on the Internet, but at least I don’t lie about it, so I shared that information with her and we had a chat about social networking sites and so forth.

R also introduced me to one of our music video cast members, Jen, who attended that night. Then he was kind enough to give me a ride back to my hotel so I didn’t have to fork over more cash for another taxi. I was most intrigued when we went to the car park and he paid for his parking with his credit card – which was inserted into the same slot the parking ticket was. What an unusual idea! Clearly I can be fascinated by the most mundane actions. On our way back to the hotel, R gave me a quick tour of the nearby area, pointing out some shopping areas, and Ala Moana park, where he runs, as well as his favourite drinking fountain. Considering I would return to Ala Moana beach twice more before leaving, this was clearly a prominent area to point out.

Saturday, November 20th

Since I had organised so much for myself to do in Hawaii without my family, I opted for Jeremy to decide what most of our activities would be for the rest of the trip. He took us to the Ala Moana Center in the morning where we went to Barnes & Noble for a book signing event with several local authors. Eventually Doyle chose to to go to the table at the front of the store to make some Christmas star decorations they had there, and I talked to the author (Leslie Ann Hayashi) and illustrator (Kathleen Wong Bishop) at that table. Both ladies were really lovely, and I marvelled at the openness shared when a customer and the author discovered they lived on the same street in central Oahu. I suppose that has something to do with the population size – Oahu has a smaller population than Perth, where I’m from. Given how many people I know from back home who’ve met other people I know, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that people are so connected in Oahu, too. The author, in fact, also knew Sean and R Kevin – or at least had seen them perform. Check out their web site here

It was time for lunch by the time we left Barnes & Noble, so we headed to the food court in the Ala Moana Center and Jeremy picked us up a couple of platters of various Hawaiian food. I couldn’t name you everything (or anything) we tried, but it was certainly worthwhile.

Next we hopped a bus to Chinatown for a bit of a wander before meandering down towards the State Capitol and Iolani Palace. Iolani Palace is quite stunning to look at, and from the opposite side, we found it decorated in plenty of red, white and blue. We didn’t stick around too long, however, because we wanted to use our free bus transfer tickets, and I was also expecting to be picked up by Sean at 5:30pm.

So, after freshening up and feeding Leo, I went downstairs to wait for Sean, who was only a little later than I expected. I’ll admit I was a little nervous to meet Sean because I didn’t know him as well as R and thus scared my shyness in meeting new people would win out, but apart from a couple of minutes of silence wherein I felt awkward, I think I managed to conquer my social awkwardness. Of course it helped that he was pretty friendly, too.

When we arrived at LaughTrack Theater, I helped Sean unload everything for the show, which was considerably more than he usually has since he had extra instruments for the music video shoot. The theatre itself, despite having been told it was small, was still smaller than I expected it to be. Indeed, the smallness could not be captured in the videos I had watched online. Luckily this didn’t interfere with my ability to film their sets (plural because there were two shows), particularly because I focused on getting quite a few closer shots than Sean normally taped.

I didn’t just get to see Oil in the Alley, however. It was neat also to see some more long form improv with Vinylytte and Aftermath. The style and format of both acts were particularly new to me, though I have seen long form improv in the past, which made for an interesting night. It also made me more keen on the hope that, one day, we will have workshops and introduce improv comedy to KL.

Seeing Oil in the Alley live for the first time was kind of a surreal experience for me, given how long I’d been following them on Facebook. First of all, I hadn’t really realised that they use the same tunes during each show, improvising only the lyrics, but that is perhaps because I’ve seen improvised comedy music in the past and was always under the impression the music was improvised along with the lyrics. R Kevin later explained why they do that, which made a lot of sense to me. I guess it was kind of magical in a way, too, given how much I admired them. Definitely a highlight of the trip.

Of course, my fangirling would not be complete without making sure I got a picture (or several) with the pair. I’d been away from Leo for about 7 hours by this stage and as such even one of my nursing pads had begun to fail, hence my awkward position to hide this fact in the photo on the left, taken by the other videographer, Jeff.

(In the picture, from L to R: Sean T.C. O’Malley, me, and R Kevin Garcia Doyle)

Sunday, November 21st

I had camera batteries to charge in the morning, to make sure I’d have enough power for the afternoon shoot, so we didn’t leave the hotel really until it was time for lunch. We headed across the street to Red Lobster, since Jeremy had never been and he desires trying every single American restaurant chain at some point. I had not been to a Red Lobster since I threw up into my daiquiri glass in January 2005, so I had kind of developed a little fear of the seafood from said restaurant, which led to me choosing to order New England Clam Chowder, since I figured that was not likely to make me sick. And, of course, no alcohol. I also had to feed Leo in the restaurant as I would again be away from him for more video shooting, and at that point, was unsure how long that would be.

After lunch, I pretty much had just enough time to grab my equipment and head downstairs for R Kevin to pick me up. Finally I also got to meet his wife, albeit quickly during the car ride to where we were meeting everyone else for the shoot, since she wasn’t joining us. I attempted to impress with my knowledge of the US by asking about the candidate support signs that were still on display for an election that had since passed, whilst R pointed out some interesting buildings. Of particular note was a beautiful building, which his wife identified as the Korean Studies building, on the university campus (the university being where we were meeting everyone else involved in the shoot).

Jen was already waiting for us when we arrived, and then we waited for Sean to come with his daughters, and the other actor, Makke. After Sean’s daughters got into costume, Jen joined me in Kevin’s car, and we headed out in three separate cars to our first location for the shoot, which we would be using for both the Dukakis campaign scenes, and classroom scenes (listen to the song in the video linked above for reference). Jeff, the videographer whom I mentioned above, also joined us from this point.

First was an office for the Dukakis campaign. Given the computer screens were LCD and rather modern looking, I opted to use the half of the office that was basically just filing cabinets, and put Jen and Makke both in a T-shirt I had designed for the shoot, and Jeremy had ironed on earlier in the day. The design, if you can’t be bothered clicking the link to see, was a picture of George H.W. Bush as a dragon, standing on skulls, to keep with the “skulls and dragons” theme. After filming the bits I needed for the narrative part with the girls, Sean and R Kevin jumped on top of the filing cabinets to sing (well, lip sync) the whole song through, which was certainly a lot of fun to watch.

Moving onto the classroom scene, it was time to film Sean’s daughters, who were playing the younger versions of Jen and Makke in the first two verses. I thought they both played their parts perfectly, which could probably be partly attributed to the fact they knew the song so well, having most likely listened to it as much or even more than I had during Sean’s at-home studio recording process. We filmed another round of Sean and R Kevin singing the whole song, the final chorus with everyone, and people drawing skulls and dragons on each other’s chests, which I still find to be the most amusing section of the entire song.

We were meant to go back to my hotel to collect my family after this, and I had concerns that Leo might need to be fed, but since we were a bit strapped for time, we all followed Sean up to Round Top, which is a “hill” that overlooks all of Honolulu and was absolutely the most perfect setting for the first verse of the song.

(Photo; back row, L to R: R Kevin Garcia Doyle, Sean T.C. O’Malley; front row, L to R: Jen, Sean’s daughters, Makke)

There were quite a few people, presumably tourists, enjoying the view, though largely they remained in the gazebo rather than braving the lack of fencing where we went to shoot the video. Some of them even decided to take some snapshots of us, which was rather amusing since we’re all far from famous!

Again, since we were strapped for time, particularly for Jen, I believe, we filmed the group shots as well as Sean and R Kevin singing the whole song through, first, so R Kevin could take the older girls back to the university. We followed that up with filming the sequences I needed for the first verse with Sean’s daughters, as well as more chest drawing.

By this time, Jeremy was stressing out and Leo definitely needed to be fed, so we packed up our things and Sean drove me back to the hotel so I could feed Leo. He waited in his car with his daughters until I returned so we could go film one last scene on Ala Moana Beach at sunset. When I did return, I was informed that R would be unable to join us at the beach due to timing, but Sean still wanted to go ahead with it to shoot the guitar instrumental verse. I was only too happy to do this, and I think we did end up with some pretty good footage here, with Sean in half a tuxedo, standing in the ocean, playing his guitar as the sun set behind him. It also gave his daughters a chance to relax after all their hard work.

For more pictures from the music video shoot, please check out the screen grabs I took in the relevant Oil in the Alley photo album on Facebook.

With the shoot finally over, it was nice to have a little bit of time to sit and chat to Sean to get to know him a little better while his daughters swam, before he dropped me back at the hotel, and I gave him Australian biscuits (Tim Tams and Mint Slice), Filipino Polvorons and Malaysian Teh Tarik to share with his family and R Kevin as a thank you for working with me.

Naturally, as tends to happen when good things are over, that night I got rather sick with a fever and shivers, but I was not going to let that ruin my trip. Not with the plans we’d organised for the next day!

Monday, November 22nd

I woke up feeling at least a little less cruddy than I had the night before; at least well enough not to break our plans to head out early in the morning to Kualoa Ranch. We signed up to a half day package that included two hour long tours, a buffet lunch and hotel transfers.

The ranch itself is located on the other side of Oahu and includes some of the coast. The first tour we went on was their Movie Location and Ranch Tour, which took us to see some old WWII bunkers as well as locations used in Jurassic Park, Lost, Windtalkers, Mighty Joe Young, Kippendorf’s Tribe, 50 First Dates, Godzilla, and several other films. We learned how they first got to be part of Jurassic Park, which ended up having a ripple effect that led to all those other films choosing the ranch for locations. The history of the ranch is that it is currently owned by the ancestors of the doctor who initially bought it from a Polynesian king as kind of a favour for all the help he had provided the Polynesians.

Our second tour started almost immediately after the first one, and was a catamaran ride in the ocean nearby. First we had to take a bus to this dock and a whole group of people piled into a low boat that took us to a “secret island,” which is where we boarded the catamaran.

The views of Oahu from the catamaran were absolutely stunning, and I particularly liked the blues of the ocean. After we were taken out a suitable distance for great photo opportunities, we were taken to a reef to see some baby (10-12 year old) turtles, and then returned to the bus the same way we went to the catamaran.

It was time for the buffet lunch when we returned to the ranch, which we had just enough time for before getting our 1:30pm bus back to our hotel in Waikiki. We had a short break at the hotel before heading out to Walmart, since Jeremy was interested in some of the sales he’d seen advertised, and it was on the way to the Neil Blaisdell Arena, which is where I was seeing Robin Williams and I still had to collect my ticket. No issues collecting the ticket, which I arrived to collect about two hours before the show was due to start/an hour before the gates opened. Then we headed to Jack-in-the-Box because it was on the opposing street corner and we wanted to have dinner together. Once I gave Jeremy directions to get back to our hotel, I headed back to the Arena for the show.

What can I say about Robin Williams? As a stand up comedian, comedy fan AND Disney fan (he played Genie in Aladdin, in case anyone is unaware), there was pretty much no way I would not enjoy this show. I had read before the tickets went on sale that this Weapons of Self-Destruction tour was his first tour in 8 years. That alone was a good reason for me to not miss the show, because otherwise, who’s to say I’d ever have another chance? At the show, I found out that Honolulu was his final stop on the tour. Not only was this a highlight of this holiday, but probably my entire lifetime; getting to see one of my heroes live on stage. And he did not disappoint. From political commentary to dirty sex jokes and suggesting Mrs Doubtfire porn, I was probably grinning from ear to ear the entire show. It was absolutely worth the trip out to Hawaii.

Tuesday, November 23rd

I was still feeling a little under the weather (as was Doyle) and thus, since we didn’t have anything specific planned, we spent most of the morning in the hotel until Jeremy decided we should do something, and we headed out to Ala Moana Beach for a swim. After our swim, I made a point to use R Kevin’s favourite drinking fountain simply because it amused me that he even pointed it out.

As I mentioned previously, given I’d made so many of my own plans for the trip, I asked Jeremy to work out most of the rest of our activities. When we were headed back toward the hotel/lunch after our swim, Doyle decided he needed to use the toilet, so I took him back to the hotel while Jeremy fetched us some lunch. Then we kind of stuck around the hotel a while before heading out toward the Waikiki beach area, where a hotel restaurant was hosting some Hawaiian dancing and music, so we went there for dinner. The hotel also had a small museum about some of the history of Polynesian boats, which was quite interesting, so we checked that out before heading back to the hotel.

Wednesday, November 24th

We attempted to have an early-ish start to the day, but I think we ended up heading out a little later than expected. After our boring free hotel breakfast (I actually skipped it like 2-3 mornings in the week since it was so boring), we headed out to catch a bus. We actually missed the bus by about one minute so we had to wait a while for the next one. I had no idea where we were going because Jeremy wanted to surprise me. Anyhow, it was quite a lengthy bus ride (about 45 minutes or so) and took us past the Pearl Harbour area, which is where I suspected we were going, to a stadium that was holding a swap meet that morning. The swap meet was huge and surrounded the stadium entirely to the extent that I didn’t even know if we’d be able to find our way back to where we started to find our bus. I really liked it, though, and picked up a pair of earrings as well as a neat flower hair clip that I could wear and feel a little Hawaiian. I liked both items so much, I wore them immediately.

Our timing when leaving the swap meet was pretty awesome because we got to the bus just before it arrived, and just managed to use our free transfer tickets again. We got back to our hotel a bit before 1pm, and Jeremy headed out to fetch us some lunch. Our next activity wasn’t until the evening, but the Hilo Hattie trolley service, which Jeremy wanted to use to get there, finished at 5:30pm, so we headed out a bit earlier to make sure we could catch it. We did, and got off at the International Market Place again. We looked around some nearby stores before heading to the Waikiki Town Center for dinner.

That’s about where I learned what our evening plans would be – a free hula show at 7pm. The show wasn’t exactly what I expected, I suppose because of the stereotype you see in movies about it being just girls in grass skirts wiggling their hips. In the show we saw, there were two male dancers to the one female one, who changed costumes a couple of times.

We also learned that hula dancing was the way the Polynesians shared stories through the generations, with different movements for different words, since they didn’t have a written language. I found that pretty fascinating.

Thursday, November 25th

Today was Thanksgiving in the US, and given I thought it’d be pretty rude for us to invite ourselves to someone else’s Thanksgiving dinner, I’d figured this would be the perfect day for me to book us to leave Honolulu. We had an early morning start, with the airport shuttle collecting us at 7am. It was a little sad to be saying goodbye to Hawaii already, but I’d had an absolute ball, and promised myself I’d have to return sometime to see more of the parts I’d missed.

Checking in at the airport was interesting. As I mentioned when we arrived, the airport looked like it had not been upgraded in the whole 19 years it’d been since I was last there. The check-in desks seemed to match that assumption, although I suppose they must have at some point; it just didn’t seem particularly modern compared to other airports I’ve been to. Considering how many I’ve been to, I figure that says something about HNL. Nevertheless, we eventually got checked in, and getting to our gate wasn’t too much trouble, though it was a bit of a hike to get to.

Given the 18 hour time difference between Honolulu and our arrival city, Manila, plus the 10 hour flight, it was already Friday afternoon when we arrived at our next stopover, which was only 4 hours.

Friday, November 26th

Another short day to report on given, as I mentioned above, it was already the afternoon when we arrived in Manila. I entertained Doyle by letting him play games for the majority of the stopover time. Also, given it was for four hours, Philippine Airlines actually gave us a free snack voucher (for all of us) to use at Delifrance while we waited, which I thought was pretty nice of them.

It was only about a two hour flight back to Hong Kong, but it was after 8pm when our flight landed, so basically all we did was catch the train in to Hong Kong station and get a taxi to our hotel. Luckily the hotel (well, sort of serviced apartment block, really) was much nicer than our last place in Hong Kong!

Saturday, November 27th

Today’s plan was to have Jeremy make all the plans, and as such, I had no clue what we were going to do. When I have no expectations for these days, they turn out spectacularly because I just surrender myself to whatever happens, and Jeremy enjoys my relaxed attitude (let’s face it, I can be a pretty stressed-out traveller sometimes, especially when I’m aware I have to be somewhere by a particular time). So Jeremy headed out early to fetch us some breakfast, which we ate in the hotel room, and then headed out.

It turned out that we were staying not very far from the Peak Tram, which Jeremy walked us to early enough in the morning to completely avoid the crowds, and we took the tram up the peak to get some amazing views of Hong Kong. We also checked out the shopping at the top, which had some pretty cool gadgets, such as a video camera that looked like sunglasses that you wear (what great spy gear ) and a remote control car that drives on walls and ceilings without falling down! Gravity defying brilliance. We had a snack at Delifrance, and then took the tram back down to the bottom.

Next, Jeremy tried to take us to the escalator (or travellator?) that also takes you partway up the peak, but it wasn’t running, so we went to a grocery store where Jeremy bought some dim sums to make for our lunch back at the hotel.

After lunch, we walked down to the main ferry terminal where we caught a ferry across to Kowloon. Upon exiting, there were some fun Christmas decorations, which led up to a shopping mall. The most interesting thing inside the mall was getting to see a harpist play. The unfortunate side of entering the mall, however, was not knowing where we were when we exited. We ended up walking in the opposite direction Jeremy intended, but since I had no clue what the plan was, it didn’t stress me out in the slightest. Bliss! The walk took us to Kowloon train station, where Jeremy got his bearings before taking us to another nearby station to get us on a train to where he actually wanted to take us – the south shore of Kowloon.

We wandered past the Peninsula Hotel, which Jeremy wanted to point out to me, and through the southern parts of Kowloon to the sea, where we got a nice view of Hong Kong Island, as well as viewing a Chinese style ship that was sailing nearby.

This was also the area where the “Avenue of the Stars” is located, so, despite not knowing too many Hong Kong stars, we decided to still wander through to see if we recognised any names. I particularly had my eye out for Jackie Chan, which we found surrounded by a large crowd of people, some of which were putting their hands in his hand prints. Luckily I did manage to snap a picture of his star without anyone else in being in it. I also found stars for Bruce Lee and Chow Yun Fat, but they were the only other names I was familiar with.

The next area Jeremy wanted to show me was by Nathan Road, so we took the subway under the street to get to that area, and had a wander for a while. Jeremy especially wanted to point out all the signs that overhang the streets. Eventually we found a Chinese restaurant that served Peking Duck, which is a Chinese dish I’d never tried, and Jeremy thought was worth giving a chance. I didn’t have any expectations as to what it would be like, though it was certainly interesting and different!

Doyle was practically falling asleep by the time we finished eating, and I think Leo already was asleep, so it was time to carry both boys back to the ferry to return to Hong Kong Island. Jeremy sort of put his back out from having to carry Doyle for so long, getting back to our hotel.

Sunday, November 28th

Our last full day on this trip was one of the ones I was looking forward to most because the plan was to go to Hong Kong Disneyland. See, one of my life goals is to visit all Disney theme parks in the world. I went to the American ones as a kid and teen, and we took Doyle to the one in Tokyo when he was still a baby, but this year Doyle would actually be able to appreciate it more since I’ve been raising him a Disney fan. He in fact even requested to meet Mickey, Donald and Goofy.

We left early because we didn’t know what time the park opened, and took the train. We had to swap trains at the stop just before Disneyland, and the Disneyland line had a very special Disney themed train. The windows and hand straps were shaped like Mickey Mouse ears, and there were silver Disney character statues behind glass spread throughout. Very cool!

We actually arrived at the park about an hour before it was due to open, but that gave us plenty of time to buy our tickets and be one of the first in line to enter. We waited patiently, and Doyle was eager. It was probably our only day that he was really excited for. That made it much easier to make sure he behaved! Clearly I have trained him well in Disney interests.

Once inside the park, there were a few places to line up and meet some characters. Doyle and I lined up to meet Mickey and Minnie first, before the line got too long, as it was already long enough for a three year old to have to wait! Doyle managed surprisingly well, even when Mickey and Minnie disappeared for five minutes when we were second in the queue. So Jeremy took a photo of us, and then we moved onto the next lot of characters where the queue was really short because people were waiting for, as I presumed, Goofy and Pluto to return, but we actually got to meet Donald and Daisy instead!

Since Doyle wasn’t interested in meeting Chip and Dale, we then continued on through Main Street and stopped for a quick snack before moving onwards to find some rides. Fantasyland was our first stop, and our first ride was The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. We got to go on this ride as a family, including Leo. In fact, the biggest appeal the Hong Kong park has for it, at least in terms of our family is the fact it has mostly tame rides and shows so you can take a three month old baby on most of them.

I can’t remember the exact order of everything we did in Fantasyland, but we did go to Mickey’s PhilharMagic show, which was a 4D experience, met Goofy and Pluto, and rode It’s a Small World. The last time we went on It’s a Small World was in Tokyo, also during the Christmas theme, and I guess it was similar. However, what I liked about the ride in Hong Kong, which I haven’t seen in the other Disney parks with their own version of the ride, was the fact that Disney cartoon characters from various films, such as Aladdin and Jasmin, Belle, Mowgli and Baloo, and so on, popped up in their corresponding countries along the ride.

We moved onto Tomorrowland next, mainly because we wanted to check what time the Stitch show was in English, and I wanted to try Space Mountain – the only roller coaster in the whole park. It’d been many years since I’d been on the ride since I didn’t go on it in Tokyo, and it was different than I remember, so I suspect it was modified for Hong Kong. Still fun though! Jeremy took the boys on Buzz Lightyear while I did that.

We moved on to Adventureland after that, and were just in time for the Festival of the Lion King show, so we watched that before having lunch at River View Café. The only ride we went on in Adventureland was the Jungle Cruise, which, again, was different from the ride at other Disney parks I’ve been to. What I liked about this one was that it included a few things from Tarzan. Our English speaking guide was also pretty funny. I liked that they gave a choice of English and Chinese speaking guides, because in Tokyo, it was Japanese or not riding.

We headed back to Fantasyland next because we wanted to go to the Golden Mickeys show, but unfortunately it was already full, so we rode Dumbo the Flying Elephant while we waited for the next show to go in. Luckily the amount of time that took was just enough for us to get back to The Golden Mickeys and not be at the back of the queue, and still get reasonable seats.

There was only one attraction left that we really wanted to see after that, so we headed back to Tomorrowland. Actually, Doyle wanted to go on a roller coaster, and though I thought he’d be scared to go on Space Mountain, we took him to see if he was above the minimum height to ride. Luckily he wasn’t, so I didn’t have to worry about whether he could go on and not be scared. The Disney cast members (as employees happened to be called) suggested he go on the Autopia ride instead, so he could drive a car. Since we still had a while to wait for the Stitch Encounter in English, Jeremy took him on that, while I walked Leo around Tomorrowland to get him to go to sleep. We met up again just before the first Stitch show was meant to start, and luckily got to be the last people to queue for that first show.

I didn’t really know what to expect for the Stitch Encounter because I hadn’t read the blurb like Jeremy had, but it was really cool. Basically they had an animated Stitch on a screen, but he interacted with the audience! And I was one of the lucky people he picked out of the audience to talk to. He asked me my name, and then who was sitting next to me (my husband) and then he named a planet after us (Planet Dom and Jeremy) before accidentally blowing it up. Oops! It was definitely a lot of fun.

It was 7pm when the show finished, and though the park was still open for another hour, Doyle was getting pretty tired by then, and we’d seen pretty much everything we wanted to, so we didn’t bother to stay for the fireworks, and caught the train back to our hotel.

So, despite being the smallest and tamest Disney park, we still had a spectacular time at the Magical Kingdom.

Monday, November 29th

Thus endeth a most magnificent holiday, on my actual birthday. Our flight wasn’t until a bit before 5pm (though had somehow moved to 5pm, we later discovered), so we had a little wander through the area nearby our hotel in the morning, hoping to catch the travellator up part of the peak (we didn’t because the direction was downwards rather than upwards when we got there) and attempted to find a café or something in order to pick me up some birthday cake. The best we managed was McDonald’s, or rather, McCafé. This wasn’t entirely disappointing because they did offer Australian Lamingtons, which was actually quite a treat for me.

After that, we headed back to our room to collect our things, then carted it all – by walking – to the Macau ferry terminal. This would then take us back to Macau, where we got a taxi to the airport, had to wait about half an hour for the check in to open, and then flew back to Kuala Lumpur. If that wasn’t bad enough, we took a bus and then another taxi to finally get back home around 10pm.

12 Oct 2010

An early 7am flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia meant that we had to be up far too early in the morning. The biggest disappointment of waking up at 3:30am was that Leo (my 7 week old baby) still didn’t ask to be fed until after 5am. He could possibly have slept through the whole night and let us sleep that long too!

We arrived in Cambodia at 8am local time, after a two hour flight. The airport in Siem Reap is small, but I really liked the building � it doesn’t look like your typical airport, rather it has more of a Cambodian architectural look. It took us a while to get our visas sorted out since Jeremy had to fill out forms for four people whilst I kept Doyle out of trouble (and from returning to the air strip), but we eventually got out and met our driver, who took us to our hotel.

During the short fifteen minute drive, the views from the road immediately after leaving the airport were pretty much the depiction of what I might’ve expected of Cambodia had I thought about it � a somewhat flooded road, children playing in the flooded yard of a primary school, and a few locals working in the fields alongside the road. We also saw lots and lots of hotels (some of which had flooded entries for the vehicles), outlining just how much of a tourist town Siem Reap is. It might’ve been expected, though, considering the popular archaeological site and ruins of Angkor Wat nearby, which is the biggest tourist attraction in Cambodia. It was the major reason I wanted to visit the country, though we decided to save our visit for the following day.

It was around 9:30am when we arrived at our hotel but even though check-in time was 2pm, they had a room for us, which we were in before 10am. We dumped our things off and then headed out for a wander to check out a nearby temple (after stopping for ice cream) called Wat Kesararam and then got a tuk tuk (motorcycle pulling a kind of trailer with seats at the back and front) ride to the Old Market. The markets reminded me a bit of a cross between those we saw in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam and Phuket, Thailand. I decided to get some nice pants since I’m kind of lacking in pants that fit my post-pregnancy body at the moment.

After the markets, we crossed the river (where some boys were jumping off the bridge into the water) to find a place to get some lunch. I opted to have Beef Amok, which is a beef dish made with coconut milk and vegetables, and a pineapple shake, which I had enjoyed before in the Philippines. Both were delicious.

Then we wandered back across the river (which was very clearly flooded, and dirty) to another temple called Wat Preah Prom Rath. As we were leaving the temple grounds, we met a tuk tuk driver who told us he got funding from an Australian NGO to fund his tuk tuk business. It then occurred to me � perhaps the reason people from rich countries fund things in places like Cambodia is just so us rich nation tourists can have a better experience when visiting their countries � and meet nationals of those countries who speak decent English. Oh how privileged us rich nation citizens are. We didn’t need a ride since we were just a short walk away from the central market (where I bought some Christmas presents, and Doyle tried to steal a purse), and then back to our hotel where I took a much needed nap.

In the evening, Jeremy wanted to head over to the orphanage for a free dancing show he had picked up a flier for. We caught a tuk tuk down that way and soon met flooded streets. Our driver had to take us past the orphanage to stop just because the street was too flooded. I didn’t really want to have to walk through the water, but Jeremy really wanted to see the show, so I removed my shoes and Jeremy carried them and Doyle (I was already carrying Leo) and we braved the flood water to get to the orphanage. Naturally, the show was cancelled due to the flooding, which we didn’t know was not normal until I asked about how often it floods to the (presumably Australian, judging by the accent) woman we spoke to at the entry, who worked at the orphanage, whilst others were trying to place sandbags in front of the area. She told us the flood was worse than the one they had about a year ago, and the toilets (which are little more than holes in the ground) were already flooded out and so the orphans living there didn’t even have anywhere to do their business. The rain had only come the night before, and the show had been performed the night before. Since we were about knee deep in water, it was pretty understandable that the show could not go on.

Since there was no show and nothing we could really do to help whilst we were both carrying children, we continued on through the flood water and I kept thinking about the orphans. Some locals made sure we didn’t fall in a hole under the water, but not long after we were on slightly higher ground and a tuk tuk was able to stop and pick us up to take us back to the Night Market. We first walked through the Noon Night Market, where I bought a shirt I liked.

The Night market ground was covered in large pebbles, which was very unpleasant to walk over in socks. We made it to the bar at the other end and ordered some food and drinks for dinner. I had a very nice Cambodian green curry and banana shake. Again, very yummy!

After that, we headed back to the hotel, and Doyle crashed pretty much straight away. It had been a long day!

13 Oct 2010

Jeremy had emailed the Australian NGO tuk tuk driver from the previous day to be our driver for the day, but he ended up providing us with his �brother� instead (in quotes because I’m not sure they were literally brothers). Mr Seng took us on a tour of the archaeological sites of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and a couple of other nearby ruins, which lasted pretty much the whole day. I didn’t get to take too many photos myself, unfortunately, since my camera battery died just as I was walking up to Angkor Wat.

Walking through Angkor Wat is pretty incredible, to see the detail of all the carvings in the walls and the stories they told, though they were working on repairing the wall at the back. The tallest part of the temple was pretty high up so I left the rest of the family at the bottom, thinking it was too steep and scary for Doyle to climb up, whilst I went up to admire the views and see the Buddhist altars inside.

On our way back through to the entrance after admiring the enormity of the temple itself, we walked past the number of Cambodian market stalls and got suckered into buying a book, since the guy first said it was US$1 (they use US currency in Cambodia, except the coins) but then changed his mind and said $11, but eventually we got him down to $5. If Doyle hadn’t insisted on sitting down and us then deciding we should get something to drink (I tried the papaya shake), we probably wouldn’t have bought it, but $5 seemed like a good deal for a book that costs $27 in stores. There were other Cambodians trying to sell us things while we drank, though we didn’t give in to them. They all seemed surprised that I was a mother because apparently they thought I looked about 18 and Jeremy 23 � but maybe they were just trying to flatter us so we’d buy something. On the other hand, the girl who told us she was 23 and had a couple of kids herself looked about 15!

We met Mr Seng again after our drinks, and he drove us to the Angkor Thom area, where we took in a number of other ruined buildings. This took quite some time and thus by the end of it we had to stop in the market area again to have lunch (it was about 2pm by now) and were subjected yet again by persistent Cambodians trying to sell us things. This time there were definitely younger girls, one of which tried to get Jeremy to buy something if she correctly named the capital of Australia, which she did. Maybe he should have asked for the capital of every Australian state instead. We still didn’t give in to buying any more of their products � we knew it was cheaper to get pretty much anything back at the markets in town, and clearly their market was pretty much any tourist who only flew in to Siem Reap to visit the ruins. Given how many tourists we saw in this area compared to the town itself, it was pretty clear that most tourists don’t even bother to visit and take in actual Cambodian culture. All they care about is old, falling apart buildings. It’s a bit sad really.

There were a few other sites Mr Seng took us to after that, but by the third one we walked Doyle through, he had had enough (understandable, he’s only three!) so I stayed with him and Leo in the tuk tuk while Jeremy wandered through the last one to take photos on his own. Finally we got back to the hotel around 4:30pm for a bit of a rest until we headed out for dinner.

At around 8pm, we headed out and got a tuk tuk driver to take us to a restaurant we had seen advertise a BBQ dinner and show deal. Whilst we ate spring rolls, tom yum soup, kebabs, rice and fruit salad, we were treated to some traditional Cambodian music and dancing. Neither of us brought cameras, though (mine was still charging), so we didn’t get any photos of that. I thought the way some of the dancers moved their finger and elbow joints was a little bit gross since they moved them in unnatural ways, but on the other hand it was also kind of cool. Not something I would try at home, though!

We’d had a tuk tuk driver wait for us until the show was over so he could drive us back, though we hadn’t actually specifically asked him to. When we got in, he didn’t even ask us where to go, instead driving us pretty much straight there, which was a little creepy until I realised it was probably the same driver who took us to the restaurant. I’m not so good with faces so I couldn’t be sure; I know I didn’t think it was the same guy by looking but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t. He still had to ask the specific hotel we were staying at when we were nearly there anyway. But at first I just thought that we were so recognisable (we’d been noticed by several other locals who spoke to us on the first day as people who had seen us around) that everyone must have known where we were staying!

14 Oct 2010

We treated ourselves to a bit of a late sleep in on our last day before heading out a bit after 10am to the Cambodian Cultural Village, which was just on the main road between the airport and town. This was the one thing I had decided I really wanted to see after I noticed it from the van on our way into town on the first day, and I have to say it was pretty good. It was similar to the Sarawak Cultural Village we visited near Kuching in East Malaysia in that the place consists of several houses in the various styles of different ethnic groups that live in Cambodia, as well as some US style architecture for the Cambodians living abroad. We arrived just in time to catch most of the Khmer Wedding Ceremony show at 11am, and spent several hours wandering through all the various villages, a somewhat scary tunnel (where there were statues of incredibly gross punishments for various crimes, including �breastfeeding in a Buddhist temple,� which was to have a snake attached to the woman’s nipple), and some buildings in miniature.

The Cultural Village was also sadly pretty deserted by tourists, and in fact when we stopped at the restaurant to have lunch, we were the only people there, so they ushered us into a VIP room. I forget the name of the food I ordered, but my drink was a watermelon shake (are you noticing the trend of different types of fruit shakes yet?)

When we finished our lunch, it was time for the next dancing show, �The Immortal life of Khmer Soul,� to start. So we hurried off to that, having only missed the beginning. When that was finished, we went to the wax figures we had missed at the entrance. Probably the most distinctive thing I noticed here was that in the paintings on the wall I noticed, female dancers like the ones we had seen perform were bare chested, and now in reality this is no longer the case, presumably because of Western influence. We really are a bunch of prudes in the Western world, aren’t we? There’s nothing wrong with it if raised in a society where bare chested women is the norm. Maybe then there wouldn’t be such an obsession with breasts among men, and people freaking out about breastfeeding in public. But I digress.

Our morning tuk tuk driver waited for us during the day, so we met him after that and he drove us back to our hotel for the rest of the afternoon, since we figured we didn’t have enough time left to visit the National Museum (the last thing I particularly wanted to see), and Jeremy had to make a skype call anyway.

For dinner we just headed around the corner from our hotel to a small restaurant that looked as though it was the front of someone’s house. We sat on cushions on the floor and ate at a coffee table. I ordered Khmer Curry and Jeremy ordered lak lok, which we shared. We also each ordered different fruit shakes � I had mango, Jeremy had lemon and Doyle had apple.

That was our last full day in Siem Reap as a family, though Jeremy stayed on as he had to be in Phnom Penh next week for work anyway. The rest of us flew out at 8:30am the next day.

There are 7107 islands in the Philippines. We limited ourselves to just one of the nearly 4000 inhabited ones so I suppose you could say we didn’t really explore much of the country. We still explored as much as we were able to with our limited time.

At 30.5 weeks pregnant, there probably aren’t too many women willing and wanting to get on a plane. To be honest, I’m not sure I wanted to either, but the flights had been booked since before I got pregnant, and I was already going to have to miss out on a trip to Macau in August, so the necessity of requiring a letter from my doctor didn’t deter me from the trip.

My first impression of the Philippines, upon looking out the window of the plane as we landed in Clark, was that it didn’t really look how I might’ve expected it to. In fact, I felt as though I could’ve almost as easily been landing in Australia. That impression didn’t last too long, though, once I experienced the congestion on the roads and realised they drive on the opposite side of the road as they do in Malaysia – that is, it seems the Philippines has taken more of an United States influence rather than the British like Malaysia. But this was perhaps to be expected, given their electrical power points and past histories individually… not that I was aware of the US’ specific involvement until later in the week. More on that later.

One of the things we like to do when visiting a new country we haven’t been before is to try the local foods – and fast food chains. When we arrived in Quezon City, where we were to stay for the duration of our stay since that’s where the friend we were visiting works, it was well after lunch time and we were hungry. Reileen (our friend) took us to check into our hotel and then to a nearby shopping complex to find some food. We would’ve eaten at Banapple, but it was too crowded, so instead we stopped in at the local fast food chain Chow King, which is basically the only fast food chain we’ve ever seen that serves Chinese-style food.

After lunch, Reileen had to head back to work, so we just stuck around the hotel until she got off and we could go to dinner – at a group of food stalls known as turu-turo (turo meaning point). Jeremy thought it would be good to try some local food at one of the cheaper local vendors. I ordered sinigang, which is a sour soup type dish, but I couldn’t eat. According to Reileen, they didn’t make it very well. Because I couldn’t stand to eat the sinigang, and Reileen said it was her favourite dish (before trying mine), I swapped it with her lechon silog, which is short for lechon kawali (deep fried pork) with sinangag (fried rice) and itlog (fried egg).

Since we had no specific plans for our trip beyond visiting Reileen, our morning was very lax and spent at the hotel until we decided to go out for lunch and see if we could get a table at Banapple again. This was mainly because the lasagna rolls I had seen on the menu the previous day had seemed too tempting to resist. They were so delicious that I will almost certainly have to see about making them myself.

I was going to get a pedicure next but I didn’t have enough time to before we were due to meet Reileen again, so Jeremy went to have his haircut instead. When we did meet up with Reileen again, she got us a taxi and took us to a museum at a nearby university. The museum had paintings by Filipino artists, as well as an interesting sculpture display in a kind of native basket weaving style that was making a statement about the Filipino film industry. We were told by a friend of Reileen’s that the film director who had overseen the project was expressing his disappointment about how their films were too Hollywood-styled and that they should be making more films that relate their own culture better. It was nice to have it explained to us. Doyle was just impressed by the figures with big penises.

Following the museum, Reileen walked us through the university campus because she thought it would be fun to take us to Malcolm Hall, which was the College of Law building – appropriately named considering our surname and the fact Jeremy studied law.

Though it was hot, we continued walking a little further until we got to a small shopping area, which was mostly filled with places you might need to go as a student, and some small food and drink shops. Outside the complex, we saw a man selling balut (cooked fertilised/empryo duck or chicken egg) but we were not interested in trying that. I did, however, get a nice strawberry flavoured drink from a shop called Zagu, but requested the removal of the tapioca pearls.

We then took a jeepney (public transport that is kind of a large tuk tuk, where passengers jump on board through the opening at the back – there is no door – and sit on a long bench on either side, squeezed between a bunch of other passengers) to TechnoHub, a shopping area in the IT district, in the hope that Reileen and I would be able to get pedicures. Unfortunately that didn’t work out so well, so we just took a taxi back to the area where we were staying to get pedicures there. We didn’t go to the cheapest place we could have, but considering we only paid the equivalent of about US$6, when I’m used to US$10 priced pedicures in Malaysia, or US$38 priced pedicures in Australia (none of which I had ever actually had), I was quite content to pay it.

Since Jeremy had gone back to the hotel with Doyle in the mean time, Reileen and I just picked up some supplies for our dinner, figuring Doyle would be asleep by the time we got back, which he was. I suppose after the lack of success with the Filipino food I tried the previous day, I was a little hesitant to try again. Though we did have some leche flan Reileen had made for us for dessert, which was quite delightful.

Reileen figured an early 7am start was best in order to avoid the worst of the traffic congestion since she hired us a driver for the day to take us down to Tagaytay, which was about two hours away from where we were staying. Our first stop in Tagaytay was the People’s Park in the Sky, which included a derelict, unfinished building/palace for a former Philippine dictator, President Ferdinand Marcos, and overlooked the town and nearby lake and Taal Volcano. Our second stop was to get a closer look at the lake and volcano from the back of a famous hotel in the town’s history, which was our driver’s suggestion.

We then made some other stops at a local market and Catholic church before stopping into a Filipino food restaurant chain named Densio’s, ordering a selection of foods to share. The best thing I had was probably the pineapple shake, but we also tried crispy sisig (pig ears, which thankfully we weren’t aware of until we finished eating), pinkabet (a vegetable dish with ampalaya and okra, squash, string beans with shrimp paste), kare-kare (oxtail in peanut sauce), and more sinigang, which I refused to try again. Though we were full by the end of such a large meal, we also ordered the Filipino dessert halu-halo (which literally means mix-mix, since it’s a mixture of lots of different things like jelly, jack fruit, tapioca, and other things, and was served with yam ice cream).

On our way back to Quezon City, we stopped in to buy some buko (coconut) pie, as well as pineapple and apple pies. We didn’t eat them right away, instead saving them for the next few days, but I would say the pineapple one was my favourite.

We also stopped in at the Mall of Asia in Pasay City, which is said to be the 3rd largest shopping mall in the world. I’m not really sure how the judge these things because although the Mall of Asia takes up a lot of land, it’s only two floors high, and felt comparable to Malaysia’s Sunway Pyramid, which might not use as much land, but still has a fair chunk of it, plus a lot more floors. Both malls have indoor ice skating rinks, probably of similar size.

From the mall, there was a magnificent view of the ocean, and the sea breeze was excellently strong, which is demonstrated by my hair in the following photo.

We detoured off the main highway on our way to our last stop, where I noted quite a few streets had been named in an American fashion – from Connecticut St to the numbered 11th, 12th, and so on streets. Is there any part of the country that hasn’t been influenced by the US? Our last stop before returning to the hotel was Reileen’s house, where she collected a movie for us to watch in the evening after Doyle went to bed. Dinner was simply leftovers from the previous night.

After a long day on Saturday, and expecting a long day on Monday, we decided not to get up too early today. The first thing on the agenda was to head out to a market for breakfast and to look at the stalls. This was actually where I found my first Filipino dish that I loved – embutido, which is like a pork meat loaf roll mixed with eggyolk, pickles, capsicum, raisins, carrots and celery. I ate it with a serve of white rice and a spring roll on the side.

There was a wildlife park across the street from the market, which we decided to visit next. Here we got to see a few native species to the Philippines, as well as some non-natives like Australia’s cockatoo.

Plans were made to meet some of Reileen’s friends in the afternoon, so from the wildlife park we took a jeepney to a train station, had lunch at a Jollibee (another Philippine fast food chain) at a nearby mall, then took the train to meet them. Unfortunately their plans to take a ferry down the river had to be cancelled due to the fact that the ferry didn’t run on Sundays.

After some quick thinking, the plans were changed, and we took a couple of taxis down to Manila Cathedral, which I believe was the first church built by the Spaniards in the 1500s.

From there it was just a short walk to Intramuros, which is the Wall City built by the Spaniards in the 16th century and houses a museum about the national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, who led the Philippines to their independence from Spain 112 years ago (the anniversary being June 12th, the day before we visited). At this location is where I learned the US occupied the Philippines not long after, which is why the Philippines seems so influenced by the US. I also learned from Reileen that the reason there are so many Filipinos in the US state of Hawaii is because the Americans wanted to basically steal the superior Filipino way of growing pineapples. Before we left Intramuros, Doyle decided he wanted to go on a horse and carriage ride.

Our last stop for the day was Ocean Park, a mall that overlooks the ocean, in the hope of seeing the sunset. Unfortunately it was a little too overcast for that, but we still enjoyed some drinks overlooking the ocean. Then we went indoors to a mostly Asian food court styled restaurant, where most people ordered Malay food and were unsatisfied. I was the only person who ordered Western food, and the only person who didn’t have anything to complain about.

We rose at 6am this morning since we had booked a cruise to Corregidor, only to be told when we arrived that I was “too pregnant” to board. Despite saying I was fine and would sign a waiver, they insisted that the lack of medical facilities on the island meant they weren’t willing to take that risk. This ended up being a wise decision by the cruise company since I fell ill only a few hours later, but in the mean time we wandered around some buildings nearby and eventually took a taxi to a Jollibee. We stayed there until we would be able to walk to the National Museum in time for it to open at 10am.

Unfortunately we were unable to explore the entirety of the museum since that’s when I started to feel sick – possibly from the heat (my face had been soaked in sweat even sitting outside at 7:30am), dehydration, or something else entirely. I don’t think it was something I ate, but who knows? It was a pretty bad stomach bug. So without getting to see any of the 4th floor of the museum (which was interesting, what we did see), I insisted we take a taxi back to our hotel, where I stayed for the rest of the day. In the evening we met a couple more of Reileen’s friends, ate a giant pizza, and watched Doctor Who. So much for trying to enjoy the local culture!

Since I was still unsure of how I was feeling from the previous day, I pretty much spent the whole day at the hotel again until we went out to have dinner at a Turkish restaurant across the street. Had it not been raining so much, I am sure we would’ve attempted something else, but as with most travel, you really must be flexible when the weather doesn’t allow.

The following day was another early start and simply included a trip to the airport. Jeremy had already left at 3am for a flight to the US, so Reileen rode the bus to the airport with me and Doyle.

The main lesson I learned is that sometimes it really is better not to have specific plans about what to cover when you’re travelling.