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Big White to Vancouver to Whistler to Vancouver to Seoul to Singapore to Perth... *phew*

OK, so I'm now back in Perth, but it's a good time to reflect on some things of the things that has happened since the start of March. Firstly, I had an awesome going away shindig at SSS's, which really made it tough to leave the hill. Seems like everyone I knew on the mountain was there having a good time, but that should be expected from the Big White crew. Anyway, it made for a very interesting bus ride down to Kelowna the next morning, and an even more interesting flight into Vancouver.

I loved my time in Vancouver, in fact I actually went a bit berserk with the credit card. After not having any opportunity to go shopping, I went out and bought some new shoes, and 2 new boards. That's right 2!!!! Well, I'm kind of hoping I'll be able to offload both of them here in Australia when the season starts, but if that doesn't work I'll end up with two rather sweet boards to ride next season. I met up with my old buddy Mike, who I've virtually grown up with since Kindy, and his girlfriend who are just starting their Canadian working holiday. They organised some awesome seats at the Vancouver Giants vs Kelowna Rockets ice hockey game, right in line with the goalie and about 3 rows up from the boards. Luckily both goals were up our end, and we saw lots of fights, checks and (both legal and slightly questionable) rough play. It's amazing the amount of niggle that goes on between players when the ref isn't looking.

Did heaps of touristy type stuff too, like riding a bike around Stanley Park, but also managed to play a game of Ultimate as well (rediscovering my lack of running pace). Funny story, I went to the Gaia Head office in Vancouver looking to pick up a few playing and training jerseys, since it's kind of difficult ordering one off pieces here in Australia. Got chatting to the guys there, and discovered since I know a fair few people in Oz, and I'm going pretty much straight back to Perth, that if I take a "package" with me back home, they'd pretty much do me a "mate's rates" on the stuff I wanted to buy. No, the package wasn't half a kilo of coke. Anyway, now I've got about 50 Australian jersey's sitting in my room waiting to be collected when the rest of Aussie Ultimate lands on our doorstep to play Nationals in late April. They also gave me a tour of their head office and warehouse, and I took a sneak peak at their new spikes they're going to bring out next year, as well as prototypes for some other really neat gear ... 'nuff said.

Then it was up the Sea-to-Sky highway to Whistler, the rain capital of the world. To be fair, everyone has had a really shitty season, but no one is feeling the pinch as badly as the fine folk at Whistler. The runs are in awful shape, with dirt and mud being the predominant trail covering. Virtually only the lifts right near the apex of the mountain were worth boarding, and 7th Heaven in the morning on Blackcomb. Having said that, I really enjoyed playing in the Terrain Parks, as they have more interesting features than at Big White. Really messed up my hand on one of the C-boxes, but landed my cleanest 360 on a spine jump (really only 270 since i landed switch) and also did a log grind on a quarter pipe setup. Didn't party much at Whistler because it's weird partying by yourself, when you don't really know anyone. But the village is massive, and it at least gives you options if you don't want to go skiing or boarding, and there's a movie cinema AND supermarket AND KFC, so I was happy as a pig in sh*t.

Finally made it back to Singapore, after a rather lengthy stop in Seoul. I'd totally forgotten that my flight made a refueling stop in Korea on the way home, but at something like 4am Vancouver time, I stumbled out and made my way to the transfer lounge. Anyway, the demented staff at Seoul airport only had 1 guy operating the x-ray machine, and about 4 flights all doing the same stop-over. That meant about 400 people trying to funnel through 1 security checkpoint within the space of an hour. Anyway, almost missed my flight as I ended up getting escorted past the checkpoint anyway and just made it on board before they stitched the doors up. I had a big go at the guy in Korea, as anyone knows I'm not a very good morning person at the best of times, and hopefully his English wasn't good enough to understand what I was saying. I feel bad about it now, but had I missed the plane I would've been livid.

Two words to describe Singapore: It's HOT. That might be a simple understatement, but when you're used to temperatures on the cool side of zero, Singapore is not the best place to stop for a few days. I would probably have spent about $50 on ice-cream, cold drinks and even ground up ice. Anyway, was good to meet up with a few relatives again, and see a couple of new additions to the family.

Finally back on the Island. It's taken me a lot longer to sort all my stuff out since landing back at home. It's weird, not much has changed, but then lots has changed at the same time. Make sense? No? Good. It's hard to explain, but let's just leave it at "the vibe". I'm just chilling out at home, unpacking, catching up with friends and the folks, slowly getting into the swing of job hunting and preparing for my graduation ceremony tomorrow. And for me, that means my holiday is now officially over. Reality begins..... now.