2 public holidays and an incident involving the singapore police

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greetings from the southern hemisphere. it's been a hectic few days. friday was the first day of a 5 day celebrating the end of ramadan. we found this out at the bus station in mersing as all the buses were booked up. we ended up making the 134km journey to johor bahru by taxi, we thought 30 euro was a good price. our hotel was right beside the border so on saturday we walked across the border to visit the zoo. the singapore crossing was a like an airport, you even had to put your bags and anything in your pocket through an x-ray machine. had great fun at the zoo, lots of large open space for the animals to walk around. the orangutans were free to swing in the treetops over peoples heads. in the evening we went in the centre of the city to see how close to the formula one track we could get. those cars are unbelievably loud, even from a mile or 2 away, over the noise of the traffic you could hear the screaching of the tyres and the engines. walking around the city it sounded like you were being chased by a swarm of angry bees. we got right up to the track but couldn't see anything, the noise was deafening there. because of the formula one there were no hotel rooms free that night so we had to cross back into malaysia. while going through the immigration checkpoint in singapore the immigration officer didn't believe that i was the person in the picture on my passport . my passport is 8 years old. in the picture i have a shaved face, shaved head and i look like a twelve year old boy. i was told to take a seat, triona had already gone through so for about 5 mins we were looking at each other from across the room laughing in disbelief. i was then taken to the immigration police, they asked me if i had any other i.d. i only had bank cards and an old nui maynooth one. i showed them my right ear which is a bit pointy (from a haircut related mishap when i was four) and then showed them it was the same in the photo. they asked me a few questions like what does nui stand for and what is "bailey at cliat". they were pretty sure that i was who i said i was so they let me go to meet a very relieved triona waiting for me.

on sunday we crossed the border for the 3rd time in 24 hours. got to our hostel in little india which was really nice looking in lovely part of town, it's a pity we were only staying there for one night. in the evening we went back into the city centre to listen to the race. we walked around the perimeter of the track until we got to the victoria theatre where there was a wall with loads of people peering over the fence. the race was staring in a few mins so we decided to stay there and glimpse at the first few laps. we went for a walk around the city, there was a great buzz around the place, all the bars were showing the race (except for one showing the portsmouth match for some reason) and everyone on the street was watching it. the noise of the track wherever you went in the city made it really weird. we stopped off for an outrageously priced drink to watch to grand prix and then went home to pack for our early start the next day.

got up yestersay at half five and took the metro to the airport. arrived in perth around 2.30. it was a public holiday in australia, some old bag in england was celebrating her birthday, because of this there were very few buses and it took ages to get to our hostel. our hostel is nice but a bit hectic, we're staying near the beach. haven't done anything yet, spent the whole day watching dvd's of south park in the hostel. had to wear a jumper for the first time in 3 months. boo!! (and now from Triona - IT'S FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZING!)

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Comments

[catherine]

u smell (paul that is)
love the photos esp the precious poo! u both look so tanned. triona i never saw u with a colour before! missing u both, we've nominated suzi to take over from paul for the secret santa this year... reckon she might do a better job of it anyhow! xxx

[Dave H]

Pointy Ears!
Who ever thought that getting maimed by "Paddy the (butcher) Barber" would come in handy? Don't worry though - If you do get locked up I watched "Midnight express" again the other week.

[Shane]

Re:Dave Watching Midnight Express
Oh No, I just got an image of Dave rubbing his hairy nipples against a glass partition.