Day 4/5 Brisbane

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Again awoke at around 3.09 in the wide-awake club, this jetlag thing is starting to get on my nerves. It is affecting both Caroline and myself at virtually the same time.

This morning it was the usual routine, telly on, telly off, Kettle on, telly on, telly off, talk then finally drift of to sleep.

When we finally woke at around 11.00, we slowly managed to come to, and again find a friend, the kettle. Today was our leaving day and we had to ensure all our bags were packed and phones, camera’s, ipod’s etc. charged for the onward journey to Brisbane.

Caroline’s tummy clock was ringing and she was in need of breakfast, which by the time we got there was lunch. Due to Caroline’s fish allergy we have to be careful when selecting from a menu, my Chinese is very poor and Asia, is such a huge consumer of fish and sea food generally you have to look fairly hard for a decent lump of bovine. Anyway Caroline and myself decided we would go for pizza, as it is a safe bet, and on a scale of 1-10 it came out at a good 7, as there was plenty left over we asked for a box and took it away, for laters.

We got back to the hotel and grabbed our cossies and books and headed for the pool, I read a couple of chapters and then must have nodded off.

When we booked the hotel, we knew that we had requested a late check out as we were not being picked up to go to the airport until 9.30pm for a 10 past midnight flight, so were needing to be out of our room at 18.00 hrs, but asked reception if we could prolong it, which they agreed we could until 19.00 Hrs, this gave us just enough additional time to shower and shave, and get ready for departure. Our luggage which seemed to weigh a ridiculous weight, even though we had NOT purchased anything, and only used products, like shampoo, mouthwash, etc so mathematically we should have been lighter.

We ventured in to Singapore for the last couple of hours whilst our luggage was left with the concierge, as Caroline wanted to grab some pictures for the Singapore skyline by night then we went back to Starbucks to have a coffee and use their free Hotspot internet. Due to our desire to stay in touch by e-mail and Skype, and taking advantage of free internet at outlets like Starbuck and McDonald’s, this could be a reason why our intake of coffee has soared and we are not sleeping (or is it just the jetlag?).

Our minibus collected us promptly at 21.30 and took us to the airport, we checked in and embarrassingly loaded our luggage on the scales, which groaned, and the attendant told us they were over weight and there would be a charge when we went back to London, (as a matter of interest we asked how much per kilo, the airline told us that they would usually charge s$70 - so be warned if you are overweight - even though the information available to us said our maximum was 20 kilos, they allow for 25 kilos per person, however we tipped the scales at around 57 kilos in total which is a lot more than our flight from London to Singapore). Hopefully we won’t be heading back that way for a while.

I requested a window seat, at the back of the aircraft, as you never hear of a plane reversing in to a mountain, do you!!

We walked on towards security, and were stopped by a retired couple, Janet & Lionel from Chester, who were on route to Sydney to see their daughter who has been out in Sydney for 20 years, they had a beach house just slightly north of Manley beach and were staying there for 6 months, they suggested when we were in the area we should drop by

The flight came and went, on a Boeing 777, which was about 8 hours in duration. Caroline managed to sleep a little (less than 1 hours!!) but I did not, I did see some intellectual television on the flight, the film Wall-e, which I believe was quite a recent film, and other bits and pieces whilst constantly hopping channels.

We arrived at the Southbank Rydges at around 11:00am local time (10 hours in front of GMT, or ZULU time if you work in military or if you are a Zulu). Our luggage was taken to our room and we just got into bed, and slept.

We awoke at around 3.00pm Brisbane time, and started to decant our luggage, in to the drawers provided in our room, we changed, into frogs, then went out and had a walk in the business/banking district of Brisbane to locate “our” bank that holds all our worldly money for this trip. The Brisbane skyline seem intoxicating, possibly due to it being our first night, and that the evening was and clear. We found some dinner and headed back to the hotel for hopefully a good nights sleep.

Andy

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[Frenchbird]

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Hi you two I loved reading your blog! I have just returned from France with Elvyn where we spent a week with my parents... as you may recall we were travelling the same day 7 Nov but certainly in total different directions of the world! I love my parents to bits but God it is hard to live with them in their house for the whole of that time .... bless them. I was very pleased to come back to my surroundings my husband and my house today! Brett has been lovely and had a cleaner to come and do the housework yesterday so I have not got to worry about it this week which is just as well as I have been unwell since last weekend with a cold and a terrible cough! Dont know where I caught it all from but bloody hell it is not pleasant. Elvyn returns to pre-school tomorrow so I actually have most of the day to myself, bliss... Whilst you are busy sorting out driving licences and mobile phones I am now going to focus on Xmas shopping... what a different outlook hey? Cant wait to read your next update, it is soooooo cool. Caro, next Friday as you may remember it is our girls night at Karens. And as my dear husband has been an angel and has bought me a brand new sparkling laptop with webcam incorporated we can skype!!! Do you think you will be able to connect at some point in our evening? Love to both Babs, Brett and Elvyn xxxx