The flight is only eight hours, and the time difference between the two cities is 2-3 hours (depending on daylight saving) so we shouldn’t be jet-lagged, but Singapore Airlines was determined to feed us. By the time we’d had dinner and settled, it was midnight, and they woke us at 4:00am to start breakfast.
We’re home from our international travels. A little bit tired. It’s an overnight trip from Singapore, leaving at 9pm, getting back into Melbourne at 6am. I even manged a couple of hours sleep, but we’re still sleeping most of today. Overnight travel drains you.
We’ve some local travel still to do (then back to work after Easter, sigh), but we’re back with consistent internet access. I can’t believe how much I rely on (reasonably priced) internet access nowadays.
We’ve a few comments and mails from readers. We’ll start replying to those as soon as we’re coherent enough to form full sentences.
The view from the bar on deck eleven. It’s the first real cloudy day we’ve had. No rain though.
I’m sitting in a bar on deck eleven. Behind me, two women have a private dance class. They’re dancing to Footloose. I’m not even watching. I’m sitting, facing a full window. There’s a little patch of grass outside. I can’t determine if it’s real or fake. It looks real, but I cannot possibly see how the crew can maintain it, so it’s probably fake. But it’s the realest looking fake grass I have ever seen.
Past that is the sea, and off in the distance I can see land. (I think. I need binoculars to be certain.) Everyone is at lunch, so up here on the eleventh deck it’s blissfully peaceful.
We’re cruising, and life is relaxing.
The South China Sea is like a millpond. It’s funny to realise that although we’ve cruised before, we’ve always cruised on the ocean. This is our first sea, and the ship doesn’t roll much at all. (This ship is so smooth you can’t even tell when it moves away from port unless you’re actually watching.)
We’re into the last week of our overseas holiday. Next week we’ll be jet-lagged, but home.
It will be good for the blog, at least. On holiday, it’s hard to think of anything but holiday posts. 🙂
Our local shopping centre is in a permanent state of expansion. They finish one extension, and then start on the next. Or that’s what it feels like, anyway.
They recently opened a new section and hooray, our movie theatre is back.
Naturally, we tried it out.
Nice theatre. Reclining seats and all. Everything’s classy and new and beautiful right now.
Expensive too. They charge more for the nice seats.
Going to the movies used to be something you could afford. Not any more. Or not often. Luckily for us, our phone company gives us discount tickets, so it could be worse.
What did we see?
Inferno
The movie complex had just opened. There were five of us in the theatre.
Sherylyn has read the Dan Brown books, I haven’t, but I have seen the movies. And enjoyed every single one of them.
I enjoyed Inferno, too. It had some interesting plot twists, some I didn’t see coming.
Adrenaline packed fun.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Tom Cruise has been in a lot of interesting movies over the last few years. I loved both Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow.
Tom Cruise often plays ‘out of character’. I don’t know how many of you remember the fuss when he signed on to play Vampire Lestat, because Lestat is blonde.
Jack Reacher is blonde too. And he’s 6’ 5” (looks a lot like Lee Child, in fact). He’s nothing like Tom Cruise (a foot shorter, brown hair). But I think Cruise does a good job of Reacher, even without matching physically.
This was another movie I enjoyed. Again, lots of action, although the story was pretty straightforward.
We haven’t had a quiz for a while, so here are five aliens from books for you to identify.
Some of them are a little obscure, but they’re all from books we have in our library.
And no, it doesn’t include any aliens from Alien. Or ET.
Alien One
My people (a whole ship of them) are stranded on a distant planet (Earth) and we want to go home. We have membranous bodies that can’t survive long in the new planet’s atmosphere. We survive by finding hosts to inhabit. Over the millions of years we have been on this world our people have split into two factions. Now we’re at war, and using our human hosts to fight the war for us.
Unfortunately, my last host was betrayed by one of my people who went over to the enemy. I had to find a new host in a hurry.
Alien Two
We begin life as female, become male once our egg-laying years are over and change to something else again at the end of our life. I am currently male. I look like an otter crossed with a gecko, but I walk like a six-legged caterpillar.
Alien Three
I like meat—human, my own race—I’ll eat anything. Although, of course, marines do not eat other marines.
My race has prehensile toes so I don’t like boots.
I can hack into any military system. I am loyal to my staff/gunnery sergeant.
Alien Four
I am the captain of an alien fleet. I am being shot at by humans. I surrender.
Alien Five
I look like a big pink erector set. My favorite pastime is fining the humans on my planet. I use the money from the fines to buy umbrellas, field glasses and slot machines.
Continuing the toilet theme from the other week … the toilet block at the camping ground near Edi cutting, on the King river.
So we’re still on holiday, visiting our mother, who lives in North East Victoria. It’s lovely and green up there right now. (And pretty cold, too.) It’s beautiful.
I think this was at Power’s lookout. Harry Power was a bushranger.
In four to six months all that green will be brown. If there’s any grass left it will be tinder-dry. Or there won’t be any grass at all, and it will look more like this.
Brown dirt.
A quick lesson in Australianisms.
1) Bushrangers are (were) the equivalent of highwaymen in the UK, or an outlaw in the US. Think Dick Turpin or Jesse James. I don’t know what it’s like in the US or UK but bushrangers were (are) often looked on as folk heroes. Despite the fact that they robbed, and on occasion, killed people.
2) And while we’re talking Australianisms, what about a language lesson?
How do you pronounce Carraragarmungee? (It’s a real place. A friend of ours went to school there. There isn’t much more than the school, but …)
Kah-rah-rah-gah-mun-gee. Sound out the syllables. Then, speed it up. Say it at least three times as fast as you did sounding it out.
Karl Urban as Bones and Zachary Quinto as Spock in Star Trek Beyone.
We’re in the middle of writing our next book. (And by middle, I mean middle. We’ve hovered between 68,000 and 70,000 words for two weeks now. Working hard, but the rewrites. 🙂 )
It’s been quite relaxing. No deadlines yet.
We’ve had time to do other things, like go to the movies. There have been some good movies lately. Jason Bourne. And, of course, Star Trek.
I liked them all, but I have to single out Star Trek Beyond. It was good to see all the main cast getting screen time. Especially the interplay between Bones and Spock.
This year has gone so fast. it’s May already, and that means Eurovision time.
Like many Australians, we have watched the Eurovision for many years. Back then we took the British telecast and Terry Wogan’s droll comments were part of the entertainment. (Not sure he’d be allowed to comment that way any more, and I think that’s a good thing.)
So Australia has a long history of watching the Eurovision, but how on earth we ever got to compete … it is the ‘Euro’ vision.
I have no idea what we would do if we won.
Still, I like the Australian song entry. It’s one of my favourites. But then, I’m a sucker for a power ballad.
Last week you were supposed to get the results of the Cherryh quiz, but we took a break to pay tribute to a great musician.
After I posted the EssGee Productions clip from Pirates of Penzance, I went back and watched the rest of the production on YouTube. It’s well done, and has some supremely talented comedians and comedic timing. All week I’ve had Frederick’s song, Oh, Is There Not One Maiden Breast running through my head:
Oh is there not one maiden here
Whose homely face and bad complexion,
Have caused all hope to disappear
Of ever winning man’s affection
…
if you will cast your eyes on me
However plain you’ll be, I’ll love you
Frederick does lack social skills.
Gilbert and Sullivan. Very clever, very catchy.
But, back to the quiz. If you haven’t answered it yet, check out the questions here first. Come back when you think you know the answers.
