After many months of not posting, I have decided to restart. Not just posting but also updating the format of the site to something a little fresher, with more reviews and opinions, not just sighing. Also the previous post about the movie was written back in Feb, but had been sitting in draft and unpublished until now.
Pictures from Samoa to come as well.
My time in Samoa is on the homeward stretch. It has been quite good overall. The reason I haven’t posted much is because on the balance of things, I have been just cruising with just small incidental sighs. Therefore not worth the effort of posting.
I have settled into a pattern of working a little during the day, some form of sports or drinking at night, and beach on the weekend. It’s a pretty sweet deal mostly. Definitely have made quite a few new friends from different backgrounds to the norm. Here’s a couple of pics of us walking along some cliffs on the south coast.
So you could say that it has been a good experience. The main sigh that exists now is having to find a job when I return. That is expected to be not fun. I need something that will pay as much as I was earning before leaving for Samoa. At the same time, I feel that I need to work quite hard to get my interview skills back up. With some luck, someone I know will just recommend me for a job, or offer me one. So if anyone has anything, let me know. Then we can play games after work without any cares in the world.
So today I head back to Samoa. So many things I wanted to post about but didn’t end up doing because I was too busy / lazy. I didn’t even post any pictures on Facebook. There is just so much to do and read on the net and of course, games as well. I don’t know how I coped without the net in Samoa.
What’s worse is that my counterpart is looking for my help to clamp down on net access in the office over there. It makes sense from an organisational point of view, but geesh, I don’t know how I will get my fix now of NSFW stuff and reddit / slashdot / football365 and the occasional download from GOG / Windows Updates.
Word out.
I’ve been very slack in updating this awesome site. Also, I’ve stopped uploading photos into the gallery too. I should do more of both, updates and uploading. It’s just that internet is not cheap at home and not very pleasant to use, since I have to sit outdoors to get reception where I am bitten by mosquitoes constantly. At work, well, there internet connection is fairly slow and data capped so I don’t want to waste it by uploading photos. But I should be putting a fairly big post when I get back to Sydney for a break, on the 18th of January.
Finally, I have finished the SC2 campaign. It was overall not great.
And thanks to all the spammers, I have closed the Ultimate Sigh Forum to new user registrations.
So as most people know, I love chicken laksa, well really, I love the chicken laksa from Malay Chinese on Hunter St in Sydney. I love it so much and miss it so much here in Apia that I went searching for pictures of it. The Malay Chinese website itself doesn’t really have any large photos of the laksa I like (the chicken not boneless chicken). So I’m going to link to some other guy’s photo I found on the net of the same laksa at the same restaurant.
When I get back to Sydney, I’m going to eat so much of that. I used to have it up to 3 times every 2 weeks. I would have had more if a certain person didn’t ban me from eating there more often. That and I also miss:
So what do I eat here? Well there’s not much variety and the food ain’t the best here. There’s the local favourite, Pinatis of course.
That picture is from some Peace Corps blog, who happens to be in Samoa now as well. I used to eat here a fair bit, chopsuey, chow mein and rice for a low, low 4 tala price (<$2AUD).
But you get sick of the same food all the time. I actually found a pretty good fast Asian food place called Deng Sheng which is close to where I work. I eat here quite frequently now. It’s actually decent with a good Soya chicken. A meal with drink costs 9.50 tala (<$5). So I can't complain about the price either.
Recently though, I have taken to going to Nella’s.
This is a Jamaican fast food chain. Fuck, the fried chicken there is delicious. It is better than KFC. :O
I know it’s a shock, but it’s true. The 2 piece chicken meal with fries and a can of coke costs 12.90 tala, so it’s the priciest of the options, but well worth a treat sometimes. The fries are also delicious with awesome (chicken) salt. This Nella’s thing could be really big! They don’t have a website but they do have a facebook page. Check them out.
Below are the top 10 search engine keyphrases which people follow to Ultimatesigh.
| Keyphrases | Percentage of visit |
| south korea scenery | 30.4 % |
| ultimatesigh.com | 8.6 % |
| man driving a hyundai getz | 8.6 % |
| samoa sigh | 8.6 % |
| kurnell night | 8.6 % |
| mandriva transparent logo | 4.3 % |
| ultimate sigh | 4.3 % |
| canberra fire pictures | 4.3 % |
| gay tpg | 4.3 % |
| football manager 2010 | 4.3 % |
Makes for an interesting statistic…especially the Hyundai and Gay TPG search queries.
Yep, haven’t updated in a while. Mainly because the only internet is at work and it’s a little awkward posting on one’s blog in a cramped space.
But for those who want to see some pics, they are all here, in my gallery.
Other than that, Salsa is here and I’m training with the Samoan Premier League guys and may make their team when the season starts. Yes, that’s right, I could be playing in the top flight.
You are meant to read the title in the voice of the peon from Warcraft 3 / Frozen Throne. I’m all packed and about to head off.
When I land it will be around 6am local time on the 29th of July. So it’s like time travel. See you all next year. Of course I’ll still be putting stuff on Ultimatesigh when I can, and there’s facebook and ultimate sigh email.
I’ve finally had the time to post on here again. Been quite busy getting ready for Samoa. Just 14 days to go until I leave. I’ve resigned from CBA, got my PF&R which was a high rating and I hope to get a job back at CBA once I’m back potentially.
I’ve moved back to my parents as well, it is as cold as the freezer. I can constantly see my own breathe, and what’s more my fingers are cold despite being rugged up. I can look on the bright side of not having to be cold for much longer.
There’s yours truly at the farewell reception with the Samoan high commissioner a few weeks ago. Those are the people I will be spending the next 12 months with. It still hasn’t sunken fully in yet, that I’m about to leave for a full year. As I go through the process of disengaging things in my current life and minimising things for my stint in Samoa, the more real it feels.
As before, excited, anxious, stressed, and quite a few other emotions mixed in too.