we ended up at Dulles

we ended up at Dulles Town Centre again last night for some food at Uno’s Chicago Grill – funnily enough another entirely deep fried meal here in the land of the free 😉 – I am so glad I did my 3 mile uphill run before hand.
Woke up at a normal time this morning and then had a huge breakfast. Weather is fantastic here and it’s a shame we are spending all our time in conference rooms and training rooms. Roll on the weekend I say.

I was interviewed on Watchdog

I was interviewed on Watchdog
I was interviewed with a work colleague who lives near me and we complained about Connex trains. The BBC researchers decided it would be amusing to have us in a restaurant where we could not get in or there were no seats or our table was late – puns about the poor service from Connex. It was fun actually filming it but you realise how hard it is for actors who have to do that sort of thing every day. Oh and the food you see us eating had been there all day and looked lovely but was stone cold. So this one is also true.

okay well we ended up

okay well we ended up out on saturday night and took dave to his first gay restaurant, pub and club all in one night :o)
We had a really nice dinner and then went to JR‘s and finally to Badlands which was alright actually. Had a very fun night but another one with way too much alcohol. Finally got back to the hotel at 4am and carried on drinking. So check out on Sunday was bad :o(
We went into Georgetown for brunch Dave, Scally, Max and myself it was a really nice relaxed coffee and food in the Starbucks Cafe within Barnes & Noble.
Scally and Max then went off to the airport to catch their flight home. Unfortunately the flight was delayed [as somehow scally always manages to be on a delayed flight with a medical emergency] but hopefully they made it back home safely.

In other news the register picked up the story about our office in the UK having no clocks today

okay well all the scary

okay well all the scary people have left the hotel now and it is much quieter. We took a spin in hte car yesterday to go over to Springfield Mall [dave wanted comic books] and then had a huge detour on the way back as the I95 southbound had a major crash and traffic was piled up. We got to see a lot of the Virginia countryside though – and realised it is not all like reston – a lot of it is but not all!
Sat in the hotel bar for a while last night and drank way too much again. Absolut Mandarin and Cointreau amongst the shots we had and Dave and I had to order food to the bar in an attempt to sober up.
Went into the office this morning and got Dave sorted out with a security badge and met up with some of the AOL staff here – also took him to the AOL shop – you know the kind of thing AOL Time Warner branded goods. I erm must admit to having bought Jack a little AOL jacket in case it rains – dogs you know are really not waterproof and need little rain macs – I may even have to take a pic and send it over to ickle.org.

okay well I am back

okay well I am back in London now after the two 8 hour flights yesterday. Melatonin is a fantastic invention. Woke up sleepy [thanks scally for that call] and took Jack out for a walk – he was very happy to see me. I was very happy to see him. Pets they are fab no expectations and they are always happy to see you!
Well I arrived back to the flat like a sauna Elric had managed to leave the heating on manually full for the past 3 weeks so all my plants are a little dead or brown around the edges. The food that I left him in the Fridge before I left was unfortunately still in the fridge [and growing some new life forms] and anything that had been used up was lying around empty. So no coffee or washing powder then :o(
Luckily Andrew had brought me home with Jack and got an indian takeaway so at least we had something to eat!

I am not sure if I am missing Singapore [the company especially] or Sydney [the place and the atmosphere] more. All I know is it has strengthened my resolve to leave the UK for a while. I am going to be asking for that job in Oz with AOL and see what happens. It would only be an eight hour flight to my brother in Singapore then too. Unfortunately Naz will have moved to NY by then – not to worry I’ll be likely visiting Ny more frequently now that hotel expenses have vanished I do like wandering around manhattan. Not sure if I could live there though it’sa ll a bit too hectic like London. Sydney had a much more relaxed pace. Yes I know I was on holiday but you know what I mean.
Met up with Naz a couple more times before I left Singapore and he met the in laws he joined us for dinner on Thursday night. So all in all it was a very relaxing extra couple of days and I’m so glad I did not try and do all the trip in one day. Yesterday was bad enough. We sat and discussed last night how it was like flying to the states and sitting in the airport for a couple of hours and then flying home again . And it felt like it too. The first trip Singapore to Bahrain was made bearable by meeting a lovely boy Mahmoud from Beirut. He had the most piercing blue eyes and was generally a really nice – but a bit str8.
The trip from Bahrain to London had the little screens and games and films so that was alright. Shame I had managed to buy more in Bahrain Duty Free!

So I had better go and do some washing and buy some food and act generally depressed :o(

okay so I am seriously

okay so I am seriously relaxed now and the days are merging into one big relaxed coffee shop/cafe experience. I am struggling to remember what I did on Monday and it is only Wednesday morning. This could in part be to do with the fact I visited the Night Safari last night with Nazir though. I have no real way of describing the experience but I’ll try.
First off my brother’s 10 minute walk to the MRT [tube] station was a bit off – more like 20 minutes. You can tell he drives everywhere. I was lucky in that Pasir Ris is at the end of the line so I could only go west so no chance of getting lost . Changed at City Hall onto the Line North and ended up at Ang Mo Kio. Now luckily while I was making these arrangements with Naz earlier he mentioned N9. So Singapore is great for another reason. Since the names may be difficult to get to grips with if you are a foreigner they also have letters and numbers to designate where they are so Pasir Ris where Alec and Linda live is E12 – the 12th station East of the city and Ang Mo Kio is the 9th station North of the city – come on London Underground sort it out for the lost tourists in London. I was amazed by how clean the MRT is – a bit like Washington DC’s Metro no food or drink is allowed so the trains are very clean. Also the MRT is part of the reason no chewing gum is allowed in Singapore. Anti-social elements were leaving gum deposits on the floor allegedly so hey let’s just ban it completely!
Okay so then I met up with Naz [after a quick call since I had no idea what he looked like and oh yeah suprise suprise I was late]. We hopped on a bus and chatted about his move to New York – lucky devil – I think he will really enjoy is as he seems to be trying to break out of Singapore. He has visited before so he knows what he is getting into. We arrived at the Night Safari and paid our dues to get in and then the adventure started. We initially took the bus tour all around and saw all the big animals and went through a bit of the rainforest there too. Anna our guide took it upon herself to mention that as this was night time the only animals in the Night Safari are nocturnal – like hello. Also if we were wondering why we hadn’t encountered any primates this was because they are diurnal. Okay so I hadn’t been wondering but now I know.
At the end we went on a few walks around the safari – and it is a big big place – it was hard to imagine all of that space inside the city. The zoo here has an open policy so the animals are not caged they use non intrusive barriers like moats and natural cliffs etc. The whole effect was fantastic and the company was great too. My favourite – well okay hard choice between the mouse deer – so cute and small, the sloe loris [I would have taken one home if I thought it would survive in Streatham] and the bats. We wandered through the mangrove bat enclosure. This was such an excellent experience. I have no idea what I expected but it was amazing. I can see where horror stories of bats come from as we watched a few hanging from the netting above and as they flapped their wings it could have been a scene out of vampire bats come to kill you [if a film of that name exists…] Naz pointed out a bat resting not more than 12 inches away from us – so close if we wanted too we could have touched it – probably not a good move though. Totally mind blowing.
Then we wandered over the bridge of suspense – okay wandered is a relative term as we actually loitered for a good half hour chatting filming etc. Smack bang in the middle of a rainforest with no other people around it was very very hard to remember you where not lost miles from anywhere but actually within the Night Safari. If I ever become a millionairre [any suggestions?] I would love to have a hut in the middle of that. Yeah I know it defeats the object but you know what I mean.

Before I go I have to mention the toilets too. Walk in the door and you are still in forest. Very well done the Night Safari Team and thanks to all the rangers who help make it happen. I can well see why Naz goes so frequently.
So tonight hopefully drinks on the [allegedly small] Singapore scene. So I’ll keep you posted. Oha and the whole HDB thing… Yeah I’ll mention that later I think this post is quite long enough already.

still in sunny hot singapore

still in sunny hot singapore
hey well this having fun thing is turning out to be quite tiring lol.
okay so sunday I managed to fit in Changi Point – a lovely stretch of beach which wasn’t that busy actually – after of course another coffee bean breakfast – too much of a good thing [never]. also managed to go and do some shopping with Alec and Linda and erm ended up at Ikea. Yeah I know. Ikea in Singapore well it wasn’t actually that bad but hey makes you realise just how global marketing works. The main difference here is that Ikea is not on an industrial estate miles from anywhere and it also has a burger king and other stores in the same building. A concept hard to grasp when you have seen Ikea in action in the UK.
Today [monday] Alec phoned in sick [well actually he was kind of ill] and he and linda went to the doctors whilst i caught up on my plans for the week and watched a travel programme about sydney. They came back with enough pills and potions that I thought they may be seriously ill. They like their pills out here – which is strange for a country that kills drug traffickers.
Discovered also today that had I brought in the gum I had in my bag and the book on my bedside table I would have broken two laws here. One is no gum – possessing it is fine chewing or importing are a big no no. And the book on my bedside cabinet – philosophy of the boudoir [marquis de sade] is banned here so importing it is illegal too. Good job I opted for memoirs of a geisha instead! which is excellent by the way – highly recommend it – haven’t been able to put it down much.
this morning we went to a food court and had some more lovely food. I could seriously move out here – food and heat lovely.
Also went to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve to walk in the rainforest. Singapore is one of two cities in the world enclosing a rainforest – Rio de Janiero being the other. So I thought I better take advantage of it whilst I was here.
Also went and bought some tourist tat – not too much but I promised to bring sprogg something home. Ooh and had more lovely food too and a luck cup drink thing with wierd little black balls of goo at the bottom – not v. impressed but hey possibly that is because I nearly choked when they hit the back of my throat whilst i was sucking hard on my straw.
So gonna go try calling Naz now and see if we can arrange to meet and sort out the night safari – go look at the site [linked last post] it looks fantastic.