The adventure begins!

Bye D Floor...















And goodbye Union College...

Hello Southeast Asia!

It's been a long year, but after a gradual and gruelling goodbye to Australia, I'm finally back in Southeast Asia. Ian, Ron, and I flew into Singapore, where we met up with Lydia and Chris.


Chris's Singaporean friends who picked us up at the airport.


We stayed in Little India. It was a bit odd being the rare white female walking on streets lined with truckloads of just-got-off-work Indian men, but this just made the sudden shift in worlds more exciting. We were only there for a day, just long enough to grab some samosas plus some unidentified food at a wicked restaurant where we were the only foreigners.


Getting reaquainted with the local brews

Next we flew to Ko Samui, an east-coast island in Thailand. When we got in it was late and we were... tired... so we got in the van of the first person who approached us. She whisked us away down unlit potholed roads and then unlit back alleyways, finally stopping in a place where there were no lights whatsoever besides the light from our van. I had forgotten that this kind of thing is totally normal so I was a bit at unease, but sure enough five minutes later we were pushing two single size beds together for Chris, Ron and I to share in a dingy beach bungalow.

A windy morning just outside our bungalow.

We woke up, ate, and left for the island we actually wanted to be on: Ko Phangan. Mode of transport: catamaran, which incidentally doubled as a rollercoaster, no joke. We sat on deck and held on tight because it honestly felt like one swift turn and we'd fly off into the wide, wide sea! Weirdly it wasn't nauseating at all, just really really fun!

The BEST part was when we spotted a man in the distance in a little fishing boat wildly flailing his arms at us. We pulled over and it turns out the guy's engine had broke and he'd been stuck at sea overnight, for about 20 hours in total! So yea just the regular, saving a man's life...

We've been lazying the days away so far. Drinking fruit shakes all day and cheap beer all night at the beach bar just down from our beach huts. One night the lizards and bats decided to join us too!

It's weird to have left Brisbane but soooo good to be backpacking again. And it's only just begun! Woohoo!

Goodbye Matt and Jenn

Hello hello everybody,

So what's the news? Well, I'm (almost!) done exams and in less than one week I'm flying to Southeast Asia for another month of backpacking!

Matt and Jen left Union this morning for their trip in New Zealand. God I'm going to miss those two... Over the last year Jen has become the epitome of a good friend. It's odd to pass her room knowing that it's empty and that I can't go right in and collapse on her bed. And I don't know where to begin with Matt. He's just a truly amazing person. Unfortunately time moves along and drags me with it! So I guess I'll just have to be content with appreciating it all for what it's been. Hopefully we'll all keep in touch and if things work out right, we'll all see each other next summer at the Calgary Stampede!

But for the moment, I just want to shake off this empty feeling. It sucks to be here waiting for my flight out while those I've grown closest to leave. I really can't wait to get on a plane back to Southeast Asia, get distracted with backpacking, and get all of this off my mind.







































In other news, I've fallen in LOVE.
With Vegemite.
Seriously.



DAYS UNTIL I LEAVE AUSTRALIA: 5