Singapore to Australia!

 

St. Kilda, Page, and Sentosa

Singapore was fantastic, and it was great to spend time with Lindsey and Rob. The weather was lovely and it was a great place to do some relaxing and exploring! It was definitely strange to be in an even more western setting, and even managed to get myself into a supermarket with Linds to buy CHEESE!!! and WINE!!! No more 50c beers for me! The city has some great parks...and again more and more shopping! We went to the island Sentosa for the day which is a bit of an odd place, but the louge and lunch were great fun! My trip was fleeting, and soon it was time to pack up and head to Melbourne!
My flight was excellent, and I managed to sleep most of the way...except for my inflight video of choice "Tangled." When I got to Melbourne I headed straight up to Canberra to see some friends from Nottingham and also to apply for my visa for China (an impromptu trip planned with Christian to visit his parents over Easter break). Josh came to pick me up from the airport which was fantastic, and then we went out for some yummy food. My hostel was right in the centre of town which was great, although the crazy Korean girls I was in a room with fancied sleeping with all the lights on which was a bit strange. I spent the next few days dealing with the rigmarole that is the Canberra Chinese Embassy, and exploring Canberra; which didn't take very long. My morning walks with a take-out coffee along the bridge and over the lakes was really nice, and it was funny being in a chillier climate again. I think I overreacted to the weather because of my two months in a tropical climate! I caught up with some of the other guys: Jason, Tim, Macca, and Duncan. But as soon as my visa came through I was out of there and headed to Melbourne! My friend Page who I met in Laos let me stay at his place for the first few nights in Melbourne which was great, and I was welcomed to Melbourne with gorgeous sunshine and a BBQ of "snage" and "doodads." Melbourne is a great city, and I'm staying right on the beach in St. Kilda, but I'm finding it hard to figure out how to spend my time as I feel like I could be in San Francisco or London. The dynamic between travelers has also changed from the "oh look, another backpacker...lets be friends" in Asia, to everyone just getting on with their own thing in Australia. I'm off to Sydney today which I'm looking forward to, and will hopefully be meeting up with a friend I met in India. My feet are finally healing after visiting the doctor and getting on a course of antibiotics which will make tourism a lot easier!