Day 22 - Final Day

Today was my final day in Singapore for good! I'll get straight into today's activities before wrapping it all up at the end.

We started off the day with my last coaching session with JSSL at VJC. The plan was to get all the under 8's, and split them up into seperate groups, with each coach taking a group. This means that both Dan and I got our own group to coach for the whole session. Happy days!

The session plan sent to us for today was based around passing and receiving. I started off sticking to the plan, getting the kids passing to eachother in partners, but they didn't have the ability to progress the session beyond that, so after that I stopped sticking to the session plan. I stuck on with the same passing drill, and varied it a bit so the kids can try out different things. I then progressed it into a small dribbling session, where they had to dribble through a line of cones, and pass it back. They were a lot better at this, so I kept making it harder for them. We finished off on a match, where my group played against Dan's group. The final score was 2-2, which was fair in my opinion. I had the technically better players, while Dan had the bigger, more physical players. So it was a good game.

After that, my session was over. I got changed, said goodbye to all the coaches and staff, which was sad, and headed for home. Dan and I had a busy day planned so there was no time for hanging about!

After getting changed, we headed for Raffles hotel, to try a Singapore sling. This was recommended by my great uncle and aunty, who had been to Singapore years ago and had one, and said they were amazing. So expectations were high.

It was gorgeous. It's a cocktail with a mixture of Cherry, Pineapple and Lime flavourings, mixed with Gin and a few other ingredients. It was very nice indeed. It came at a cost, though. $30 (£15) it cost for the drink, which shocked me and Dan, as we didn't think it would be that much. But to say I've tasted it at Raffles Hotel, the original home of the Singapore Sling, it was worth the money.

Next up, we planned to go on this big wheel, very similar to the London Eye back home, just the Singapore version. However, when we got to it, it cost a lot more than we anticipated, so we skipped it and went for a Fish-Foot-Eating date instead. These fish were HUGE, and covered your feet. The feeling was a lot stranger than the first time, but oh my days, my feet felt so soft after. Was well worth it.

On our walk round, we saw a big building with a banana shaped roof. We decided that, instead of going up the big wheel, we'd go to the top of there instead. Great decision.

This building was the Marina Bay Hotel, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Apparently rooms START from £250 per 2 people per night, so we knew that this was a decent place to stay.

We bought our tickets, and got in the lift up. The views were absolutely incredible. Ridiculously incredible. You could pretty much see the whole of Singapore up here. It was beautiful. Those of you that have me on Facebook, my pictures are all up there, but words can't describe how amazing it was. The only thing that tops that, for me, was Table Mountain, in Cape Town. It's that good.

We stayed for a drink, before deciding it was too hot and headed home. We had a pretty chilled out evening, as I'm up early tomorrow, and don't want to be up late and miss my flight! Tomorrow, home.

That pretty much concludes my time in Singapore, as well as my time abroad representing Arsenal. It's been an absolutely incredible experience, both Singapore and South Africa, and I wouldn't change anything for the world. All of it has, hopefully, given me more experience, helped me develop as a coach, and changed me for the better. We'll see.

I'd just like to thank every one of you that's taken the time out to read either one of my blogs. It really means a lot how you guys are taking an interest in what I'm doing, and gone out of your way to see what I've been getting up to. The response on this has been amazing, and the amount of views I've had has been incredible. So thank you to you readers!

I'd also like to thank everyone I've worked with, and all the Arsenal in the Community guys back home. I can say as a guarantee that I wouldn't be where I am today without you guys, so thank you so much to all of you for helping me, and just being welcoming and friendly to me. It means a great deal.

Finally, I'd like to send out a huge thank you to all of my family, and my girlfriend too, for supporting me while I've been away. This year has seen me be away from home for longer than I've ever been, so to know that I've still got support back home and that everyone's proud of what I'm doing has made everything so much easier, so thank you guys so much.

Hope these blogs have been a half decent read for you guys. I'm off to wake Dan up and tell him goodbye, for now. That's a wrap folks, I'm outta here!

Day 21 - VJC

Today, I started my last weekend of work, and my last weekend out in Singapore. Crazy how I just have one more day to go until I leave for home.

We had our usual Saturday sessions at VJC, I was with Fook with his under 12's, before going onto Ross with his under 14's, then finishing with Daymon and his under 12 girls.

First session. Fook. He had to take the under 10's that are going to the Bangkok and Gothia tournaments, so he left me, and another coach in charge of his under 12's. Now, I would've been absolutely fine with this, if he just told me what topic to do and I could make up a session on that topic, but he gave me his already planned session, and pretty much said "do this". It wasn't a bad session, it's just there are other sessions that I would've done. Back at Arsenal we were taught to avoid lining the kids up in queues wherever possible. The session I was told to do was basically queuing, and taking it in turns to dribble through some cones, which wasn't my style of session. It went well, just I personally didn't enjoy it as much because it wasn't my session. Oh well.

Over to Ross. My last time coaching with him. I enjoyed his session much more. We had a group of 20 under 14's, and he'd organised a passing session, progressing to a shooting session. I was involved, helped coach, and even played a bit too. It was quality. Plus, there were no queues! Happy days! His session was a really good one, that finished on 3v3 games, which I got involved in as there was a spare 2. My team got slaughtered, we lost every game, and I was our only goalscorer. So it wasn't a successful game. Oh well.

Finally, Daymondo's girls team. Quite a few of his younger girls were playing in the team for the Gothia and Bangkok tournaments, so Daymon wanted them to play against the older girls, as they'd be playing against older boys in the tournament, and wanted his team to have some idea of playing against a bigger opposition. He split them into teams. Gothia/Bangkok and non Gothia/Bangkok. Obviously I took the girls not going, and we did about half an hour of training. Straight from that, we went into the match. My girls won 1-0, which was a good result. Daymons girls really played well against a bigger, more physical opposition, and was so close to scoring on a few occasions. So I wish them all the best in their tournaments.

After that, the day was done. Me and Dan headed for home, via Subway. Going to be a long day tomorrow, as we have training in the morning, followed by a visit to Raffles Hotel! Should be good!

Day 20 - Final Day Off

Today was my final day off work before heading back to England, and it started off pretty dull. After a fairly late night we managed to sleep in until around 2pm, so by the time we got up half the day was gone.

We decided to go out for some lunch, so we got changed and headed off. We didn't know where to go so we searched around the Parkway Parade Mall to find ourselves somewhere to go. After nothing really appealed to us, we headed to KFC. Big mistake. The food was rank, and a complete waste of money, nothing like KFC back home, which left us annoyed as we left the fast food joint.

One of the things we were thinking of doing while we were together out here was renting out a bike and cycling around East Coast Park. East Coast Park was a huge stretch of greenery and paving, where people can walk along the whole East Coast of Singapore on. It takes forever to get from one side to the other. As we had loads of the day left to kill, we headed down there and checked out the prices. $30 (£15) for 2 hours renting a 2 person bike, which looked a bit like a golf cart, or peddle boat with wheels,  wasn't too bad so we decided to go ahead and pay for it.

It was so fun. A lot more fun than I expected. As we looked ridiculous in this pinkish/red bike-cart, we really didn't have a care in the world, so we were saying hello to everyone walking by and just dossing around while breezing down East Coast Park. One of the highlights of it was how we managed to convice a group of 5 boys (around 15/16), that our "cart" had ran out of petrol, and we needed a push to get it started again. Amazingly, they bought that awful story and they hopped off their bikes and pushed as a bit before we said our thank yous and cycled off. Sounds harsh, but we never expected it to actually work! The boys we did it too weirdly treated us like heros, and pretty much followed us around the park, as we saw them about 6 times after that incident.

We then thought we'd try it with older targets, so as we parked up at a bar to grab a drink, we pointed our cart towards the sea, meaning we'd have to simply move it backwards to get out and cycle off. Amazingly, we managed to convince a waitor and some other guy the same thing, and we needed a push start to get it started. We were well impressed. Saying thank you, we cycled off amazed at our acting skills. Was hilarious. Obviously we had a laugh around with the boys and the older guys after so there was nothing malicious there, just a bit of fun tricking them while we were out and about.

Tired from cycling for almost 2 hours, we managed to get the bike back to the rental place, and headed home, via grabbing a coke float (sprite float for Dan) from Burger King. Float drinks are amazing. For my coke float, they basically did have a big cup of coke, with ice, then topped it with vanilla ice cream. All for 75p. It tasted beautiful. Gutted we don't really see them in the UK as it tastes brilliant. Oh well.

Early start tomorrow. Final weekend in Singapore so it's going to be final sessions with each of the coaches I'm with, which'll be sad, but I'm definitely ready to come home for good now.

Day 19 - UWCSEA

Day 19, and my last ever session at UWCSEA! Getting all too real that in 4 days, my whole gap year programme will be over. Crazy. It's been a quality year, and I'm so happy that I've done it. Hopefully it can help me onto even better things in the future.

Onto today! We only had an evening session scheduled at UWCSEA, so after having a nice lay in, we got up and decided to go out for some lunch. Dan had a fancying for pasta, so we headed to this place called Pasta Mania, at the top of Parkway Parade mall.

From the outside, it looked like a decent place to go. However, very soon after we entered, we realised we'd made a mistake. The service was absolutely terrible. The staff were grumpy and obviously didn't want to be there. The food was expensive and horrible, and it was just generally poor. It's ridiculous how businesses can get that bad, and how some managers/owners just don't know how to motivate staff and create a friendly atmosphere. Ridiculous. Oh well. Never going there again.

After we ate, we had a look around the mall. We tried loads of free samples, used massage chairs, and dossed about inside a fitness shop, on all the equipment they had. It was quite fun, actually, and killed time before we had to get on the bus to our session. After dossing around for a bit, we grabbed a frozen yogurt each, and headed for the bus stop.

When we arrived at UWCSEA we had a bit of free time, so Dan, Ross and I spent a while just playing long balls to each other which was fun. Didn't take long for me and Dan to start sweating though, despite we did next to no running around at all. Humidity is horrible.

I was with Yaz for my session. He was busy at Tanglin school, as they had a match. So I started off with the under 14 girls, got them warmed up for his session, which focused on passing and receiving. It was a decent session, and I was actually allowed to get involved which was alright. Ended it on a shooting practice, as we only had a small section of a pitch, so couldn't do a match. It worked, though, which was a relief.

After the session was over, we headed home, via grabbing some food at a local Hawker with Daymondo.

Before I wrap this up, I'll just explain what a hawker is, for anyone that doesn't know. A Hawker is basically a small group of different food stalls, all operating in the same section. It's unbelievable common out here, as there is a Hawker every few roads apart. It's a cheap, tasty meal out, and lets you taste some of the Singapore food, which I love.

My last day off tomorrow, Dan's low on cash, until we get paid on Sunday so not much may happen. May use the day to pack most of my stuff for when I leave, as Saturday we have a full day of coaching, and Sunday Ross is planning to take us out somewhere before I go, which should be good!

Day 18 - Dulwich & UWCSEA

Today I had my last ever session at Dulwich College! Sessions at Dulwich are the easiest and shortest we do out here, so I won't miss it too much, as I didn't really have time to get to know anyone over here. Oh well, life goes on.

We started with a fairly easy warm up with the kids, where they dribbled around, and we would walk around and try to tackle them. They really enjoyed it so we carried that in for a while. Then, just before we went to progress, the lightening alarm went off, so everyone evacuated down to the gyms, as we didn't have time to wait around for the lightening warning to go off.

We only had a small space in the gyms, so played some tag-style games, at the request of the kids. That was fun, and they enjoyed that too. Soon enough, though, the session was over and we left for UWCSEA.

At UWCSEA, I was out with Fook again. There wasn't that many kids so I didn't exactly get the opportunity to coach which I wasn't thrilled about, but seems to be the story out here. Oh well, I had a laugh with the kids we were coaching, and played in the match too so that wasn't too bad. 

After UWCSEA, Daymon, Simon, Dan and I went out for beers and wings at a local place Daymon knew, as it was the last opportunity to properly hang out with Daymon before I leave. It was a really good night, I really enjoyed it. We just sat outside, eating wings and chips, drinking Tyger beers and just chatting about anything and everything. It was a quality night.

After we finished talking, and realised how late it actually was, we headed home. Going for a long lie in tomorrow, as we only have an evening session to do tomorrow!

Day 17 - UWCSEA

After getting back quite late last night, we were quite thankful that our only session today was a rather late one, starting at 6.

We managed to wake ourselves up at about 2 and, as we had a couple of hours before we had to get the bus, we decided to head to Parkway Parade (the shopping centre closest to us) to have some lunch before going to our session. We'd been on the ground floor of the centre a few times because that's the closest Subway fast food franchise to us, and Dan loves Subway so we've headed there a couple of times, but we've never really explored the centre. Today was the day we did it.

There wasn't too much to it really, there were mostly food shops, with a few sports shops and clothes shops thrown in aswell, so we didn't spend long looking round it as it wasn't really that interesting. We found a nice place to grab some food, though, so we sat down, ordered and waited for our food to come. 

Now, Dan's allergic to tomatoes, so when ordering our meal, we made this clear to the waitress that he couldn't eat any tomatoes of any sort, so to make sure that none of it is on his burger. The clever clogs they are, the removed the tomato from the burger, but drowned it in tomato sauce. Took it back to get another one as Dan couldn't eat it, came back, the tomato sauce had been [poorly] scraped off, with it still being very visible on the burger and bun. Back it went, came out again. They seemed to just wash the burger and bacon, given it a new bun and thought "done". When it came back out tomato sauce was still on the lettuce. So a now unhappy Dan, ditched the leaves and reluctantly ate the burger. It was a nice burger, though. Thankfully, they made up for it with their dessert. We had a delicious chocolate cake for dessert that was gorgeous. So I was happy, and Dan had cheered up a bit too.

Headed to the bus and we were on our way to our coaching session. I had been scheduled to coach with Fook, while Dan was with Norm, doing under 14's and under 10's respectively. However, that all changed. Dan was meant to be helping Norm with the group that we're going to a tournament in Gothia, Sweden. However, as Norm was leaving JSSL, he was now no longer coaching the group going to the tournament, so Norm and Fook did the under 10's, while I helped Ross out with his under 9's, and Dan help Cai with his group too. Complicated stuff.

Our session was really good. Ross is a nice guy and a good coach so it's cool coaching with him as we're on the same wavelength. We started with a passing exercise, and progressed it onto a possession game, which the kids enjoyed. After the possession game, they went onto a full on match, which the kids did really well in. For 9 year olds, their ability is really good, however they lack that tactical and positional awareness that all kids that age lack. So when the ball is in play, everyone swarms it. They're getting better and better though which is good.

After being out for so long yesterday, we're both exhausted so aim to stay in for the evening. Starting to decide what to do on my last couple of days in Singapore. We've go some good ideas though so it should be a good ending to my time out here!

Day 16 - Tanglin & Night Safari

Here we go! Final week of work out here in Singapore. It started with my last session at Tanglin Private School.

I was put with the under 3's again, which I didn't mind as they were really fun last time. Unlike the under 5's, I enjoyed my second session just as much as the first, so I was a happy man! The good thing about the under 3's is that they just love to chat and play with you, which was really fun. So I had a good session. Dan was with the under 6's, which he said "went alright".

After those sessions finished, me and Dan helped coaches Fook and Cai with their after school session, which was fun and easy too. It wasn't heavy as it was a hot day, plus Dan and I got involved in the match at the end too, which was fun, but so much hard work because of the weather.

After we finished at Tanglin, we got on the train to Harbour front. After our massage on Friday, we noticed that the same place does the fish-foot treatment, where you put your feet into a pool of "Dr. Fish", and they eat away at dead and hard skin on your feet, leaving them nice and smooth. So we decided to do that after Tanglin, as it was only a few stops on the tube. 

Oh my days. It's such a weird sensation. You put your feet in and the fish immediately come and have a nibble. But it doesn't feel like biting at all, it's more like vibrations on your feet. It was so weird. After about 5 minutes your finally get used to it though, and it starts to feel really nice. The guy who runs the shop let us have an extra 10 minutes for free too, so we were well happy.

After the fish treatment we grabbed a KFC before heading over to Singapore Zoo for the Night Safari, which has been heavily recommended by a few people out here. Tonight was the night we planned to do it.

It was incredible. We walked in and was treated to some guys doing a fire breathing show, which was amazing. We then walked to this amphitheater, where we watched a "creatures of the night" show, where they brought out snakes, raccoons, otters and loads of other animals on stage. That was really cool.

After that, we started to go on the trail around the park. This took us around all the different animal zones, while the tour guide gave us all these interesting facts about the animals. Like did you know that Flamingo's are born grey, yet they turn a pinkish colour because of their diet of shrimps?! Crazy!

The tour lasted about an hour, and was really interesting and cool to go through. It lived up to the hype, definitely!

Tomorrow we have an evening session, after such a late finish today, I'm planning to have a tasty lay in before we have to leave at around 4:30!

Day 15 - VJC

Today was a pretty short day, but it felt like the longest day we've had out here. This is in no small part down to the extreme heat we had to endure when coaching.

After yesterday, I was a tad red due to the Rays yesterday, but today it got even hotter. According to Simon, when he left the house at around 8, it was already 35degrees. We never did find out the temperature it was, but it was the hottest I've experienced in a long long time. Even hotter than South Africa. Luckily, we had a JSSL towel, that was given out to all the coaches. All of us were wearing it around our necks today, we looked ridiculous, but we didn't care.

I started off with the under 5's. After yesterday's session I was quite excited. However, my excitement led to disappointment, as the group I had were an absolute nightmare. They didn't listen, kicked every ball they could find and just didn't help me at all while I was coaching with a towel wrapped around my neck. Thankfully, after what felt like an eternity, the session was over, and I could have a little rest.

For the next session, JSSL had organised a "make-up" session, which is basically for any player who wanted just an extra session to help improve themselves and make up if they're behind the rest of the team in terms of abilities. I got the under 8's, while Dan and Norm split the older ones. Norm took the more elite group, Dan had the others. 

My under 8's went really well, we did a few passing exercises before getting onto a match. The kids behaved really well, did all the exercises well and were just so much nicer to coach. Much improved from the under 5's this morning. Dan's session went alright too. He also did some passing, before moving onto shooting, back to passing, and then finished off with a match. Both of us had decent sessions, so we had a good day. After that, we were done. Day finished. We both went home, via the bakery for some treats.

Dan had organised to meet his Tinder date again, so he left around 4:30/5ish, while I stayed at home. I was absolutely exhausted so didn't fancy moving much.

Tomorrow I start my final working week, and begin it with my last ever session at Tanglin, with the under 3's. Looking forward to that, as they're adorable and hilarious at the same time. So it should be a good'n!

Day 14 - VJC

Day 14, 2 weeks in. I have 1 week left, Dan has another 9. We spent our second working weekend back at Victoria Junior College, working at the soccer school there, doing a full day shift.

Again, Dan and I were split up for the majority of the day. I was scheduled to do the under 12's, 14's, then 10's, whereas Dan was meant to have the under 10's twice, and the under 8's.

First session went well, I was with Fook again, and he basically did exactly the same as what he did last week, except with a different trick that the kids had to do. Not much to say on this one, as it was all exactly the same.

After Fook's session, I had a break, where I just chilled out and watched all the other sessions take place. Dan carried on with the second lot of under 10's he had to take. After his session was over, Dan had a long break until his last session so he left to go and get a Subway, while I was meant to be with coach Gavin.

I went up to Gavin to ask him what he wanted me to do and how I could help him set up for his session. Harvey came over, and told me to go and help coach Beng, as Gavin didn't have many. Went over to Beng, and we started with the warm up. 5 minutes later, Harvey came over again, and told me that Ross was busy with a match, so I had to cover for his session while he finished up managing his team during the match. Okay, fair enough. I headed on over and got started.

Being a coach, you learn that sometimes you have to think up sessions on your feet and just go with it. That's exactly what I did with them. I used Bengs "Piggy in the middle" style warm up, before going into an end zone game, as Ross came over. Apparently the whole year the kids have been with them, their attitude has been really poor. After spending 20 minutes with the group I could see exactly where they were coming from. They didn't want to work or train or anything, they just wanted to play matches, which is your worst nightmare as a coach, as you have to basically provide a session for a group of people who don't want to do it. Brill.

We got them into teams and did matches for the remainder of the time that was left, so it wasn't too bad. I then had a couple of hours break before my final session with Ross and Norm, so I grabbed some lunch. Dan came back early so we chilled out for a bit before getting ready for both our final sessions.

Now, I started off helping Ross and Norm. I got given my group and I got them started with their exercise. Daymon then came over and told me that the under 5's coach called in sick. So I then went to under 5's (as I have them tomorrow morning), and Dan took over my group, as there was plenty of other coaches that were coaching his group, so he wasn't as needed over there.

Under 5's were unbelievably hard work, but funny as well. They have a really short attention span, but they were so fun to coach, so the time flew by with them. All we did was short agility exercises, getting them used to running in different directions, and that went really well. We then got them into a match, which was hard work, but fun too. At the end of it, someone had a great idea to give all these 5 year old water pistols, loaded with a lot of water. Safe to say, I walked to the bus stop absolutely soaked. The joys of coaching 5 year olds!

Tomorrow, early start. I'm back with the under 5's, while Dan has the under 8's. Should be a good day!

Day 13 - Universal Studios Singapore

Day 13 in Singapore, and we managed to fit in our first proper day of doing touristy things. We decided to go to Universal Studios!

We left at around 11, picked up a Subway before getting on the train to head towards Sentosa, which is an island right next to Singapore, that contains loads of different activities and places to go.

We hopped on the shuttle train that took us from Singapore to Sentosa, bought our tickets and went into the park. It looked absolutely incredible. We walked in, and we had entered the first of 7 zones. Hollywood. On the pavement they had the Hollywood Walk of Fame Stars with the celebrities names on. They had various souvenir shops to go in, and some cafes to go to to eat. They even had a Starbucks.

Before we could go from Hollywood onto the next area, "New York", the rain started to come down. Really, really heavily. Thunder and Lightening also came down. After hearing that we couldn't get a refund if it continued all day, despite the fact we missed out on quite a few rides, as well as getting ridiculously soaked getting to different places, we were hoping the storm would calm down as it was a lot of money to spend just to be soaked getting anywhere.

Thankfully, it did, and we ventured to New York. That was incredible. It looked exactly like how we imagined New York to look like. Down here we had American style diners, American food stalls, and American looking buildings. Down here we went to our first ride, the Sesame Street ride! It was an easy, kids ride to get ourselves started for the day. Decent!

After that, we headed to the next Zone, the Sci Fi zone, where we went on our next ride, arguably one of our favourites. The Transformers ride! We queued up for around 45 minutes, and went in. It was mainly a simulation, and it was absolutely incredible. We both loved it. We ended up going on it again nearer the end of our trip.

We could've done a few more rollercoasters in the Sci Fi zone, but they were closed down due to the lightening and thunder earlier on. So we had to skip those and head to zone 4, Egypt. This is when we found our favourite ride. The Revenge of the Mummy. This was a proper rollercoaster, and was absolutely incredible. Again, like Transformers, we went on this a couple of times later on.

Next zone, Lost World. Basically Jurassic Park. The only ride they had, though was a really short one. We queued up as single riders, to avoid a 45 minute queue. We're so happy we did. It was awful. It lasted 20 seconds, if that, and basically did a tiny circle before coming back. Waste of time.

Next zone. Far Far Away. Shrek Land. This was awesome, too. There was one ride, the Puss in Boots ride, which was a brand new ride, but was quite fun. There were a few 4D animations that were really good, and this "Comedy" show, which ruined it all because it was just absolutely terrible. My girlfriend loves Shrek, so I made sure I took plenty of photos of this zone. They're all on Facebook.

Finally, Madagascar. Now, there wasn't much to this zone, only a log flume-esque ride, except with no huge splashes at the end. Which I was secretly quite happy about, as I'm not a huge fan of getting wet. Especially in clothes I need to go home in.

After that, we were done! All the rides had been ridden, all the sites had been seen. We took photos of Marilyn Monroe, Cleopatra, and some American singer/dancers. All in all, a quality day!

Back to work tomorrow, with an early start. We both start coaching at 10, so we have to be at VJC at 9:30. It's going to be an early one!

Day 12 - UWCSEA

Day 12! Only 10 days left of my trip out here in Singapore. Weird to think how in just 10 days my abroad trips, and gap year in general will be pretty much over. Strange.

The day started off poorly. After having a nice lie in, because we only had an evening session, I went to go have a shower. Now, our apartment that we live in isn't really that nice at all. Our room and the living room isn't too bad, but the kitchen and toilets are just in woeful condition. One of the highlights, though, is that the shower isn't too bad. To my horror, as I turned on the shower, I found out that the heater that actually gave us some warmth in the shower wasn't switching on, so I had to bare having a freezing cold shower. I love my showers, so if I have to suffer with only being able to have a freezing cold shower every morning I'm going to be distraught.

We only had 1 session booked in for today, at UWCSEA. We were told yesterday that we'd have a group each, so we both planned sessions for our groups, and were both looking forward to it. After just over a week, I was finally getting some proper coaching time on my own, and planning and doing a session by myself. About time. 

We got to UWCSEA, and Harvey seemed to be taking all of the groups for the warm up, so we didn't really know what was happening. After he was finished, Daymon split everyone up into their own seperate groups. Dan got the under 12 boys, while I had under 14 girls. After expecting quite a lot of players, I was a bit miffed to find that I had 6 players. 6. That was including 2 girls that had been brought up from the under 10's. My session was planned for at least 8 people so to have 6 was a bit of a shock. Especially as everyone else seemed to have a big group of kids. Oh well. Part of being a coach is adapting to these situations. So I did. I changed my session completely.

I started off with a warm up that got all the girls dribbling around in the area, and doing different things with the ball, getting them moving about.

I then took them into a king of the ring style game, where each player has their own ball, and they have to protect their ball, while attempting to kick the other players' ball out of the area. Played it a couple of times, they seemed to enjoy it. Happy days.

Then I went into the main session, which I made into a skills session, where the players work on dribbling, and producing a skill to get past a defender. That went pretty well, and they all seemed to enjoy that, too. Which was good.

Lightening alarms meant that it cut the session short for a little bit. But when we got back on, we only had 20 minutes left, so we got straight into a match. Coach Yaz joined in, and so did I so it ended up 4v4 which was okay. The girls enjoyed it which was the main thing. All in all a decent session.

Dan had another session with Norm after, so I went home without him. Grabbed some food and chilled out, hopefully Universal Studios tomorrow, which should be good.

Day 11 - Dulwich College & UWCSEA

Today we had 2 sessions booked in, one at Dulwich, and one at UWCSEA.

We met Daymon at the bus stop at around 1:45pm, and got the bus to Dulwich, where we had the same kids as we had last week. We started off with a simple warm up, where they dribbled around in the area, then moved onto passing through cone gates, which they did really well, to be fair. After that we got them straight into teams and played a quick match before the session was over.

After Dulwich was done, we hopped on the bus, and headed to UWCSEA. I was meant to be with Norm, and Dan with Fook, with both of us having under 14 groups. But Fook called in sick, and there wasn't that many under 14's that turned up, so we all merged together, and it was me, Dan, Norm and Simon, who covered for Fook. Norm took the warm up, Dan did a passing session he had planned. Afterwards, Simon took a mini-match session, and I finished off with a game called Over the Bar, which is a bit like cricket, where I feed the ball in, they shoot at goal, and the "fielders" behind the goal can catch them out. After my session, Norm split the group into teams, and we played 2 big games. All in all, it was a pretty good session.

After that was all done, we headed home, got some dinner and chilled out for a bit. Later on, as we prepared to watch the Barcelona - Bayern game, Dan felt like he "worked hard and deserved a midnight McDonalds". Thankfully, over here in Singapore, McDonalds do deliveries, so we placed an order and munched it all down. Quality.

Tomorrow we have our final session at UWCSEA this week, where both Dan and I take on a group each, and have to do a whole 2 hour session with our respective groups. Happy days!

Day 10 - UWCSEA

Before I start, I would just like to say that this blog probably won't be half as interesting as my South Africa one. This is because in South Africa we were visiting lots of different communities, doing work in the community and doing loads of amazing things out there. Out here in Singapore, we seem to have the same schedule week in, week out, where we work for 6 days, and have 1 day off. We only really have one session a day, too, so this blog is going to be pretty samey and boring throughout I'm afraid, as there isn't really many different things to comment about. But I said I'd blog and I am not letting you folks down, don't worry!

Today we had our first of 3 sessions this week at UWCSEA. Again, Dan and I were both split up and assigned to help different coaches. I was helping out coach Fook with his under 14's, while Dan helped out coach Norm with his under 10's. With Fook, we focused on passing, and playing 1-2's. His session was crazy complicated, but we both managed to coach it across to the under 14's, and they did really well to be fair. Out here it seems that we help the coaches coach their session, instead of making up our own sessions and coaching them, which is a bit annoying as we both wanted to coach our own sessions, instead of helping someone else coach, but it's all part of the experience, plus we gt to experience other styles of coaching, which can only help our coaching abilities, too.

While I was helping coach Fook out with his passing exercise, Dan was helping Norm with his under 10's, focusing on attacking movement, and playing the ball out of defence, instead of lumping it out. Again, Dan was mainly helping Norm out with his session, instead of creating his own and coaching it. I guess with a soccer school they're pretty reluctant to give over sessions to coaches they've never seen or worked with before. Especially out here, where winning seems to be considered essential to all soccer school teams.

After our session, we headed to the local shopping mall to grab a Subway, and headed home. Got both Dulwich and UWCSEA tomorrow, so it's going to be a bit more of a busier day, which'll be good.

Day 9 - Tanglin Private School

Start of our 2nd full week out here in Singapore, and we were back to our least favourite school, Tanglin.

After the hassle we had last week trying to get the kids under control, we weren't exactly excited about the session, as we thought we'd have the same kids. Thankfully, we were placed elsewhere. I was helping out with a group of 3 year olds, while Dan was with Mo with the under 6's, much to his delight(!). My kids were absolutely adorable. The session only lasted around half an hour but it was so fun just playing with them. They didn't do much, as it was a really hot day, but they focused on finding out what dribbling is, and shooting into the goal. It was a decent session, and I really enjoyed it.

After my session with the under 3's finished, both Dan and I went over to help Norm out with his under 10's. While Norm was getting ready, we organised a quick warm up with the kids, where they dribble around, and we call out a number. Each number we call out means they have to do a different command. It went quite well in my opinion. We managed to get them up to 7 numbers which was quite impressive, too. After our warm up was over, Norm got them sorted into a match. Usually they have drills before, but the weather was looking horrible, so Norm just did a match as, if the weather suddenly turned bad, then the kids wouldn't have had a match for 2 weeks. Weather was fine, though, so the kids ended up getting an extended match, which was decent. These kids weren't as bad as the kids from last week. They weren't exactly good, but they were better than last week.

That was us done for the day, so we headed home to chill out. Got a session at UWCSEA at 6pm tomorrow, so we're both aiming to stay up to watch the Arsenal game, which kicks off at 3am our time. We better win.

Day 8 - Victoria Junior College

Today we had our second early start of our time out here, and our second session at Victoria Junior College. Today we were scheduled to have the under 6's for the whole day, which I was fine with, but Dan wasn't so keen as he came under the impression he was going to be coaching the older lot, doing development stuff.

Now, as no one was around after we finished yesterday, we were under the impression that we started at 9:30, so we left around 8:45 so we could get there for just after 9 to get ready.

9:10, as we were walking into the school, Daymon called saying we were late, and the session started at 9. Fab. We were late, meaning Mo was coaching without our help for the time being. To say we were annoyed was an understatement, as there was no way for us to know that we started earlier. Annoyed and bemused, we chucked our bags down and ran to help Mo.

It was a pretty basic session to be honest, and we felt a bit redundant because Mo wanted to do it all himself, so we were just standing there supporting and encouraging the kids. About 20 minutes later, Harvey (owner of JSSL-Arsenal) came over and asked me to swap with Daymon and take his under 8's, while Dan stayed with the under 6's. Confused as to why I was swapping, I accepted and took over the group. Harvey told me to do 1 on 1's with them, so I got them into teams and did numbers game. Shortly after, though, coach Yaz told me to stop the session and take them onto another, which confused the Boris Johnson out of me, as I thought I was just doing 1 on 1's until we finished. Apparently they were doing a rotation with the under 8's, which I was not aware of, and I had to then do a shooting exercise with them. Only 5 minutes later, though, Yaz got them in, and they split them up to do matches. As my job was finished with under 8's, I went back over to Mo and Dan and helped the under 6's with their matches.

After all the matches were done, we were done for the day, so we went back home. We tried to get some sort of viewing of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, but everything was PayPerView, there were no streams to watch it off, so I relied on Twitter and BBC Sport to keep me updated. From the sounds of it, it was all Mayweather, and Pacquiao never really got into it. Shame, Pacquiao's a Gooner so I was rooting for him. While I was following the fight, Dan took a cheeky 2 hour nap, which he claimed was a "waste of time", as he "woke up feeling as groggy as before". Awww.

When he woke, we played a bit of Football Manager, before heading out to TGI Fridays for Dinner. I had ribs, and Dan had a "lovely" burger, we finished it off with having a Brownie sundae each. Decent!

Got home and watched the Chelsea game, they won, won the title. Cool. All over. One of the most boring seasons ever in terms of the title, along with Ferguson's last season at Man Utd. Hopefully next seasons a bit more exciting. We'll see.

Day 7 - Victoria Junior College

Today wasn't a late start at all, unlike every other day, with us having to be at work at 9:30am. Safe to say I was a tad tired when we left the house. It was going to be a busy day, so at least I could wake myself up through working, which was good. We were at a place called Victoria Junior College, which is where we went to last Sunday. It was only down the road so it wasn't too long a journey to get there which was nice.

Dan and I were completely split up today, so we weren't coaching together at all. I had under 10's, 12's and 14's, with 2 breaks splitting them up. It was a very long day for the both of us indeed. We started at 9:30, and didn't finish until 6:45. We're absolutely exhausted now, and have another full day tomorrow, so an early night is on the cards, for definite.

I started the day with the under 8's, with coach Fook. He just wanted me to assist him, and help him out with one of the groups, so I sat back a bit while he took control of the session. His focus was on feinting with the ball to get past a defender, before developing it into a turning drill. He had a weird style of coaching though, as he set everyone up so it was like a gym class, where they all faced him, he showed them what to do and they copied. Whatever works I guess!

I had a break inbetween session 1 & 2, but went to coach Gavin for the 2nd session. I was originally meant to be with coach Yaz, but only 7 of his players turned up, so they merged the teams, and Gavin took control of the session. I was mainly helping out this guy called Nico, who was training with Gavin all day. He played for a Singapore team called Warriors, and was suspended for getting into a fight on the pitch, so he spent the day playing under Gavin. He was a really nice guy, but didn't understand much English, so I helped him out. Turns out he's flying over to England at the end of the year to have a trial with Crewe Alexandra, and is part of the Singapore XI that's playing Arsenal in a friendly in July. Not bad.

After I finished with Gavin, I had a final break, before ending off the day with coach Norm and coach Ross. Out of all the coaches, these 2 are up there in my favourites. Norm used to be in the army, and he's absolutely hilarious, and Ross is just so easy to get along with, so I was definitely looking forward to this session.

We split the group into 3 smaller groups. I took one, Norm took another and Ross took the final group. We were all doing shooting drills. So I did a fairly basic one with my under 10's, as they weren't of the best ability. Had a right laugh doing it, though, so that's a bonus!

After that was all done, we headed for home. The freestyler from last night did a couple more performances today, and turns out he's staying round ours for the night, so when we got in he was sat there watching tv! Fair enough!

Another early start, me and Dan are helping out coach Mo with the under 6's all morning. Should be decent!

Day 6 - JSSL Awards Evening

Day 6, and our first proper day off since arriving here in Singapore. We originally planned to head out to Universal Studios today, but as it's Labour Day over here, it means that loads of people have the day off work and school. Which obviously means that Universal Studios would be absolutely packed. So we decided to delay that a bit to next Friday.

Instead, we had originally planned a lazy day, followed by attending the JSSL end of season awards evening, at a big hotel in the centre of Singapore, called Swissotel. But this morning, while I was asleep, Dan had arranged a meeting with a female he had got chatting to on Tinder. Apparently she was bringing a friend along, so, naturally, he HAD to as well. After managing only about 5 hours of sleep, he woke me up to tell me to get up and ready cause we were meeting his "Tinderella". Fab. I had planned for a lazy day and sleeping in til late. But being the lovely chap I am, I got out of bed, got showered and ready so that I could accompany Dan to his Tinder-date. I won't go into too much detail as there really isn't much to say, but they seemed like friendly girls. The girl Dan was seeing, all I'll say is that she looked a fair bit different from her Tinder picture. Like I said, really friendly girl though, they bought us chicken satay's, so I was happy.

After Dan's date, we walked home, where we met a friendly busker called Steven, busking in an underpass on our way home. I recognized the song he was playing straight away, with thanks to Paula and Eleanor Howard, who would drive me to school last year every day, and torture me with these really old songs that I hated, and I gave in and sang along. Dan sang along a bit too, it was proper fun. When he was done, we asked him if he could play Hey Jude by the Beatles. Of course he could! He started playing, and Dan and I joined in. We ended up busking with him for the whole of Hey Jude. It was class. People were walking by smiling, obviously knowing we were foreigners. Who cares, though, it was really fun. After we finished, we had a brief chat with Steven, gave him some change, and headed home. We're planning to go back to Steven and sing a long with him to some more British classics.

When we got home, we relaxed for a bit, cooled down, got changed and then we headed out to the JSSL awards evening!

Now, when playing Sunday league, we used to have end of season awards at one of the players' houses, and we'd have a BBQ and it'll be a nice afternoon. This was something else. No expense was spared.
It started off in the ballroom at a really fancy hotel in central Singapore, where they had put about 50 big, circular tables around the hall, with a big stage at the end. Everyone met eachother, said hello, then sat down for the evening to start.
First up was a host to welcome everyone, before handing over to Harvey, the owner of the JSSL - Arsenal academy, who did a little speech.
Then, onto the entertainment. We had Thailand's number 1 football freestyler, and dance group who contested in Thailand's version of Britains Got Talent, and did quite well, and a magician, who was pretty good, to be fair.
After all that, we started the awards. There was loads of teams to go through, and loads of awards to give out, like Most Valuable Player, Most Committed Player and Most Outstanding Player from each team. There were a lot of teams, so this took a while.
We then had dinner, which was a big buffet, and desert, which was buffet style too. The waiters kept refilling our drinks, so me and Dan had countless glasses of coca-cola, which we knew wasn't good for us, but it was free so accepted it anyway. Then after we had cups of tea, they did the individual awards, such as Coach awards and Parent awards. All in all, it was a really good night.

We also found out that one of the guys we're working alongside, was the one and only Paul Parker, who played under Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United (around the time where the class of '92 were making themselves known), and got 19 caps for England, too. So we felt a bit stupid not recognising him earlier. Crazy.

Tomorrow, full on. We start at 9:30am, and don't finish until around 6/7pm. Its expected to be 37degrees tomorrow, too. So it's going to be a tough one.

Day 5 - UWCSEA Soccer School

Today we had another late start, with only one session at UWCSEA at 6pm. To be honest, every weekday we work, it'll be a late start, as we only have after school sessions or evening sessions. The weekends will be an early start though, as we have sessions from 9 til 5. Should be good though.

We slept in late, again, and got up at around 3 to get ready to leave just after 4. Simon, Dan and I made our way to the bus stop to head towards the school. At this point, it was absolutely chucking it down with rain, and there was lightening everywhere. I was strongly believing the session would be called off due to it.

When we got there, the rain had calmed down a little bit, and it was only slightly spitting, so it wasn't too bad. The lightening warning was still going though, so no one was allowed to go on the pitch until it stopped. Soon enough, though, the sound came over the speakers and the kids went nuts, and ran straight out onto the pitch.

Daymon came over and told us what we were doing, Dan was working with Norm with the under 10's, while I was helping a guy called Mo with the under 8's. Like on Tuesday, we were there to assist the coaches, as they ran the session. Mo wanted to go for a passing session, so I helped him set up the cones, encourage the players, and coach them when they make mistakes. It was a good session, and for under 8's, they were really good. Mo was training them for a tournament out in Bangkok, where they play against other soccer schools. It's quite a competitive country, Singapore. They focus purely on winning and creating competitive players to win matches, instead of improving players in general. They are good players though, so whatever works for them works for them I guess.

We ended the session with a match, before wrapping everything up and packing everything away. It was a good session overall, so I was happy. Dan finished a while after me so I had to wait around for him, but soon enough he came over and we headed home. Grabbed some food, and headed to the apartment. We have a day off tomorrow, which we had planned to go to Universal Studios, but its a Bank Holiday, so we might not go. We'll see.

Day 4 - Dulwich Primary School & UWCSEA Soccer School

Today we started at 2. After not getting to sleep until 6am, it was nice to have a bit of a lie in. Guess I'm still not used to the time difference yet.

Our first session was with a primary school called Dulwich. We were taking the after school class with Daymon, with kids aged around 9-11 years old. We ended up having around 30 kids, of these ages, all unbelievably keen to play football, but not keen on drills.

While speaking to Daymon on the way to the session, he told us all we had to do was a quick warm up, then get them into games, as we didn't have long for the session. So that's exactly what we did. Our warm up was pretty basic. We just gave each kid a ball and told them to dribble it around in a tight space, using both feet, and avoiding each other. They seemed to enjoy that quite a lot to be fair. Then it was time for the games. We split the group into 4 teams of around 7 players per side, and had 2 "semi finals", one on each half of the pitch. When that was over, the 2 winners came onto my pitch, while the others battled out for 3rd place. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, so there wasn't a winner on my pitch, as the scores were tied 1-1. Oh well, maybe next time.

After the kids all got collected, we handed our badges in and headed to UWCSEA, where we were yesterday. On our schedule we're there Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursday's. After yesterday's session, we thought that we'd be there to basically shadow and assist the main coaches there. Dan helped Simon and I help a guy i believe was called Kyle, but that may be completely wrong. Anyway, after yesterday, it came as a bit of a surprise to hear that we'd be together, taking over one of the teams for a whole session on our own. A nice surprise, but an unexpected one. That meant we had until we got to the pitch, which was about an hour away, to plan our top-class session. We planned, chatted, planned, and thought. Finally, we had our master session sorted.

We arrived at UWCSEA and got all set up and ready, the kids then arrived. We didn't have many, around 11, all playing for the under 14's, which was absolutely fine. We started off with a passing session, where they had to keep the ball moving, and inside a relatively small square. Dan took that one, which got them nice and warmed up, plus included a bit of fitness with running involved. Then, they came over to me for a bit of skills corridor. As the kids were quite good players, I decided to make it a bit trickier, and included a defender quite early on, which challenged them a bit more. We then progressed it to a game called Gauntlet, which is basically a game where players have to try and get past a few defenders, one at a time, before taking a shot at goal. They seemed to enjoy this quite a lot, and didn't want to stop when we called it, which made us happy, as they obviously enjoyed it. After a quick waterbreak we got into a match, Dan on one team, me on the other. I didn't keep up with the score but it was a good game to play, but me and Dan were sweating buckets at the end of it due to the humidity. It was horrible.

After that was all wrapped up we headed home, grabbed some food, and went to the apartment.

We couldn't get in our room.

The way our apartment is set up, is that we have one key for the actual apartment, then one key for our room. We'd somehow misplaced the keys. We searched everywhere for them. No luck. Called Daymon. Simon helped too, no luck. After a few hours, Daymon came over, and we had to do it. We had to break the door down. Dan stepped up to the responsibility. He took a step back, moved forward and gave it a mighty boot. The door was open. It wasn't even damaged much. He somehow managed to kick the door in a way that took the lock out, but the door was still completely intact. I was impressed. You can check out the video of it on my Facebook.

Late start tomorrow, don't start until 6pm, so plenty of time to lie in. Happy days. Hopefully we can have less dramas from now on..

Day 3 - UWCSEA Soccer School

Before I start off today's blog, I'll let you know about the dramas that unfolded last night.

Dan and I were happily doing our bits, getting our meals for the day sorted, in-between managing York and Woking on Football Manager in bed. I was making myself some noodles, while Dan was making some toast to accompany his cup of tea. All was well.

Suddenly, I heard a screech. Dan had spotted a massive cockroach climb out from behind the cupboards, and it crawled down by the kettle.

Being the absolute hero that I am,  I spotted the bug killer, grabbed it and sprayed the life out of this beast, leaving it, soaked, upside down on the floor. Its at that point that I grabbed my noodles and we both headed to the room, and locked ourselves in.

Now for today. We spent most of the night playing Football Manager, so we didn't go to bed til lateish. Still feeling jet-lagged, though, we managed to sleep in up until around 3pm, when we were pretty much forced to get up, as we had to leave at 4.

While we were getting ready to go, we also met Simon, who was the guy living with us. He was a nice guy, just a few years older than us, and had been in Bangkok with one of the elite teams playing in a tournament over there. He was taking us to the bus stop, where we would meet Daymon and head to our session.

Our session was at a place called UWCSEA, which stands for United World College of South East Asia. The pitch was a gorgeous, rooftop, 3G pitch. It was a dream. I was really looking forward to coaching on here.

Unfortunately, just as we were about to start coaching, the lightening sirens went off, and no one was allowed on the pitch. We managed to get in about 10 minutes of game time later on, but it was called off due to torrential rain and loads of lightening, it was a nightmare. The whole session got called off after that, which was a shame, but to be fair there was no chance of any football being played in that.

Dan, Simon and I made a mad dash for the buses, to avoid the rain, but it took about an hour for the bus to arrive, which was a pain. Turns out the lightening meant that loads of buses weren't running, which I guess is understandable.

Got home, Simon went back to the apartment to get ready to go out and meet his girlfriend, while Dan and I grabbed some food and prepared ourselves for a night full of Football Manager mayhem. Should be decent!

Day 2 - Tanglin Private School

Today we started our first day of work! After chatting to Daymon yesterday, it seems that our schedule isn't as busy as it was in South Africa, plus most days we start in the afternoon and have afternoon and evening sessions, which I prefer much more as it means we don’t have to panic about being up early, and can enjoy a nice lie in. Our schedule is also pretty much the same weekly, which is understandable as its more professional and serious stuff than in South Africa, where our schedule was different each week as we visited different communities. It’s nice to be able to experience both kinds of coaching work, and is why we’re all doing this course.

We started at 2pm at a private school quite a way away, called Tanglin Private School, so Daymon came by ours at around 12:30 and took us to the shuttle bus, then onto the underground. Yesterday we bought a couple of travel cards, which worked a lot like oyster cards back home, where you top up and use it to get around places. The underground is so much nice than back home. Its cleaner, more efficient, and actually sensible, with lines telling people where to stand to avoid punch-ups getting onto the train. It’s really nice. We were on the train for about half an hour before getting off at our stop. Outside it was chucking it down, yet it was still warm. On our walk to the school, we heard a massive crack of thunder nearby, which scared the life out of me and Dan. Apparently thunder like that is common in Singapore according to Daymon, so we just looked stupid. Oh well.

We got to the soccer school and all the kids were under cover. Apparently if thunder & lightening goes off within a certain radius where they are, they have to get all of the kids under cover for around 45 minutes before taking them out again, which was interesting. We took over one of Norm’s (another coach, from England – ex military so we didn't mess with him) groups and got them to do some passing under cover before taking them out to do matches. These kids were a lot different from the community kids in South Africa. They wouldn't listen, focus or do anything we asked them to do. They just wanted to play matches all the time. Norm did say that this school was the worst to coach at because the kids were just a pain. The school we’re at tomorrow is supposed to be decent, though.

After all the matches were over we went back home with Daymon. We’re both still pretty jet-lagged, though, so don’t plan to do much. We both got a sim card out here though, which means I can message my family to let them know I'm okay, as well as messaging Maddie (my girlfriend), and avoid having to go 3 weeks without talking to her, which I really don’t want to happen. But that’s all sorted so happy days!

Tomorrow, another late start, 5:30pm, so we’re aiming to explore a bit more during the day, which will be pretty cool.

Day 1 - Arrival

Touchdown in Singapore! We arrived at around half 7 in the morning (Singapore time), and as soon as we got off the plane, we got a taste of the heat and humidity that we had to get used to during our time out here.

We got our bags, and met Daymon, who was one of the coaches that worked for JSSL, standing for Junior Soccer School League. This was the name of the company, but they have now purchased the rights to franchise as an Arsenal Soccer School, so now, on all their gear, they have JSSL Arsenal.

Daymon introduced himself to us, and took us to a cab, which drove us to our apartment. We are supposed to live with another guy called Simon, who also works for JSSL, but he doesn’t arrive back from Bangkok until Tuesday so we have 2 days to get ourselves used to the apartment and the surroundings in Singapore. The apartments a nice size, nowhere near as good as the apartment we were in in South Africa, but its hard to beat accommodation that does your laundry twice a week and cleaning once a week, as well as providing us with cooked meals twice a day. We have a nice TV with loads of channels, wifi in the apartment (which will be good once its working), and its located so everything we need is in walking distance. We share a room, which is a decent size, and has good storage space so that’s all good too.

Once we were unpacked and everything, we went for a little walk with Daymon to try and work out our surroundings. We picked up some dinner at this place Daymon goes to quite often. Me and Dan had some chicken fried rice while Daymon had some other chicken delicacy. It was unbelievably nice, and we got a pretty big portion for around £2.50. So that’s happy days!

We were both pretty exhausted and jetlagged after our flight, sot when we got back we tried our best to stay up as long as possible. But it got to 8pm and we both passed out. Didn’t even get to watch Everton thrash United or the Arsenal game! Gutted.