I believe that I haven’t talked about the origin of Something Changed. Something Changed is a song by Pulp, my favourite band of all time. It’s about unexpected and amazing changes to one’s life. Something Changed on October 21st 2006 when I met Glize. As the lyrics go, When we woke up that morning we had no way of knowing, that in a matter of hours we’d change the way we were going.

Something Changed, and the courses of our lives are becoming one on September 14th.

Something Changed:

Glize and I travelled to Australia in March, Glize’s first trip down under.

We took the long route — flying from Singapore to Darwin then spending two days on The Ghan tran to Adelaide, and The Overland to Melbourne. I love long train rides, be it Bangkok to Singapore, or Chengdu to Lhasa. It’s the first time I’ve travelled far in Australia since departing nine years ago.

On the way to Adelaide we stopped for an extremely hot hike around Katherine Gorge, and a camel ride along The Todd.

We stayed in Adelaide for a couple of nights, bringing the cold weather with us (the most rain and coldest weather for months). I’ve always been fond of Adelaide, and it was full of charm beyond what I remembered after fourteen years between visits.

The Overland to Melbourne is now privatised and a vast improment on the skungy night trips of the past. We brought the cold weather with us, ending months of heat.

We timed our trip for cousin Martin and Shaku’s wedding, held at a winery in Coldstream.

It was wonderful to see my family again (and soon to be our family). We had a fantasitc trip, complete with meeting old friends, seeing Alex and Emma’s new baby Thomas, and topped off with a trip down the Great Ocean Road (during which a once-in-several-years wind storm passed through the state and raised massive waves — you get the idea).

A tight and packed itinerary, and “nothing went wrong!” Here are some photos

Oh, and it looks our trip will bring us a baby this Christmas.

Gliza and John visited from the Philippines over Chrismas, and Mum flew up from Melbourne.

We pottered around Singapore and spent a few days up at Cherating, on the east coast of Malaysia. It was the first time I’d been up there since January 1999. The place has lost its charm a little, though I’m not all that sure it had much charm to begin with.

Here’s an album from those couple of weeks

Young Modern, the fifth album by Silverchair, is the best album of 2007. I haven’t heard them all of course, but this album did it for me. I’ve been a semi-irregular fan of the chair since picking up an MP3 CD of their first three albums in Pantip plaza, Bangkok, in 2000. The complete album of Young Modern was available on the inflight entertainment system when flying back from Melbourne to Singapore in June 2007, and I found myself listening to the album on continuous repeat for the entire flight. Since then I just can’t stop listening to this album. Superb is an understatement.,

This isn’t a review. Buy it here.
And I mean it.

Ben’s Mop Sabre

Matt’s Jedi Shave