Back in Copenhagen :o(.

Arrived home early Saturday morning on a fairly smooth flight, and starting work again tomorrow after exactly a month of vacation. Oh, it's going to be difficult, but that's how it always is after a long vacation.

It is nevertheless nice to be home again. Home sweet home, as they always say. Oh, I did get a mail from the tax office telling me that I owe them 15,671 DKK (S$4,235) in tax, though. What a nice "Welcome Home!" letter, huh? I did freak out at first, but have since calmed down since there are some "tax-free" calculations that are missing from their records, so I'll need to adjust them correctly. I think I will still owe them some money, but not as much as they think.

Anyway...time to give some updates on our recent vacation. I mean, it was pretty much eating, shopping and meeting up with friends and family while in Singapore, so I'll let the pictures do the talking instead. It'll be pretty random, but I'll try to be as organised as possible.

Singapore skyline

Boat Quay...almost like Copenhagen's Nyhavn, just more "happening".

Bargaining with these dudes.

Raffles Hotel, birth place of the famous Singapore Sling!

Old-style fire station.

Haw Par Villa; a big garden filled with Chinese legends.

"There's someone copying your move, bunsi!"

My very own pet tiger!

This is not an outdoor hospital. It's actually a bar/club called "The Clinic"!

Good it's not a restaurant.

My surname was actually "Subramaniam", so "S. Subramaniam" = "Sheila Subramaniam"? A shop in Little India.

Singapore residential skyline

Cool windows.

Just posing on Sandra's balcony.

Couple in Chinatown.

At my old school! Many fond memories there.

More of my old school.

And again more.

Just me. Random picture.

At the Chinese Gardens.

A pond full of expensive fish!

Did I mention that Singapore is a "fine" city?

Going for dinner at the Equinox, the top of that tall hotel building on the right!

Yup, all the way up to the 70th floor! Good thing it doesn't stop on every floor. The elevator was actually super fast.

A view from the very top! Too bad with the rain.

More views.

That's the Lambogini we drove around Singapore in (yeah, right...I wish).

More pics coming up soon! Next time, it'll be on friends/family, and food!!!

A tanned Sheila is a happy sheila

Yay! Mission accomplished: I got my tan! It's been HOT, HOT, HOT here Down Under, but alas! today is our last day here. Just saw that it'll be -10 deg C in Copenhagen today and snowing. That's freakin' cold, compared to the 30 deg C here in Perth! Heard that it had actually been snowing for quite a few days already in CPH...and it's also still raining in Singapore, so I guess I'll just have to enjoy the last rays of sunshine here for the next few hours before heading to the airport for the flight back to Spore.

Had been an awesome trip here in Western Australia. So many pictures to upload when I get home! Our 2GB memory stick in the camera had ran out of space because we had taken around 520 pictures altogether. Actually more, but had to delete some in order to free up the space.

But yeah, the 7 day outback tour was indeed the highlight. Made lots of new friends too, both humans and animals ;o). You'll see what I mean when I upload the pictures. The only down sides of Western Australia are the very loooooooooong drives to get to places, and the annoying flies.

The last couple of days left in Singapore will be spent doing last minute shopping, and eating all my favourite local dishes. I can see busy days ahead indeed. Hopefully it will be sunny and warm when we touch down in Copenhagen this Saturday morning... . Otherwise, I might just decide not to return to the North Pole ;o).

A sheila in Perth, Australia

Had touched down in Perth yesterday, and so far it's been good! Great weather indeed, so I hope this is the place for me to get some sun :o).

Our outback tour starts at 7am tomorrow morning, and I'm looking very much forward to that. Not the "7am in the morning" part, but the actual tour itself, of course. I hope we'll be with a bunch of fun people, since we'll be pretty much stuck with them for about 7 days.

Anyway, since it's going to be an outback experience, I don't believe I'll have any Internet connection to update my blog, nor my Facebook...so if you don't hear anything from me, it's because I'm in touch with nature.

If you still don't hear from me after say...2 weeks, then I'll suggest one of you start calling the authorities. I mean, who knows if there are any psychopaths out there in the vast countryside of Australia who like to slaughter tourists, right? If any of you have watched the movie "Wolf Creek", then you'll know what I mean... .

Rebond

No, "rebond" is not the same as "reborn" like a "born-again Christian". Rebonding has more to do with hair, and as mentioned in a couple of posts earlier, this was what I did with my hair last Tuesday. So what is it actually? Well, they say pictures speak a thousand words, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. If you're still not satisfied with that, then Google can help ypu understand :oP.

This was actually taken on our day of arrival (we arrived at 6am in the morning), so I do look exhausted as I should be after a 12hr flight and trying to stay awake at least till 8pm. Anyway, hair's not so tame here... .

After rebonding, it's now looking straight, smooth and shiny. It should stay that way for between 6 months to 1 year, depending on how I take care of it.

Can you see the difference? I don't have curly hair, so it would seem strange to want to straighten my already "straight" hair, but sometimes the waviness can get quite unmanageable/annoying, so that's where rebonding comes in as an option. It helps though, that I have thick hair so the result doesn't look too "flat" as it would with thin hair

Cost of this = S$138 (511 DKK). It was on special promotion :o). But I did do some other stuff too so my total hairdressing expenditure was much more in the end :o(. Had did the colouring and highlight today, so now I'm a little bit more fiery red on my head ;o).

1st two pairs of shoes

These were the 1st two pairs of shoes I bought since arriving here. Had bought another pair last Saturday (comfy walking shoes) and was given another pair also last Saturday by one of my best friends, Shirley. My father-in-law said I've become a "bad-influence" on my mother-in-law because she's now stopping at shoe shops and taking time to look at shoes too ;o).

Anyway, these 2 pairs cost a total of S$57 (211 DKK):

Now can you understand why it is so mesmerising to look in every time we walk pass a shoe shop? Well, my female readers will understand, right?

1 week down...

...2 more to go! I know I am quite behind in updating my blog, but every day has just been packed with things to do that by the time we get home, it's already quite late. Also, I still need a card reader in order to upload pics to this computer in order to make my post entries a bit more interesting.

Oh well, I guess I can just upload the pictures later. It's been a week already since arriving in Unique Singapore. Eating, shopping, walking around, meeting up with friends and family, and more eating is what we've been doing most of the time.

Last Tuesday, I had pampered myself at the hair salon. Had rebonded my hair for the first time ever, and though it was meant to be a cheap enough procedure, I ended up doing more pampering than intended. Besides rebonding (which is pretty much the straightening of the hair), I had a scalp treatment, a little trimming, will do colour and highlight tomorrow, will also have a 2nd scalp treatment, and had bought some hair products. The price? A lot. Basically, it's the most I had ever spent in a hair salon in all my life! By Danish standards, it would definitely cost way more (and would be "normal"), but by my standards, it was 20 times what I had paid for my last haircut in Copenhagen!

But ok, I'm on vacation, so I can pamper myself more than I normally do :o). Martin was shocked at the price, but his blood pressure is back to normal now ;o). I just need to remind him that I'm doing it for him ;o).

My parents-in-law like it very much in Singapore. We've taken them around a bit, and they have been around a bit by themselves too. The good thing about Singapore is that one cannot really get lost, and if so, then taxis are cheap enough get you back on track. Actually, one have to be careful about taking taxis all the time, because it can add up to quite a lot in the end. In the weekends, traffic can be on a standstill that it'll be faster and cheaper to take the trains.

It's been raining quite a lot the first few days, but it has gotten a bit more sunny recently. Managed to enjoy an hour by the pool yesterday with some sun, so I don't need to visit a solarium in Denmark when I return to make it obvious that I've been on a warm vacation ;o).

Have also been eating SO MUCH food that I've actually put on 3kgs in 1 week! THREE! But hey, I'm still under 50kgs so I'm not a whale yet. Maybe if it continues on this average per week, then I would start to worry.

But yeah, 1 more week left in Singapore before we head to Perth, Australia. Still so many things to do and people to meet up with, but I hope we'll be able to manage as much as humanely possible.

Touched down in Spore!

Yup! Arrived at 06:00hrs in Singapore (Spore) yesterday. The 12hr flight was very smooth, but unfortunately, we didn't get bumped up to business class on Spore Airlines (SIA...or "Sex In Air" as some say...and no, it not the official Mile High Club). The food was good, service was good, and though the flight was long, I did not fall asleep except for a short nap just after take off.

It wasn't because I couldn't sleep, but more because I didn't try to sleep. Was watching movies and learning new languages onboard the whole flight! So many movies and tv shows to choose from, that time just passed so quickly!

First movie/show I watched was a documentary about Chernobyl in Ukraine, then a documentary about the making of the Airbus A380, then "Alvin and the Chipmunks", then "Juno", then decided to learn some languages since they had some language instruction programmes, then back to watching another movie ("Enchanted").

So yeah, before I knew it, it was then time for the 2nd/last meal onboard! Managed to squeeze in a final documentary on Perth before landing a couple of hours later. No more time for sleeping.

But the thing about leaving CPH at 11:30hrs in the morning for a 12hr flight to Asia is that the day is still new so it's easy to stay awake. However, once you touch down, a NEW day is also beginning, and in our case, it began at 06:00hrs Spore time.

Without any sleep for the whole of "Saturday", continuing the Sunday at 06:00hrs in Spore meant that we had to stay awake for another 12hrs at least! Of course we could sleep a few hours when we arrived, but I had decided to skip the sleep so that I could be super tired by evening time and be able to go to sleep easily. The earlier I overcome the jetlag, the better.

I managed to stay awake till around 20:00hrs Spore time (13:00hrs Danish time), which meant I had been awake for around 28hrs all in all! Now I know how it feels like to be a walking zombie. Anyway...had a good long sleep so though I'm still a little tired now, the jetlag's pretty much over... . I mean, it's 16:31hrs in Denmark now and 23:32hrs in Spore, so since I'm feeling really tired, it is a tiredness that fits in with the Spore time instead of the Danish time.

Anyway, I had better get to sleep soon so that I can be fresh again tomorrow. Today had been a bit of a shopping tour in the main shopping street, Orchard Road. Martin and his parents will do a nature walk tomorrow while I have opted to get my hair done instead (it's going to take around 3hrs for that, so I might as well do it while they spend their day doing something active).

Oh, managed to buy 2 pairs of shoes today for a nice cheap total price of around 215 DKK (S$58). Will put pics up tomorrow because this little laptop we have here does not have a card reader.

Not to rub it in on my friends in Denmark, but I was also at the nice big outdoor jacuzzi 2 days in a row here at Sandra's place ;oP. You guys are allowed to be envious ;oP.