Actor in Exile

Everyone who has ever moved knows that moving is a gigantic pain in the ass. You would think that it would be easy to move away from a place that you've only been in for 10 months. A place that you arrived at with two and half suitcases. Not so. The organising, shipping and administration (cancelling cell phone, government taxation issues, distribution of unwanted flotsam, etc.) have consumed the majority of the last few weeks. The final act of departure was to pre-send the majority of my belongings to Canada since I have no desire to drag them around while I slowly wend my way home through Australia, New Zealand and Tonga for the month of November. Ever-faithful-friend Tim agreed to help me drag all my crap to the post office for shipping, and documented the process.

Yes, for some reason, suitcases have to be

wrapped in paper

.(It's Singapore. There are rules)

And speaking of travelling.....here's the way things worked out....

Way back in June, or May, or some month that seems like years ago, we were told how the vacation requests would be handled. Basically, all the male performers were considered to be one 'department', and all the female performers were considered to be another 'department'. If someone from your 'department' had requested a specific week for holiday time, no one else in that department would be granted time off for that week. So, anxious to take advantage of the rare privilege of paid vacation time as an actor, I poured through the "vacation request book". The first available week for me to take time off was the final week of October. It seemed fitting, falling just after my birthday. A few months later, we received the announcement that our closing performance would be October 30. And that is how I ended up taking my vacation during our final week of performances. Of course, when we got the closing announcement, I changed my flights so that I could return to Singapore to perform on the final day, but I had no intention of giving up my Thai vacation.

At the moment, however, Singapore and The Lion King seem very distant because I am in a place that more or less forces one to start thinking of synonyms for paradise. Not only is Koh Samui unspeakably beautiful, the villa that I found and rented (owned by a delightfully entertaining American film & TV producer) is a small slice of heaven. It is perched high on a hill, deep in the jungle and personifies the word 'luxury'. We (friend Tim & I) have not yet been here for 24 hours, and already the bliss we are experiencing is intoxicating. We have decided to do a video tour of the villa, but until we get around to filming that, here's a bit of Day One...

Transportation.....sorted