Frankfurt to Berlin

Today was a bit of a write-off, most of our time was spent on the ICE train. We got up to 250km/hr. The train ride was quiet and we got to Berlin in time to grab a chicken schnitzel with frites and salat (more like a giant chicken nugget) and a few biers. Time for bed.

Frankfurt

First things first, photos from yesterday:

The "bus"

In the plane to Frankfurt:

Bus tour around Singapore

Note the 60km/hr and 23 pax
High-rise apartments

A church in the city

Departing Singapore

The start of our second day begins in Frankfurt. Trav and I have just slept our first night away at the Hotel-Domizil. Last night we spent some time with "mister Alex" a German engineer that works with Trav sometimes on the mine. We went to motion bar and had many beers. Those that know Perth, will say we're staying in a suburb like the industrial part of Canning Vale. Surprising how much American music they play in the bars.

The night ended with us using our first Euros on booze and calling it quits at midnight.

Grabbing a shower this morning we headed out for a stroll down Nordenstrasse and did a loop around looking at the shops and heading into the local supermarket (miniMAL). The best thing about supermarkets in Germany is that you can buy alcohol off the shelf. For breakfast I had a schinken pretzel and blackcurrant juice.
Bananas here are only €1.49 not the $13 we pay in Perth.

Okay, time to wind up and grab a taxi to the Frankfurt HB (train station). Next post will be from Berlin. Expecting a nice sunny day and 21degrees.

Walking down Nordenstrasse

The motion bar the morning after

Singapore

Well, I've made it in one piece, humid but sunny Singapore. The flight was 6 hours and much more pleasant than the flight I've taken to Cairns of the same duration. During the flight there was dinner served and after that I popped a sleeping pill with Trav and we were in the land of dreams. He slept like a log and kept nudging me, so I didn't that good a rest, but some sleep is better than none. We landed at Changi at 06:05 right on time.

At first we were prepped to get into one of the transit lounges for a bit of a nap, but they were all booked out. So we decided to walk around a little and grab some food. Burger King (Hungry Jack's) and Subway are the same everywhere :) Never thought I'd be hungry for a Whopper with cheese meal at 07:15!

Trav and I then headed around the shops to check out what was around the airport, mind you, the place is MASSIVE. Although the same shops exists in both T1 and T2. Julz, your bottle of Camus is SGD235 - I'll get one for ya mate! I'll also be making sure I grab a bottle of Royal Salute for dad for a belated Father's Day.

After that we headed to the tourist information desk and tried to book one of the free See Singapore tours. Great, room for only one person. So we were told that we could grab the shuttle bus for free to Little India and hang around the Suntec Shopping Centre. We got there on time, checked into the right desk, but we were still messed up. Unfortunately one of the girls at the desk gave us the wrong information and we missed the 09:00 bus. We then waited for the 10:00 bus but we wouldn't have time to see Little India nor Suntec. She was really sorry and offered us a bookmark and a Singapore tourist photo booklet. You'd never get that service in Australia let alone in Wait Awhile, they'd tell you stiff bickies.

That's one of the main things I've noticed about Singapore, everyone is really friendly and will go out of their way to help you and serve you.

Anyway, back to the bus trip - took some photos off the main highway. Motorbikes everywhere. Thing that I love the most is that they have trayback trucks with rego stickers that say "70km/hr" and "8 pax" for the people riding in the back! Awesome.

No photos this time, the connection isn't that fast here at the Rainforest Lounge. Anyways, time to soon get going onto the next leg: Singapore to Frankfurt. We're due in Frankfurt at 20:30 so it will be straight into bed tonight I think.

Till next time...

Final Call!

I haven't really thought about it too much, but I'm going to Europe in about 5 hours. Hmm.
I did a massive amount of work today.

Only God knows how deadlines that never existed seem to find me on the day that I should be chilling out getting ready for the holiday ahead. I didn't even get to eat a proper lunch. At 2pm I thought I was going to die. And if it wasn't for the fact that I was starving, I never would have made it through that bowl of seafood flavoured shite they call noodles. Coke makes everything taste better.

Noting that, I was quite busy today and got a fair amount of work done, stuff that would be waiting for me upon my return to work, so hopefully the severity of it all won't be as bad.
So for now, the final blog before I fly out. I think I've packed everything... Ah well. Got my plastic fantastic to help me on my way.

Here's me almost ready to head to the airport:

I'm chatting on MSN with about 4 people at the same time, all of which keep reminding me that MSN is going to be darn quiet without me. I hate to see what happens at work without me for 3 weeks. The bastards might actually get some work done!

Oh, on another note, I got my hair cut and coloured - time for a bit of a change (as you do).

I'm lucky on this trip as my birthday will be in Krakow, but last night I caught up with Julz and Chloe for a meal at the Queens. She got me a gift wrapped in paper then "engineered" with shrink wrap! Krafty! It was one of the penguins from the Madagascar movie, the Private.

"And me, Skipper?"
"I want you to look cute and cuddly Private. Today we're going to blow this dump."

Domain

Yep, I went out on a limb on Saturday and bought a domain. Why? Because I can. On advice from a fellow G33K, I went to www.godaddy.com and checked out some domain names. I ended up buying www.sulk.cc for USD 19.99 and got free hosting (thanks Rob!).

So, what am I doing with this space? Not too much, just wanted to host my photos etc. I got a blog for general banter, so I figured that would do me.

It was a nightmare to set up though. The godaddy webshite website was horrific to navigate through, and for someone like me that has a fair bit of computer skills, it was tough going. Anyone new to the web would have been lost from square one and ended up buying addons and packages and shit. Everywhere you click there was something else in the way. All the "free" things that are included in buying a domain were kept well hidden. I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone, but I guess many other "buy online" domain sales would be much the same. ˜

Again, big thanks to Rob who helped a sister out in setting up databases etc. (I know nothing about MySQL at all!) and for hooking me up. You're a star! CC on Friday nite yeah?

So, here it is... www.sulk.cc - hope you like it!

˜

Let your fingers do the fighting

Western Australian International Fencing Competition 2006
(AFF #3)

Friday 18 - Monday 21 August 2006
Kingsway International Sports Stadium (Madeley)

So... let your fingers do the fighting.

Hog's Breath Cafe

Trav took me to dinner last night to the Hog's Breath Cafe in Joondalup. The place was really something different! There's a saloon and ye olde western swinging doors, car parts, USA number plates and the food was amazing! They have steaks galore, but I've been a little off beef recently so I stuck with the Hog's Platter (with calamari, beef kebab, chicken strips and spring rolls) and grabbed a cheeseburger with the lot for mains. That was a bad idea, I got two bites into it and thought I was going to die!

Here's the aftermath - yep, today's BREAKFAST!!!


The one thing that did bother me was the bright orange power lead to an old car with the front headlight on. Really discreet guys! LMAO! I recommend you head there one day and grab yourself a steak or a burger! (cos you can't make friends with salad).

AHG Tuning Day

There was a Tuning Day at the AHG track at Perth Airport today so I mosey-ed on down to check out the boys and girls at play. When I got arrived, there was still about half an hour of track time so I still got to see a fair bit. Took some photos on the new camera and caught up with some fellow riders. I really need to look at booking myself (and Trav) into one of these on day...

Some photos...

Photochopping

I must have gone mental. I couldn't help myself. I've been dreaming of this suit for ages... so I did a virtual changeroom session. Damn, that's looks a bit of alright. If I ever buy one, I'll make sure the "real" photo gets on here. Till then... *sigh*

At least I have the boots and the helmet already...

OMGWTFBBQ?!?!?!

Yeah, mum and dad bought a new BBQ on Thursday. A Beef Eater one. That's kinda weird because the only meat that I'm "off" at the moment is beef. For some reason, the meat that I had to have every weekend is now the one I can't stomach any more. Still love my lamb and my pork (teehee!) but can't eat beef. Anyway... here it is!



PS: Yeah Julz, you can come round for a BBQ too if you REALLY HAVE TO...!

1987

Tonight, I went back to 1987. I didn't really want to, but thought "what the hell". Morley Rollerdrome is a scary place. The way you would imagine a rollerskating rink back when you were 5 years old - you can re-live it here. The place even had 1987 prices - entry was $8 for 4 hours of skating and a mega strawberry slushie was $2.80 - simply fascinating!

I didn't actually feel like going out tonite, but I had some paperwork to drop off and you had to pay to get in. Meh, what's $8? And hey, I might even have a go. Heaps of people from Perth Riders were there, as it was Krusty's Birthday (oh yeah, I don't think I wished you a Happy Birthday!!!).
So I got some blades and pretended they were ice skates... they're not really the same thing, but I did find it a hell of a lot easier skating backwards than forwards just from the foot movements, but stopping is a lot harder.

Things were going well till some dude was going waaaay too fast and took me out, what a magnificent fall, it was almost scripted as I lay on the ground. There will be a bruise on my hip for sure, but GOD DAMN that was a wicked stack! Frank can prove it. He was there.

I ripped into the slushie machine about half-time and started the trend... slushies all round! I was the only spastic with a strawberry one though, grape was by far the big winner.

After a few competitions such as toboganning and dodgeball (which I won out of the PR group), it was back to doing a few laps and simmering down. It was really hot in the rollerdrome for some reason, must have been all that legionnaires in the air-conditioning! Check the photos for the proof!

And of course, can't have an adventure without the regulation clown: Frank got his bike gear on (minus gloves) and did a lap of the rink.

After that EVERYONE got their cameras out and just started going mental. I bet there's a few photos of me that aren't that purdy (ech!).

Let's get to those photos aye?

Kids all over the place

Frank tobogganing

Amber

More Frank

PR crew, notice the legionnaires molecules... there was something funky in the air in that place...

Frank getting kitted up

On his way...

The lap of dishonour

There I am!

Finally got one of Jono smiling!

Group shot