When you look up in Sungapore all you see is a thousand reflections of yourself staring back from the shiny skyscrapers. I wonder if the people here have ever seen stars or if that's as strange to tehm as snow. Singapore is a clean orderly country with a fantastic subway system and strong patches of culture. I stayed in a grimey little hostel in Chinatown with a host who tried way too hard to impress. The hostel smelled very similar to a wet dog and I'm sure cleaning products would have been untouched if ever thought of. I met a British [View Full Entry]

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I have never been so disgusted with mankind as I have been travelling through Malaysia. My journey began on the wrong foot as I took a bus across the boarder into Johar Barau. A girl on the bus asked me if I was travelling alone, and then informed me that JB was the most dangerous city in Malaysia and it was too late in the evening to catch a bus out. I was stuck. She told me to find a hostel and stay there the whole night (skip dinner, no sightseeing...). As soon as my passport was stamped I was at [View Full Entry]

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The North Island of NZ was a refreshing change of scenery. The topography is all volcanic so it finally looks different from Canada!! Wellington is a beautiful city. It's full of art and culture. There was a fringe festival going on while I was there and one morning when I was walking down the street I say a man being painted into the sidewalk as a setup for some photography exhibit. There's a nice promenade and a man made beach that feels almost real. It was made with two tankers full of sand and there was a storm just after it [View Full Entry]

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New Zealand (miniature Canada) is a dreamy playground for mountain lovers like me. Unfortunately I was not met with the warmest welcome. Arriving in the airport I was selected for a random bomb search with a full pat down, when I picked up my bag from luggage claim the K9 team (a tiny beagle) got me pulled over and I lost a bag of dried emu meat, and I spent a good hour in quarentine where my bag was pulled end from end and all of my shoes were cleaned, no complaints though, this pristine country was well worth the hastle. [View Full Entry]

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Even though Fiji just went through one of its worst cyclones last week it was still paradise. My first night was spent on the main island in Nadi. I fell into a pile of luck since there was a two hour dance ceremony that night. The fijian dance troup went through all of the dances of the pacific. There was knife throwing and fire dancing and the troup danced through the rain. At the end they asked if anyone was canadian and I put up my hand without thinking, it turned out that I became their first volunteer to learn some [View Full Entry]

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For all of the hype that Cairns gets, there's actually nothing to do there. It's the adventure capital of Australia, but you have to drive at least an hour away for any kind of adventuring. Not to mention the rain. I was fine wandering around the city, swimming in the lagoon (yes, they have one too), and pretending to be interested in buying any of the overpriced souveniers at the nightmarket until the rain started. At first it was just a light drizzle, but withing ten minutes I was in a torrential downpour. It rained six inches in a n hour, [View Full Entry]

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Airlie beach is a big name when it comes to travelling the East Coast, so I was suprised to find that I could walk across the entire town in five minutes. There's absolutely nothing to do but sit around the lagoon (a huge swimming pool - you can't swin in the ocean here because of jellyfish), eat, and go out to the "nightclubs". The town itself is built into a hill and reminded me of Andrews pictures of the Italian coast. After spending Australia day sleeping and reading by the lagoon I was toasted to a bright crimson. Australia day seems [View Full Entry]

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I took a nightbus to Rockhampton after camping. The Britt girls and I shared a cab and made it to the bus station with three minutes to spare! I managed to have a decent 4 hour slee[p on the bus and got cleaned up at the station in Rockhampton which has showers. Showering in a bus station is beyond classy. At 10 I met my guide for the day. His name's Dave and he doesn't believe in shoes. The inside of Daves van has no seatbelts and is covered in messages that other travellers have left using a rainbow of markers. [View Full Entry]

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After being well fed and rested in Brisbane I caught the nightbus to Hervey Bay. The hostel is nice but very overpriced. I arrived at midnight, and I headed out on a tour at 6 in the morning, so I really didn't get my moneys worth. The tour of Fraser was the best experience yet in Australia. I was in a Euro trip-type bus (myself, four people from Ireland, one girl from C.R., one from Germany, and two brit girls). The British girls think I'm "so fucking lovely" (quite the mouth on them) and they took videos of me talking randomly [View Full Entry]

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I decided to split up my day on the bus with a visit to the Curumbin nature sanctuary. In Byron I had met a guy on the beach who used to work at the nature sanctuary and he said it was one of the best places in all of Australia. I travelled to Burleigh heads and dropped off my stuff at the surf school for the day before hopping a bus to Currumbin. I checked out the honey house (honey is a big deal here, and I'm not sure why) and bought some tasmanian honey which is suprisingly spicy. I want [View Full Entry]

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