Back 2 London

Hello all, been a while but hey I’m still here. I’ve been here in London with the kid (Freddy from Mirandola). We went paintballing last weekend, had a blast. We also went to a water park, which was pretty boring. But, after the firsthour I spent most of my time reading a book (on Che) whilst Freddy and his friend had fun. At the end they apparently hit it off with some girl, so I gave him some advice which actually worked out- I told him to tell the girl he liked that he had something very important to tell her and pull her aside, when she asked ‘what?’ ‘Just kiss her’ I said. It friggin’ worked and well, wasn’t I just the proud teacher! Heh.

Paintball was great too. We were with some hardcore London blokes about my age, all calling each other ‘blood’ with gnarly London accents and all from some part of London where I definitely wouldn’t belong. But we had fun and have the wounds to prove it!

It all started well, but since then things kinda went down hill. To be honest, I don’t think I was prepared to go back to being on me’ own. I don’t know if it’s just that I miss Jo, or maybe I just wasn’t prepared for it; but, I fell into a bit of depression since arrival. I don’t know. Trying to figure out what to do next can be quite stressful, figuring out the whole money/income thing can be quite a burden…

Sleep suddenly became such a great thing; the great escape. I started sleeping a lot, only waking up when I need to to wake Freddy up for school, to fix dinner or do some side-trip to the natural history museum (which wasn’t as cool as I’d been hoping, although I was led by Freddy who’s been there too many times). Man, I dunno I am figuring this shit out, but I feel that I should’ve made more of this time here. I just wasn’t prepared for the emotional reaction that took place. Eh?

I posted some vids from Koh Phangan that I couldn’t do before due to shitty internet restraints. I’m gonna post a few more on asian-soup.blogspot.com, which Jo and I are trying to keep alive. Which, btw he just posted a Bali post with some pics from Uluwatu, the coral reef spot (after my camera died). So check it out, and I’m gonna keep making posts there as well.

Don’t know what’s next. Oh well, fuck off for now, time will have to tell aye?

Bali

It was a great last chapter in our journey through Asia. For the first time, we stayed in an air conditioned room complete with warm water! Somehow the mosquitos still found their way in to bite us, but overall it was a level of comfort to which we were no longer accustomed. Pirated movies are all over the place in Bali and the prices are incredibly cheap, so on some nights we just stayed in with Mcdonald’s or KFC takeaway and enjoyed our air con while watching movies on the laptop. It was nice being able to catch up on all the flics I’ve missed in the past few months. Bali itself is very commercial by the way, Quicksilver stores all over the place, fast food, Hard Rock Café and more! The streets are flowing with bikes and scooters, often on the sidewalk going the wrong way! The people are pretty aggressive too, trying to get you to buy something (not quite as bad as India tho). So, often our hotel room was a bit of a haven.

We did a little bit of partying on the weekends. Angel met up with us AGAIN- she’s totally stalking us. And, yes we did a bit of drinking- the first since Thailand. My drink of choice was Arak, this strange Balinese sort of whiskey. We dressed up in strange costumes and went out to the clubs, me in my underwear with an umbrella and a tie on my head, Jo with his scuba gear…

So what did we do other than watch movies and build a big pile of trash in the corner? Well, surf of course! First thing we did was rent some boards for 20k/day (rupiah), which wasn’t a bad price- about $2. We started out on Kuta beach and Jo had his first go at surfing. I confess I’ve never been much of a teacher. I sort of just teach ‘em the basics and throw ‘em to the sharks. He did alright tho, particularly on the 2^nd day trying to get up on the face.

As for me, well I had a good time for the first 2 weeks on Kuta, riding 3 foot waves trying to relearn what was surely lost. But I came back and on the last day we went to Uluwatu, a coral reef break that’s fairly shallow. Just the walk out hurts your feet so bad that my feet were all scabbed up! But this place was paradise man, with perfect lefts and the longest rides! It was head-high with the occasional 8 foot set and the sweetest barrels. I’d forgotten how scary it can be to drop into a head-high wave…

After that last surf session, we walked up and had a beer with our meal at sunset, overlooking the cliffs with wistful thoughts about our last days in heaven.

My camera actually came back to life! But I’m too lazy to get all picky plus my pics have been so shait of late that I just threw a crapload down there. Enjoy~

This is a memorial for the last bombing inflicted by terrorists. The picture is shait, but I thought it was pretty cool. It contains the name and nation of every person killed that day; a rather long list...

'at's me! Music video style..

Jo is always giving me the finger when I try to photograph him...

I really liked my board. It was the perfect size for me, methink. When I get back home I think I'm gonna get a smaller one like the blue bandit there.

Jo's 2nd board. He munged up the 1st one.

Making 'the do.'

In certain parts of Kuta Beach, there are all kinds of silly little Bali girls (often muslim) who love to come up and ask either Jo and I for pics. I mean, it was worse than India! Oh, so shy and innocent! Although I confess Jo was the more popular. The man was like a celebrity dude!

This is the part of the beach where they all hang out.

Like an angel...

I loved doing flips in the birdcage.

I often think I was meant to be a stripper. Well, here I am humping a pole. Notice the umbrella. So many girls came up to us that night, and 2 guys tried to pick random fights with me.. Sheesh.

There's Angel and Lenny.

Last days. Bali. Asian-soup homey.

This was our room. Notice what we did to it... Rockstars, baby!