Crabs, Caves, Crazy Boardwalks

Ohkay. After a bit of problems involving a bout of Christmas shopping that went completely out of control, I have finally remembered my duties as a chronicler of my sufferings, and have started writing this particularly long blog post. So...yeah...

Oh, but first, let me just say that I'm not going to be writing about diving, and also let me say that I might sometimes leave out a word or two or something shit like that. MSWord has pampered me. And also, I apologise for the lack of photos, because my failness at anything remotely to do with electronics and computers has forced me to make do with words.

So...the flight to the land of crabs, crabs, and Christmas. Sounds fun. But unfortunately, I took Malaysian Airlines to get there.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about Malaysian Airlines. Put me on a flight with them and SIA and I couldn't tell the difference. There's only one difference.

No Playing Cards.

WTF MAN. NO PLAYING CARDS? YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME. HOW CAN I PLAY MAHJONG WITHOUT PLAYING CARDS DAMMIT.

Lucky us, because we managed to bring two packs of cards with us, so we didn't get hit by the fallout so badly. I pity the poor souls without playing cards...I mean, what else can you do? Shop?

Perhaps I need to say here that our family and cards are like rock stars and drugs. We can't survive without cards, no sirree. Heck, both my mum and dad know how to play Tai-tee (Is that how you spell it? No idea.), and my dad even knows how to cheat. Great. Of course, we don't just play Tai-ti (Try different spelling this time), we play games like Rummy-Cue and Clock...and...and...okay, I can't remember anything at the moment, but I'm sure it'll come to me. And say nothing about the fact that Clock has no multi-player.

Anyway, we pretty much played cards everywhere. Waiting for dinner? Play cards. After diving? Play cards. "Hey guys, let's go home and rest." "Yeah, let's play cards." Going for bird-watching? Play cards. Going for blowhole watching? Play cards. Driving? Come on, you know the answer people!

Obviously, you don't play cards when driving, moron. Even rock stars don't jab themselves when driving. That's stupid. Using your handphone and alcohol is cool and all, but playing cards? Please, we're not that stupid.

Ah, but you see, what you do when you're driving around Christmas Island? You avoid crabs. Why? Because there are crabs everywhere, dammit. I think Darwin's Theory of Evolution is right when it says that nature is beautiful. I mean, each of those red crabs is just right size to be squashed by a pair of newly cleaned tyres. I think if you measure the size of the crab to the size of the splat it makes when you run over it, you'll get the golden ratio.

...Okay, time to take that all back before animal rights groups get me. To be honest, it really is hard dodging crabs. There were times when we had to get out of the car and shoo (shoe) the crabs away before we could drive around again. Even in the freaking jungle. What the hell are they doing in the jungle, goddammit. Couldn't they be a bit more sensible and go work in a quarry or something? At least that way they wouldn't dirty somebody's tires when they get squashed.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, chasing away the crabs. The red crabs are easily taken care of, heheh. I mean, an encounter with a Red Crab goes like this.

Red Crab Spotted!
Poke, Poke, Poke.
Red Crab does nothing!
Low B, Low C.
Red Crab does nothing!
Jump B. Jump C. Jump B. Jump C. AIR THROW.
Red Crab does nothing!
...Arc Drive Finish?
Red Crab has died!
Victory Cry! Hurrhurrhurr.

Geez, improve the difficulty levels on these guys will you? Safety in numbers doesn't work when no one is doing anything.

Ahh, but then again, at night, when you start walking around, you start seeing the elusive robber crabs (I only saw 30 of them in one night. Now that's rare)! These crabs get their names from their notorious habit of poaching the dead remains of red crabs before angry drivers can get their revenge. Another reason is because Robber Crabs also like to steal people's cars when they aren't vigilant enough. Scary stuff.

Fighting Robber Crabs is a lot more dangerous than fighting Red Crabs. A normal fight goes like this:

Robber Crab spotted!
Poke, Poke, Poke.
Robber Crab pokes back, but it's out of range!
Low B. Low C. Jump BC Jump BC POKE POKE POKE.
IT'S INVALID. GG.
Robber Crab punishes. Then runs away.
NO GOLD. NO EXP.

Yeah, so it sucks to fight Robber Crabs. At least it's a lot easier avoid them on the roads, unless you're a 36.5m long Road Train. In which case, gg.

Anyway, over the course of the journey, there were several places that were fun to visit. Most of these involved caverns. Unfortunately, I don't like caverns very much, and those I was not enthusiastic about running around inside them or even talking about it. But then again, blogs are places where you must chronicle someone's suffering, usually your own. So. Here goes.

One of these caverns was called the Grotto. It was a really majestic place. Here are the first things that we said about the Grotto, in that order.

"That's it?"
"It looked a lot better in the guidebook."
"Hey, there's a slipper in there! That's so cool!"
"YES OMG NO NEED TO GO INSIDE ANYMORE."
"The photographer must've been freaking good."

Guess which one is me! If you guess correctly, you'll get the other side of the slipper!

The Grotto, of course, wasn't the only cave we visited. There was supposed to be a really majestic cave called the Thundercliff, which sounds like something taken out of WoW and supposed to be just as good. So, we decided to go there and - !

That part's under diving, so no you.

Anyway, we also went to Daniel Roux cave. I liked this cave a lot. That's because there was a lot of greenery, a few interesting bugs here and there, a ladder that was so flimsy they specifically said that only one person on the ladder a time or it could break and a cannon with a 100% hit rate (fired one shot and sunk one submarine. Skillz that killz).

But the best thing, I think, about the cave was the big sign on the front that said:

NO ENTRY EXCEPT TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.

Needless to say, I was going, "YEAH BABY FIGHT THE POWAH!" while everyone else was grumbling. I think the barbed wire made me happier.

Anyway, that's it for caving. I had a lot of fun! =D After that, we decided to go to the Blowholes. Now those were fun. They were like geysers, except without the noxious fumes, the ultra-slow attack speed (you have to wait for 50 years before some geysers attack again), and the hot water. It was really fun getting sprayed by water. Oh, but Christmas Island blowholes are special. You get double the fun for the price of one! Instead of getting sprayed by just water, you get sprayed with the remains of stupid red crabs that fell into the holes and got blow apart. No joke there.

Oh yeah, guess what we did the moment we got there?

You got it! We played cards.

Okay, so I liked the blowholes. What else did we do, arh? Oh yeah, we also went to several other cool beaches, such as Winifried Beach, Dolly Beach, Greta Beach, a beach a totally bombastic name that I can't remember anymore...oh yeah, and we went to Lily and Ethel.

Lily and Ethel is not the name of a shopping centre. It was, in fact, a really, really nice beach. Apart from the fact that I was heavily injured by a tsunami-like wave. Ahh, the pain, the pain! Boohoo, wahwah. But that was all worth it because of the SHAMAN WATER STONE.

For those of you not in the know, a SHAMAN WATER STONE is a stone of such magical power that you can't help but type its name in caps. Also, because I had access to such a powerful magical artefact, I had no choice but to play the role, and so I engaged in several shamanistic rituals involving a lot of waving, dancing, stopping other tsunami-like waves from attacking the bags, and singing Hi-Hi-Puffy-Ami-Yumi at the top of my voice.

Yeah, so it was really fun. Anyway, it's time for me to sleep now, so I'm sorry but you'll have do to with this. Yup Yup. By the way, this update beats yours, Dneo, you slacker shit.