Sal crashed in bed and was not planning to move. The jet-lag had seduced her and taken her away. I just had to answer some email regarding my latest job opportunities and since the Hotel Internet machine was occupied by a overweight Chinese 9-year old who was playing online poker games I thought is was wiser to find a Internet bar outside.

A guy asked me whether he could help me and I said that I needed the Internet. “Ahhh” he said “Lookie look?” “Yes” I said “lookie look”. He was leading the way and before I knew I was standing in a large room full of naked big breasted (fake I assumed) Asian ladies. I said again to the guy “I need Internet you know, lookie look at email!” He said “but this is real thing … much better you know!” So I gave up the quest and walked out in the street suddenly realizing that we slept in the Singapore red light district: all the  places around me looked like the one I just visited.

After some precarious querying I finally found a  Internet bar where most of the screens were occupied by guys scanning for porn … I guess its’ cheaper. Suddenly the concept I learned at my INSEAD MBA of choke price made more sense.

What do you do when you are on holiday in a city that you’ve lived in?? The touristy things of course! So we decided to go and visit the Orchard …oops Orchid Gardens, which, for those of you interested in visiting at some point in the future, are situated in the Botanical Gardens and NOT near the zoo as the Singapore maps suggest.

Was all very stunning. Did you know that the Orchid family of flowering plants is the largest in the world, comprising 10 percent of all flowering plants? And that bananas belong to the ginger family? Very informative trip indeed! Thereafter we had Singaporean hotpot for dinner at Dempsey road, where we basically had to boil all our own food, veggies, meatballs, the lot! (Did you know that the bright orange prawns that you eat are actually purple-grey in their uncooked state??) Was kind of fun, but think I’d rather pay someone else to do the cooking!!

“Dear KLM Customer Service Manager, I’m writing this from row 14 on board your Boeing 777, which, if you knew your plane layout, IS NOT NEXT TO AN EMERGENCY EXIT! We kindly request that you refund the 2 train trips to Schiphol that we had to take in order to secure our requested seats THAT WE DID NOT GET ALLOCATED. Either that, or surprise us with some creative solution…” Fortunately, the air steward creatively bumped us up to business class, so Peter’s friendly ranting never needed to be sent off!! After our pampered flight and some luxurious sleep, we arrived safely in Singapore. Of course, the 6hr time difference meant that we were suitably jet lagged, so we were wide awake during the evening and spent the time walking along the Singapore River, before we had our first Asian meal at a floating restaurant on the river. It sure is great to be back in Singapore!

We woke up bright (and not so early) on Friday, to finish off the packing and to get onto the road to start our big post-INSEAD adventure! Of course, the fact that Thursday had been the grad party and the evening had been late and bubbly meant that packing lacked any real enthusiasm or speed. We eventually got on the road only an hour late bound for the ferry at Boulogne.

Unfortunately the car had other plans. After an hour it started to breakdance intermittently and strange fuel vapours seeped into the vehicle. It then VERY CONVENIENTLY decided to conk out completely when we were only 20km from the port. NICE! Of course, I had a road plan with Citroen, so we called them and Peter calmly explained that ‘le car (carre?) ne function pas’ (thankfully Spanish was his exit language :-x!) and Citroen sorted everything out. Very impressive actually… we got to picnic by the side of the highway and explore the service roads of Berck in a tow truck - highly recommended! (We actually have some excellent pics of this great day - unfortunately there’s back in Europe with the other camera. We’ll have to post them in Sept when we get back!)

All goods have since been safely brought across the channel and are now sleeping peacefully in a Wimbledon storage depot.

And so the adventure begins…..

Grad was special and amazing and sad all at the same time.. the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning.

And here’s a little video for laughs…

A few pics of where we stayed at Chateau Fleury

Welcome to the website dedicated to Sally Pawson and Peter Bakker adventures on the face of the planet. People who know us longer then  a few hours just know that this is a life full of rumbles, stumbles, f*ck-ups and loads of fun. This is our first post … more to come ver very soon!

Well that is how it all started. After the first dinner I was invited to, Sally and I met again at the pirate party. Sally stole my parrot there, which is in pirate law a heinous crime that should be punished viciously and so I did! I made her talk so loud during the pirate party that she lost her voice and then I asked her out again and made her listen to me all night. That is a proper punishment!