Singapore - TC, Nick, and Tookie

Wow I just got off the Airbus 380xx. For those who are not aviation aficionados the A380 is airbus new double decker jumbo jet. It is the largest airplane in the world bigger than the Boeing 747. And I got to say Singapore Airlines rocks. Their economy class is almost as good as United's business class. They feed you 3 times on the flight over and give you hot towels for each meal. The entertainment system is second to none. Love you Singapore Airlines. The A380 is a modern marvel I walk upstairs and downstairs to check it out. Their first class has private rooms. The upstairs is as roomy as downstairs. The jet is super quiet when it flies. Loved it!

I get into Singapore and catch a cab to my college buddy TC and his wife Tookie's place in Singapore. I arrive at TC's manor and it is a 3 story house with a little yard which in Singapore is saying something because space is such a premium. His place is in the suburbs of Singapore outside the city. I don't even want to know what he pays for it but nevertheless it's nice and comfortable. I get my own room and bathroom so I am stoked. The next few days are spent living it up in Singapore city style.

I head to the city to visit Nick a buddy of TC's who I became friends with back in San Francisco. Nick has a great apartment in Singapore right in the city. It's on the 16th floor with great views and is small but nice. Nick is doing well but in true Nick fashion he would argue his life is in flux and he needs to figure things out. Ah how I miss Nick's cynicism. We have a great time catching up.

Nick's Pad In Singapore

Private pools in Nick's apartment building

Best view for doing squats ever!

Couple of observations about Singapore. Wow has is changed since I was last there for work in 2006? There are buildings everywhere and I mean literally everywhere. The Singapore skyline is filled with two things tall buildings, and sky crane's. Since 2006 they built the Marina Sands Hotel a fixture and national symbol for Singapore's skyline. The Marina Sands is this huge shopping, casino, and hotel complex, with what looks like a giant cruise ship sitting on top of the 3 buildings. It's a wonder to look at. Secondly, Singapore is expat central filled with tons of people from all over the world. In some neighborhoods it doesn't feel Asian at all. Thirdly, the locals do not seem to be happy with the influx of outside settlers. Singaporeans just don't give me the warm and fuzzy. In any case Singapore is very much a metropolitan melting pot that is leading the way in urban architecture. A must visit.

These buildings didn't even exist the last time I was there

The famous Marina Sands from a distance. Looks like a boat on top of buildings.

Nick and I pose for a shot with Marina Sands

Inside the Marina Sands Shopping complex very much a Vegas feel to it.

Up top on the boat at Marina Sands

Front of the gigantic boat

Doru a buddy from college who is going to be traveling with me in Singapore and Thailand joins me after the second night. Nick, Doru, and I head to this ultra posh Singapore club where a buddy of Nick's is celebrating his girlfriend's birthday. This girlfriend comes from a well to do Chinese family as she puts down major cash for these oversized bottles of Moet Champagne. It felt light Vegas and we partied it up with the locals who rock out to the same stuff we listen to back home. It's nice there is always a piece of America everywhere you go.

Our last day in Singapore we head to Sentosa Island for a beach party at the beach club. Again it feels like a Vegas pool party. Lot's of alcohol, loud music, and bikinis. Singapore is certainly a party city and after 5 nights there I am ready to move onto the quieter beaches of Phuket.

Cairns - It's time to Scuba and Sky Dive

Recommendation do not take an overnight bus if you expect to sleep. Reason being every two hours when the bus stops in the middle of the night the driver gets on the PA system and announces where we are and suggests we go get a bite to eat. Goddamn it man, it's the middle of the freaking night what can I possible want to eat.

I arrive in Cairns in the morning at the Travelers Oasis hostel half asleep. All the day trips have left for the day and I am looking for something to do. So what's the best thing to do when you have had no sleep the night before? That's right the best thing to do is jump out of a plane and wake your ass up. So that's exactly what I decide to do. I book my skydive with the Tandem Cairns skydiving outfit. The shuttle picks me up and we drive over an hour south to drop zone.

The drop zone consists of a grass runway for a plane and a landing site for the skydivers. Fear starts to settle in but I'm used to this feeling from my experiences in New Zealand. Immediately they pair us up with the guy will we be jumping with. I meet John, my jump dude, my partner, my life saver, my God, whatever you want to call him. And of course like clock work he immediately starts to mess with my head. "This is my first tandem jump ever" "Hey Scott can you come over here a minute and show me how to properly harness this mate" His skydiving buddies would then come up to me and say "I'm sorry you're stuck with him" "Oh crap I cannot believe they paired you up with him" Yes it was constant and non stop and reminded me of the Canyon Swing in New Zealand.

Yes that's the plane sitting on the grass runway.

Then I make a fatal mistake. John asks have you ever been in a small plane? As a matter of fact John I have flown small airplanes. His response, "Hey guys did you hear that we have a pilot with us!" Oh no what have I said. "Well mate were going to make this jump extra special for you," John says with a twinkle in his eyes. I guess there must be some love/hate relationship between pilots and skydivers and now I was going to get the brunt of it.

John's evil smile!

We load into the plane which is made up of two long benches running the length of the fuselage. We sit in either row with each of our Skydiving coaches straddling us right behind them. The plane takes off and there is no going back, I will be jumping! It takes 15 minutes to climb to 14,000 feet the highest we can jump from. During that time all the skydiving coaches are messing with me. "I don't know about John's straps" "John is a little overweight" Enough already I know that at 14,000 feet I can expect a free fall of about 60 seconds. I was told the first 10 seconds will be spent pondering the thought "Oh shit, I just jumped out of a plane". There are lights in the plane that go from red to yellow to green. Yellow flashes and that means get ready. The door opens and the light turns green. Three people ahead of me one by one jump strapped to their coaches. It's my turn and John pushes me up the row to where the door is open. I sit on the edge of the plane my legs dangling at 14,000 feet my heart pumping at 14,000 beats per second. I look down and can make out a tiny green cross in the grass. That's the runway and landing zone. John instructs me to cross my arms across my chest. 3-2-1 we jump!

Oh God why did I sign up for this?

OMG! I'M FALLING! I can feel it in my stomach for about a split second as we flip over and over. Then John taps me I uncross my arms and put them out in front of me. "F-ing Amazing" All I can hear is this loud swooshing sound as we fall at over 200 km/hr at terminal velocity. This is unreal and the most incredible feeling ever. We do spins, I see the Ocean, I watch as the earth becomes larger and larger. John is yelling at me to look into the camera but I just try and take it all in. I'm flying and I love every second of it! As my mind starts to process everything I hear a tug and then a hard pull on my legs and harness almost ripping me from the sky as the chute opens. It is a bit violent, but incredible as you go from this loud swooshing sound to this peaceful almost heaven like quietness. We are now gently floating back to the earth, no sound, no wind, just breathtaking views of Australia. 2 minutes of flying and John has me lift my legs up in a seat like position and gently we land with me sliding on my butt. I lay on the ground for a minute to take it all in. I did it! I jumped out of a plane! Oh wait John thanks for saving my life and thanks for the ride! Skydiving it right up there with the highlights of this trip.

Holy shit, I'm failling!

My best Keanu Reeves Impression, YEAH BODIE!

Yes that X is the runway

Chute deployed and enjoying the scenery

Thank you for saving my life!

We trek back to Cairns and ofcourse I choose to celebrate that evening with a pub crawl through all of Cairns' waterholes. The pub crawl group is lot's of fun and we all dance and celebrate the night away. The next day I get up early to catch a shuttle for the liveaboard boat I will be on as I will be doing another 6 dives at the Great Barrier Reef. I will stay one night on this giant floating ship.

It takes us 90 minutes to get out to the Reef hence the reason for living aboard. We get briefed on our dive sites and I buddy up with this girl named Cristina from Italy. She doesn't speak a lot of english but enough to get by. I lead the dives and she follows along. We explore beautiful corral gardens, lot's of tropical fish, morray eels, sea turtles, and reef sharks. The dives are awesome and I decide to use a few of them to persue my Advanced Open Water certification. My instructor Han from Japan takes me through a deep water 30 meter dive and then we also do a night dive with navigation. 2 down three to go and I am nearly halfway to my certification.

The next day I head back to Cairns and go on a tour of the Tablelands. The Tablelands is this giant plateau of lush rainforest, waterfalls, etc. hence the term table. Our Tour has us stopping at a couple of lakes, visiting a few waterfalls and checking out this strange tree, and if we're lucky we will catch a glimpse of a platapus.

Overlooking the Tablelands

Cathedral Tree

First Lake stop of the day.

2nd Lake

Cool cloud reflection off the lake

Cow crossing the road, no biggie

First Waterfall Stop

Love this tree from a great viewpoint spot!

2nd Waterfall stop

Natural waterfall massage

Random dog decided to jump into our minivan

The Tour was a ton of fun and I would recommend anyone visiting Cairns to check out the Tablelands. Unfortunately we did not spot any platypus in fact we stared at an empty river for about 30 minutes and gave up. But what I'll never forget from the trip was the flat tire we got on the way back to Cairns. It happened while coming down the mountain. Immediately an American couple sprung into action to try and help our tour guide change the tire, a dutch couple headed up the mountain to flag traffic to slow down as our vehicle was stopped in the middle of the road. I went down the mountain to flag traffic coming up hill. And then there were the Germans... Yes the germans did nothing choosing to rather to stand on the side of the road, drink beers, and smoke cigarettes. I mean come on people you guys make BMWs you would think they would have automobile sense. They had none of it! Enjoy the pictures from this moment.

Empty river with no platypus

Everyone springs to action except the Germans holding beer!

Germany's finest citizens!

The Japanese look on curiously

My last night at the hostel before heading back to Sydney was a memorable one. I made it an early night as I had to get up early for a flight the next morning. I was in a room that slept 6 people but only me and another American were occupying the room. So I'm thinking we are going to luck out for a change and have a double. It's midnight I'm hopping into bed getting ready to turn the lights off when the door flies open. In comes walking the most random group of backpackers I have seen on this trip. One guy is young about 18 or 19, looks european. The next guy is older and I mean older around 50 or 55, slightly overweight, and red in the face. And the last guy is damn near retired, between 65 and 70, grey hair, and breathing heavily as he walks in. What the hell is this group?

They all start talking in a different language. I can't make it out, but I think it sounds like some kind of Scandanavian country, not sure where. Then the young buck asks, "Where are you from?" America and where are you all from. "We are from Finland!" Oh ok and are you traveling with your dad and grandpa. "Oh no these are guys we met on the bus from Alice Spings to Cairns" Whose we? "Oh my buddy downstairs he booked this room for all of us tonight." So let me get this straight you and your buddy were on a bus and met a 55 year old man who appears drunk, and a 65 year old man who looks like he about to have a heart attack, became friends and booked them at Gillgians the biggest party hostel in Cairns? Am I missing something here? It made no sense to me but whatever. Then the drunk 55 year old guy comes over taps me on the shoulder and says "girls?" Yeah downstairs bro I'm going to bed. So young buck and drunk guy head downstairs, and I'm trying to go to bed. The only problem is that grandpa was still in the room and creeping me out. He is sitting across from my bed and is staring at me trying to talk to me in Finnish. Damn it! All I wanted to do was go to sleep and now I have Grandpa Finland keeping me up. Maybe hostel's are not for me? I quickly grab my headphones, sleeping mask, look over at Grandpa Finland and wave goodnight. And like that my trip to Cairns was over.

I head back to Sydney for 1 night before catching my flight to Singapore. After my night at Gilligan's I check into the Westin Sydney. Yes I'm back to luxury for an evening. I was also lucky enough to catch up with Fran and Andy whom I met in Melbourne. They were in Sydney at the same time so we met up for drinks. Fran had left Melbourne in search of a job in Sydney and Andy was heading back to Germany to start her basketball training. We headed to Darling Harbour for drinks upstairs at Cargo Bar. It was a real mellow evening so we headed back to the Westin and watched Midnight in Paris a great Woody Allen flick. Australia over, Singapore next!