Peekabendi =P

Whistler to Vancouver

2008-06-18T23:39:00.001-07:00

Enjoyed waffles with icecream for breakky before packing up our stuff and checking out of our wonderful loft! We loaded up the car and then left it in the hotel garage whilst we went off to the upper village to rent a bike! Initially Di was rather hesitant about riding cos the weather didn’t look too crash hot and it had drizzled already that morning but I thought we might as well just go ahead and do it!

We got the trail map out and were soon cruising our way along the Lost Lake Trail, which led us not surprisingly to Lost Lake! We rode around part of it before following the map guide towards Green Lake. We enjoyed some downhill runs, being careful not to skid on the gravel. This is when we then got lost! Somehow the map fell out of my back pocket and we took a wrong turn and basically couldn’t find Green Lake! Then it started to drizzle!

We promptly followed my navigational instincts and took a random trail that I thought looked like it was heading back to the village. Di really enjoyed this trail as it led us alongside the river up and down along a narrow dirt path! We eventually found our way back to a main road and we decided to return the bikes after riding for just an hour.

We then said bye to Whistler, vowing to return one day in winter to ski/snowboard! We drove south (very slowly due to roadworks upgrading the Sea to Sky highway in preparation for the 2010 Vancouver winter Olympics) and headed for the Capilano suspension bridge! This bridge apparently runs through the forest canopy but we decided not to do it cos it costs CND 30 per person!!! Having done a similar bridge in Malaysia for RM 6 or something like that, we decided instead to go to the Vancouver Aquarium!

We drove south over the Lion’s Gate bridge to Stanley Park where the aquarium is situated and got there around 2pm. There were still plenty of people about! We checked out the tropical fish tanks, a butterfly/slough enclosure, and some cute baby tortoises! Then we grabbed a burger at the aquarium café before hearing a talk about the Beluga whales, which are their star attractions. Qila, the mother whale gave birth to a baby girl just 8 days ago so they were very excited about that! We heard about the birth and how Qila’s own mother Aurora helped teach her how to nurse her baby calf! Then we headed to the viewing area below to watch Qila nurse her baby! Our visit to the aquarium was rounded out by a visit to the dolphin enclosure where 3 dolphins performed some cool tricks for us, and then the sea otter tank where 2 sea otters playfully swam around!

It was around 5pm when we left the aquarium and drove east towards Burnaby. We called Di’s dad’s friend Mun Kong and met up with him at a golf club in Burnaby. Then he drove us in his car to Coquitlam to have Japanese food for dinner! He was really really friendly and we enjoyed chatting with him over dinner! The food itself was great! Fresh seafood here makes for great sushi/sashimi!

After dinner we headed back to Ray and Soo’s place! We played with Ethan and Evelyn a bit before they were put to bed and then we showed Ray and Soo our wedding photos before enjoying some of their freshly baked muffins for supper! Time for bed - the penultimate night of our honeymoon!!!

Day out in Whistler!

2008-06-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

Got up early to get some breakky from downstairs before the tour group staying at our hotel took it all! Di was kind enough to get it whilst I struggled to get up! It wasn’t bad! Freshly made waffles, pastries, juice, and tea!

After breakky we set off to the visitor centre intent on buying our tickets up to Blackcomb mountain! When we got there the lady showed us the live web cam feed of the mountain and it didn’t look too inviting! Dark clouds, wind, and freezing temperatures made us think twice about going up! We returned to our hotel and after seeing the sun poke its head out intermittently, we decided what the heck, let’s do it!

Putting on 3 layers each, we got our tickets and walked up to the upper village to catch the chairlift up Blackcomb mountain! We first took the Wizard Express to a midstation platform before catching the Solar Express lift to Rendevous. On the way up we were fortunate enough to spot a native black bear! It looked like a cub!

The higher up we went, the colder it got! Some people were actually skiing and snowboarding and making their way to the top of the mountain. We caught a shuttle bus to the 7th Heaven Lift and headed for the summit! Up here it was freezing man!!! Without proper winter gear, my hands and face were numb, and my anklet socks weren’t cutting it!

Up the top we had splendid views of Whistler valley and there was significantly more snow up here than at the bottom of the hill. We took refuge in Horstman’s Hut and enjoyed a hearty bowl of minestrone soup! Then it was time to go back down as it started to snow!

Going down was even colder! The wind seemed to be blowing straight at us and it seemed to take forever to reach the bottom! On the way back down we spotted 2 more bears! Di was so happy!

Back at the bottom, we checked out Spicy Sports bicycle rentals before deciding to rent them tomorrow cos it looked like it was gonna rain. Instead we grabbed lunch at KFC to satisfy our craving! Mmm mmm!

After lunch it was already 3pm and we headed back to our hotel to rest a bit before going out to the cinema next door to see Kung Fu Panda! It was awesome!!! Really funny and great cinematography!

Dinner was home cooked fish and chips with leftover salad and chicken kebab from yesterday night! Time to sleep…right after our A & W root beer float! Yeah!

Vancouver to Whistler!

2008-06-16T23:10:00.000-07:00

Today was just one of those spontaneity days where we didn’t really accomplish too much. We need these days sometimes and I enjoy it because it doesn’t feel like there’s a schedule to keep to.

We woke to the Sun family having breakfast but both Ben and I were still so sleepy. Not sure why as we had at least 8 hours sleep. We managed to get out of the house by 10am to pick up our rental car at Metrotown. Following which we went to the Canadian Superstore to pick up some snacks, toothbrushes and water. I wish we had a store like that in Australia. There a dispensers of M&M’s, lollies, pasta and lentils. I misjudged the M&M dispenser as I ended up with about 600 grams of M&M’s. Ben made me ditch about half the bag. Cruel man I married.

We headed off for an early lunch of sushi, teriyaki chicken and tempura in the foodcourt. The noodles which accompanied the teriyaki chicken was more like spaghetti than noodles. Funny that. In Italy we ate spaghetti which seemed like egg noodles, and in Canada we ate Japanese which seemed like spaghetti.

Finally we headed off for Whistler. We were planning to stop by Shannon Falls on the way but we weren’t sure where to stop and we inadvertently passed the falls even after stopping at the right place. We headed on to Whistler as we could stop by on the way back to Burnaby.

We arrived at our hotel (Whistler Village Inn & Suites) and had to wait for our room to be cleaned. We overheard the receptionist say to her co-worker ‘we’ll need to put them in the loft’ and both of us knowing that this was a better room with a fully equipped kitchen hoped that they were talking about us!

After waiting for our room to be tidied the moment of truth came. We got the loft! Both of us were so happy! This meant we could cook our own dinner! When you’ve been traveling for 3 months, cooking for yourself is a luxury!

We went for a walk around the village which was beautiful. There are also some summer sales of winter clothes that we looked into. We planned for the next day and picked up some groceries for our feast.

The hotel has a BBQ which we used to cook our steak and chicken kebabs. I think we got over excited as we ended up with way too much food. But ah, such is the luxury of cooking for yourself!

Day out in Vancouver!

2008-06-15T23:09:00.000-07:00

Enjoyed a bit of a sleep-in cos Evelyn was still asleep! When we were all up and ready, we crammed into Ray and Soo’s camry and off we went! We drove to Granville Island, about a 15 min drive away. This arty place isn’t really an island but is located under the Granville Bridge by the water! It’s kinda like Paddington back home - with upmarket markets, craft and clothes stores.

We found a parking quickly and after getting Ethan and Evelyn into their strollers we were off! We checked out the markets and some of the craft stores before finding a spot outside on the pier to have lunch! We bought some pot pies from this renowned place for pies and enjoyed the warm Canadian sun! As we ate our clam chowder and pacific salmon pies, we enjoyed street actors doing acrobatics and stunts!

Ethan was servicing us by chasing the seagulls away from the wharf. It was quite comical watching Ethan wave his green stick for bubble making while running after the seagulls. After lunch we took a short walk around the area and picked up an ice-cream.

We boarded a cute boat and sailed around along the river with Soo and Ray as our tour guide. It’s was a mixed scene along the way. There was a concrete factory, a large array of apartment buildings, the science centre and water side entertainment. Ethan was looking a little tired on this trip and he ended up falling asleep in his pram! Gee I miss being a kid!

We had a look around at the shops but this area was really for the tourist, and the people who like arts and crafts and are willing to pay for it. Ben and I have never been such people, so we just admired.

Next stop was Stanley Park. There was a bit of traffic going through Downtown but once we got there we were rewarded with a mini train ride. It goes through the forest and loops around a bit so you have good viewings of the fake moose, bear and birds. It was nice and Ethan loved it. I couldn’t help thinking of my own Ethan who loves trains!

We then walked along to the water and found a bridge which looks exactly like the golden gate bridge, only green. We then crossed over to the other side where we saw the huge cruise liners just before they took off for Alaska. We were on the way to the Totem poles which were replicas made and placed in the park. According to the sign board the animals that were often on these poles were the Eagle (as the king of the sky), Whale (king of the sea), the Wolf (king of the land) and the frog which symbolized the link between land and sea. These totem poles were traditionally made to reflect their dreamtime stories. It was made clear that they were not worshiped or idolized.

Ethan was full of energy at this stage and practically ran all the way back to the car. His Dad had to chase after him and slow him down!

We headed back to the Sun’s place and got Indian take out for dinner. The rest of the evening was filled with research for what we were going to do in Whistler over the next few days.

Happy Birthday Ethan!

2008-06-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

Got up around 10:30am but everyone else was already awake in preparation for Ethan’s 3rd birthday party! His birthday was actually on 30th May but because he was sick and many of his friends were going away, they decided to have it today.

It turned out to be a nice day for a party! Around 11am guests started arriving! We met some of Soo’s friends and their cute kids! The theme for the party was bubbles and Soo had set up bowls of bubble solution and got the kids to blow bubbles! They loved it! They also had a mini jumping castle going, which the kids loved!

Over the next hour about another 10-15 kids arrived! They were the kids of Ethan’s playgroup, Sunday school, and preschool. Ray and I went to pick up some pizza for lunch and the birthday cake. In the meantime, Sandra, one of Soo’s friends, was leading the kids in song and dance! Then it was time to cut the cake and for Ethan to open his presents! It was nice being involved with family life again and a glimpse into what life with kids will be like one day! What the parents kept telling us time and time again was to enjoy our life without kids as much as possible cos when they come, even though they’re a joy, they’re a handful too!

The party finished around 2pm and we helped clean up! Boy was there a lot to clean up! Plates, cups, balloons, food and drink! In the afternoon we had a rest before Ray took us out to Burnaby mountain to admire the view of Vancouver and its surrounding landscape! We admired the beauty of the snow capped mountains in the backdrop and cityscape against the afternoon sun!

We returned home and soon Ray’s parents arrived for dinner! They brought some dishes along and Soo jeje cooked some stir fried long beans. It was really really nice chatting with Mr and Mrs Sun! They were really lovely and we enjoyed chatting about our travels and differences between Canada and Australia.
After dinner we played with Ethan and Evelyn until they had to go to sleep. Both enjoyed the toy we had bought them from San Fran! Once asleep we enjoyed some port and dessert wine before watching 300! Night!

San Francisco to Vancouver!

2008-06-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

Today we travelled from San Francisco to Vancouver! After breakky we walked six blocks down to Market St to do some last minute shopping before returning to the hotel and finishing up our packing!

We had lunch in the Chinese restaurant next to the hotel. It was quite good! We had salt and pepper squid and stir fried eggplant with rice and soup for USD 11 all up!

After lunch we brought our stuff down to the hotel lobby and checked out. We had 8 bags all together! Two suitcases, two big backpacks, two small backpacks, a small carry bag, and Di’s handbag! Just as we were heading out the door, our shuttle to the airport arrived!

The drive was really quick and we got to the airport around 1:30pm, at least 2hrs 40mins before our flight at 4:10pm. We had no problems going through security except that they are so strict here you have to take off your jacket and shoes even!

Our flight was delayed so we only left San Fran around 5:10pm. By the time we landed, got out of the airport and caught a taxi to Soo and Ray’s place in Burnaby, it was around 8pm! So all in all we travelled for 7hrs door to door!

We rocked up to their front door and rang the door bell. Ray opened the door and was somewhat surprised to see us! Soo joined him at the door and apparently she had thought we were coming tomorrow night! Oh well! We got all our luggage in and they made us feel really at home!

Ethan (3yrs old) and their newborn Evelyn (5 months) were both asleep but as we ate the instant noodles dinner Soo jeje whipped up for us, Evelyn awoke and we got to meet her. She’s soooooo cute!!! Very easy going happy little baby!

After dinner we had showers and set up our bed in their living room. Nitey nite!

Exploring San Fran!

2008-06-12T23:07:00.000-07:00

First thing we did after our continental breakky was return our rental car to Budget on Howard St. Our least favourite parking attendant was somehow still on duty after being on yesterday evening. We didn’t tip him for bring the car 5m from where the car was parked!

We said goodbye to our trusty Chevrolet Cobalt at Budget and walked up to Market St. We bought 1 day unlimited Muni passports that allowed us travel on all of San Fran’s public transport for a reasonable USD 11. Then we hopped on a F Line street car to Fisherman’s wharf! For those wandering what an F line street car is, it’s basically like a Melbourne tram.

It was another beautiful day at Fisherman’s wharf and warm too! We got off outside the Boudin Bakery and headed to Pier 45 to check out the naval vessels there! Whilst Di browsed the Museum Mechanique (containing antique carnival game machines) I boarded the USS Panpamito, an old submarine from WWII! On board I got to see most of the submarine including the torpedo room, living quarters, galley, and control room!

Afterwards we walked around Fisherman’s wharf, past all the seafood restaurants selling clam and crab chowder! We then checked out Hyde St pier and some of the historic ships there. There were also these barrels with signboards teaching you how to tie various knots that the sailors used so we had fun learning new knots!

Next we grabbed icecream at a store called Ghirardelli - a Cookie Bottom Sundae! It was basically two scoops of vanilla icecream on top of a choc chip cookie with chocolate hot sauce on top! So rich so good!

Having finished seeing everything we wanted to see at Fisherman’s Wharf, we caught the famous San Fran cable car from Powell St to Union Square! Halfway up a hill the cable car stopped and the driver told us to get off! The power must’ve cut out or something. In not too long though we were back on the cable car! It was rather crowded and we were glad to get off at Union Square!

Here some promotion for World Harmony Day was happening so we checked that out before hitting the shops! We visited Niketown, Ninewest, and Macy’s before lunch! Managed to get some things on sale! Then we had lunch at an Indonesian restaurant advertised in our San Fran city guide! The place was funnily called ‘Indonesian Restaurant’ for lack of a better name! We had quite good lunch combos with beef rendang, some chicken dish, fried tofu, and another beef dish plus gado gado. All quite reasonable for USD 10 per person!

After lunch we walked back to our hotel to drop off the shopping before heading out again! We walked down to Market St past Civic Center and a bunch of hobos! Then we walked up Market St from the 7th street intersection checking out the shops! We didn’t really find much until we reached the Westfield. There we found mostly upmarket stores, not many with sales on. We kept on walking up Market St and checked out Marshalls and a toy store called Gregories before deciding to catch the Bart and bus no 19 back to our hotel.

Still feeling full from lunch, we opted to skip dinner and finish the fresh food we still had. We had bananas and root beer for dinner! And here we are watching Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark on our last night in a hotel! Nite!

Shopping in San Fran!

2008-06-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

Today was shopping day! We drove 70 miles or so to the Gilroy Premium Factory Outlets! The drive took almost 1hr 30 mins as we drove south past the airport and San Jose. At the outlets we found 150 stores with all the big names! They were divided up into 4 blocks of shops and were so spread apart that at times we drove from shop to shop!

We were quite selective in the stores we visited. Some of the ones we checked out included Gap, Ninewest, Ecko, Banana Republic, DC, Fossil, Bass, and some random factory shoe stores. Managed to find some bargains during the 4 hours or so we spent there!

We grabbed lunch at a Chinese fast food place there, trying the Kung Pao chicken that seems so common at Chinese restaurants in America! Around 3:30pm we left the outlets and headed back to San Fran.

The plan was to return the car before Budget rental’s closing time of 5:30pm (earlier than our original return time of 11:15am tomorrow morning to save USD 15 in parking fees overnight again) but the traffic was so bad it took over 2 hours to get back to downtown San Fran and we ended up reaching Budget 5mins after closing time! Darn it!

Oh well! To make use of the car, we drove to Fisherman’s Wharf and found some street parking. Di was hungry so we had dinner at Bistro Boudin, a bakery famous for its sourdough and clam chowder! We ate in the restaurant section and had a window table overlooking the bay but after our meal of pepperoni sourdough pizza with a side of petite clam chowder in bread bowl, we left the restaurant to find that we could’ve gotten the exact same meal at the casual dining outlet downstairs for half the price! Double darn it! Oh well! You pay for nice views and nice toilets!

After dinner we walked to Pier 39 and checked out the sea lions that have inhabited one of the docks. Then we checked out the retail arcade on the pier whilst waiting for sunset! Sunset over the bay was awesome but it was rather chilly so we headed back to the car straight after.
We wanted to visit Macy’s cos there was a one day sale on today but we couldn’t find parking so we ended up just heading back to our hotel! Night!

Yosemite National Park to San Francisco!

2008-06-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

Got up around 9am and packed up our stuff into the car before checking out and driving to nearby Mirror Lake. We parked in the stables car park and found the trailhead a few hundred feet away. We enjoyed the short walk along a paved flat pathway through the redwood forest. On either side cliffs towered above us and along side us a river with rapids rushed by! After 30mins we reached the Mirror Lake, so named cos of the beautiful reflections of the mountains in the water. We walked around a part of the lake and after taking some pics, headed back to the car.

Around 11am we set off for San Francisco, only 180miles or so away! We drove for an hour through national parkland before the landscape changed to dry grassland that reminded me of our countryside back home. At 1pm we stopped for lunch at the small town of Oakvale. We had 6 pieces of KFC and an A&W root beer float! Yum!!!

We continued our drive west and reached San Fran around 4pm and checked into our accommodation for the next 3 nights at Air Travel Hotel. The hotel was on a dodgy looking street, made apparent by numerous hobos and crazy ppl on the street and the fact that it was in the middle of Little Saigon. The hotel itself didn’t look too crash hot but inside we found a great recently renovated room on the 6th floor with a new bed, modern bathroom, plasma tv, and free wifi!

After unloading all our luggage, we set off to see some of San Fran’s sights! Using our GPS, we headed for Golden Gate park down the road. This huge park is kinda like San Fran’s equivalent of Sydney’s Centennial Park. Inside we visited the tranquil Japanese Tea Gardens before heading to the nearby Stow Lake and Strawberry Hill which afforded a view through the trees of San Fran’s hilly cityscape!

Next we drove to the foot of the famous Golden Gate bridge! We stopped at Fort Point to take pics of the bridge and bay but didn’t stay long due to the strong chilly wind!

Our last sight for the day was the crookedist street in America - Lombard St! This section of the street runs the length of one block down a steep hill with a 40 degree incline. It consists of a zigzagging road down the hill with nice gardens in the non road parts of the street and pedestrian steps on either side of the street! We parked in the parallel street and walked down the street before getting back in our car and driving down the street!

Next we headed to Chinatown to find some dinner! We parked near Grant Ave, the main street in Chinatown and looked for a restaurant packed with Chinese ppl! We found a reasonably priced one about halfway up the street and went in for some chicken chow mein and spicy eggplant! Mmm! Good food and good value!!!

Finally we headed back to our hotel around 9pm. We discovered that the parking under the hotel is contracted out to a valet parking service and that we had to pay USD 15 to park it for 12 hours overnight. What a rip!!! Ended up parking it there cos we couldn’t be bothered to search for street parking. The parking attendant was so obnoxious we couldn’t stand him! No tips for him!

Upper Yosemite Trail walk!

2008-06-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

Didn’t have the best sleep last night thanks to some poms next door who arrived around 11pm or so and were so loud yakking and laughing away at the novelty of staying in a canvas tent! We set off around 9:30am after parking our car at Yosemite Lodge and walking to the start of the Upper Yosemite Falls walk nearby. Along the way we ate our prebought breakky - donut for Di and apple danish for me!

The Upper Yosemite Falls walk was a 3.5mile walk to the top and marked as ‘strenuous’ on the trail map we had. We soon found out just how strenuous it was! The walk to top took about 3hrs and basically consisted of zigzagging rocky terrain all UPHILL! We had frequent breaks in whatever shade we could find!

Halfway up we stopped at Columbia point to admire the view of Yosemite valley but we didn’t stop too long as the sun was bearing down on us! Further on we had had a view of the waterfall itself! We welcomed the sprays of water from the fall that the wind carried to us!

Around 12:40pm we finally reached the top of the falls! We checked out the overlook point and found a shady spot for lunch whilst we admired the view! Lunch was prebought egg and tuna sandwiches from the general store.

After spending an hour at the summit admiring the snow capped mountain range and the valley far far below, we headed back down. On the way we checked out the trail leading to Yosemite point, another mile away. We walked part of the trail to see the river from which the waterfall originates.

Then it was down baby down! It was heaps easier going down but it was still slow going in some parts due to slippery rocks and sand. Shade from the adjacent cliff face afforded us cool relief and consequently the journey down only took 2hours.

With weary and aching legs, we trudged back to the car and headed back to Curry Village around 4:30pm. I had a refreshing shower whilst Di had a cool swim. Then it was time for another buffet dinner, different menu tonight! We got in at opening time at 5:30pm and enjoyed a dinner of fish, pork loins, chicken parmisan, and rice and veges!

Afterwards Di had a shower and here we are, relaxing and enjoying our last evening in Yosemite - the highlight of the honeymoon according to Di so far! Night!

Las Vegas to Yosemite National Park!

2008-06-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

We left Las Vegas around 9:30am after a quick stop at Albertsons to buy some more water! The drive to Yosemite National Park took about 6-7 hrs! We enjoyed listening to our only three CDs – Wicked Soundtrack, Snow Patrol Eyes Open, and Colbie Caillat’s Coco. Along the way the scenery changed from sparse desert to green forest with snow capped mountains in the background as we approached Yosemite!

Lunch was Burger King at a Chevron petrol station in a town called Tonomah. Along the way to Yosemite, we stopped by Mono lake to check out the scenery.

We entered Yosemite National Park around 4:30pm. The drive towards the entrance was spectacular as we passed through snow capped mountain passes with glacial lakes! There were plenty of photo stops along the way!!!

Once in the park we checked out the visitor centre and picked up a map of trails in the park. Then we continued our drive west through the park which took about an hour. We finally reached Curry Village around 7pm and checked in. Our accommodation for the next 2 nights is a canvas tent which is basically a hut with wooden frames and flooring but with a canvas roof and walls.

After unloading our gear we grabbed a buffet dinner at the village’s restaurant. It wasn’t bad for USD 12 per person and had soup, fish, pasta, rice, veges, and salad. Time to rest for a long walk tomorrow!

Viva Las Vegas!

2008-06-07T22:36:00.000-07:00

Viva Las Vegas baby! Today was our day to explore the famous Las Vegas Strip! We caught the free Sun Coast shuttle at 10am which dropped us off outside Bill’s Gambling Hall. It was another perfect day in the USA and although it was only mid morning, already it was boiling hot!

We crossed the road to check out our first casino for the day - Caesar’s Palace! This ancient roman themed casino had a forum, statues of Augustus Caesar and even the famous rape of the Sabines, lavishly decorated interior, and even a set of Spanish steps! Albeit the imitations weren’t anywhere near as good as the originals, one could not help but feel amazed at the amount of detail of the re-creation!

We checked out the Forum shops which housed all the luxury brands! Then we caught the free Lost City of Atlantis water fountain show at 11am! It told the story of the two children of the king of Atlantis were fighting over the throne to such a degree that the Gods decided to sink the city! It used fire, water, and animatronic effects!

Next we headed over to the Bellagio next door and walked by the famous water fountains. We caught a show around 11:30am with the fountains dancing in sync to some American song. It was amazing how some jets of water shot maybe 10 stories or more high into the sky!

We continued walking south along the Strip until we came to the New York New York casino. This casino recreated some streets of New York within the casino, and even Times Square! Outside there was a statue of liberty and a façade of the New York cityscape!

We didn’t spend long there and instead headed across the road to the MGM Grand to find some lunch! We ended up in the chain restaurant called the Rainforest Café. This jungle themed restaurant featured animatronic animals and lightning and thunder effects with waterfalls! We shared an entrée of buffalo wings and BBQ ribs - yum!

We headed off to the Dirk Arthur magic show at the Tropicana Hotel. We watched as Dirk made tigers, ligers (half lion, half tiger) and other wild cats appear on stage. It was pretty cool, although a little cheesy sometimes when Dirk stood at the front and smiled at the audience. The dancers were alright, but I noticed that they were sometimes out of time… But it was pretty cool and I still can’t figure out how he did a lot of his tricks!

We returned to the MGM grand after this to check out the lions in their artificial habitat within the casino. Our first thoughts were that it seemed kind of cruel that the lions be kept in such a small area. There were 2 men inside the habitat. One was throwing a ball and some other dumbbell looking object around for the male lion. Meanwhile the other was sitting on the ledge watching. Later on the lioness joined him and decided to lay next to him. For the sake of conscience though we were told that the lions have their own groomers, vet and keeper so we are to assume they’re well looked after. The enclosure was fairly spacious so I suppose it isn’t too bad that they’re in there.

Our next stop was M&M world where we were surrounded by M&M merchandise. On the 3rd floor there was a 3D movie where red lost his M on one of the craps tables in the casino! The rest of the movie was about him getting his M back. It was 3D and very cute. After dropping off into the coke store we headed for the northern side of the strip.

The Venetian is a huge casino with a canal running through it and its own gondola’s. We made our way through the streets until we arrived at St Mark’s square where there was a show of jesters and opera singers in Venetian costume. This was more than anything we saw in the real St Marks square! And, important to note, the Venice in the casino is much cleaner than the real Venice! No pigeons for a start!

However, the prices are similar, we found a shoe store that had a sale where shoes could be purchased for a humble $300!

The Wynn casino has a Lake of Dreams which is a light and fountain show. We headed over and found a nice viewing spot. To our dismay, due to daylight saving the show didn’t start until 8pm. We had reached our great viewpoint at 6:45pm! At 7:05pm when we had discovered that the show wasn’t happening until 8pm we left to catch the evening show of the Bellagio fountain. On the way, Ben picked up a fish burger meal from Macca’s.

After our pretty long walk we arrived at Bellagio only to discover that they weren’t running the show tonight! Due to high wind conditions! We felt pretty ripped off as we had missed 2 fountain shows!

We caught the shuttle back to our hotel and at the same time discovered our drive to Yosemite will be 7 hours! Got to sleep now!

Night!

Grand Canyon to Las Vegas!

2008-06-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

After initially contemplating waking up at 4am to see the sun rise over the Grand Canyon, we realised we were way too buggered to do that and just woke up around 8:30am. It was another beautiful day with clear blue skies stretching for miles in every direction! We packed the car, checked out and drove into the village centre.

After parking in carpark D, we walked towards the Grand Canyon’s South rim! We caught our first glimpse of it at the start of the Bright Angel Trail. Boy it was something to see! It very much reminded me of the look out at the three sisters in the Blue Mountains back home but the canyon has much sparser vegetation. The terrain was more colourful than I imagined with hues of red, orange, and green!

We started walking down the Bright Angel Trail into the canyon itself but when we started encountering mule dung and when we realised that views along this trail would be similar most of the way, we turned back. Instead we did the hermit road trail! This lead westward from the village along the top of the south rim. We enjoyed fantastic vantage points from 4-5 look out points1 We spotted eagles, squirrels, and the Colorado river running through the canyon!

Initially Di wasn’t terribly impressed with the magnitude of the canyon but at Maricopa point we got a glimpse of a larger part of the canyon and her impression changed! It really was a humbling experience to stand atop the canyon that runs about 273 river miles long, 10 miles wide, and 1 mile deep!

At Hopi point we caught the free shuttle bus back to the village. All in all we walked around 4-5km and it was already starting to get boiling hot under the Arizonian sun! Once back at the village we returned to our car and headed to the other side of the canyon!

We drove 23 miles to a place called Desert View which is the site of a watchtower built by Mary somebody in the 1900s. After checking out the view from the ground, we climbed the watchtower’s 4 or so levels! At each level of the circular tower there were viewing windows providing 360 degree views of the canyon and surrounds!

After appreciating the view, we left and drove the 23 miles back to the Grand Canyon village. Then we grabbed some lunch (quesalladas) at a café in Tusayan before saying farewell to one of the natural wonders of the world as we set off for Las Vegas!

The drive took around 4 hrs 30 mins and again consisted of driving along basically 4 very long and dead straight highways! Along the way we stopped to have a quick look at Hoover Dam.

Around 7pm we entered the outskirts of Las Vegas! From a distance we could make out the high rise casinos of the famous Strip shrouded in a haze! We headed to our accommodation for the next 2 night at Suncoast Casino and Hotel! The carpark was full and the first thing we saw when we entered the hotel was the gaming floor! Somehow we found the hotel registration desk tucked away in some corner and checked in. For the 5 minutes we spent in the ‘lobby’, when we got to our room we already stank of cigarette smoke!

Our room turned out to be a spacious (non-smoking thankfully!) room even larger than our one in Phuket, with a plasma tv, huge bathroom with 2 sinks, fridge, and couch. Di was so happy! After a long day I was rather buggered so we went down to the car to get our bags and then went to one of the hotel’s restaurants for dinner.

We had Mexican once again! This time we had a chicken fajita salad and a beef torsillada. We also tried their margherita! Once again we ended up with way too much food! Our waitress was nice enough to provide us with some takeaway boxes though!

After dinner we planned our day for tomorrow! Man I’m wasted! Time to sleep!

LA to Grand Canyon!

2008-06-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

Today was a driving day from LA to the Grand Canyon! We said farewell to Dilys and the kids and then left to have breakky with Boon Piou at a pancake place called IHop. For USD 5.99 I got 2 strawberry pancakes, 2 eggs, 2 sausages, and a hash brown! There was so much we couldn’t finish our plate!

After breakky we said farewell to Boon Piou and plugged Grand Canyon into our GPS! We also plugged in an outlet store Boon Piou had recommended in a town called Cabazon. It took around 2hours to reach Cabazon and not long after leaving LA the landscape had already become desert like! At Cabazon we found the Desert Hills Premium Factory Outlet with around 100 genuine factory outlet stores!!! It looked like all the big names were here but we put a time limit on our shopping given the amount of driving ahead of us!

In the 1hr 15mins we were there we only visited 2 stores! I got some jeans and a top at the Levis outlet and Di got 2 pairs of shoes at the Sketchers outlet.

We got back in the car and off again we went! I drove for an hour before filling up and continuing another 3 hours along desert highways! One thing about American highways - they’re long, flat and dead straight for the most part! Shortly after crossing the California/Arizona border we stopped for a rest stop and Di took over the driving.

We reached the town of Williams around 6:40pm and grabbed some dinner at Rod’s Steak House yeah! Di ordered prime ribs and I ordered ground sirloin steak. Both dishes came out different to what we expected! Di’s ribs weren’t ribs at all but a cut of slow cooked steak. Mine was like ground up meat ie a burger patty, albeit with quality steak meat! Oh well! Both were not bad anyhow!

After dinner we headed up highway 64 towards the Grand Canyon National Park! The sun had already set and it was starting to get dark! It seemed like many more cars were leaving the park than heading towards it! After an hour or so we reached the entrance (which was unmanned so we didn’t have to pay the entrance fee!) and headed to the Grand Canyon Village and our accommodation for the night at Yavapai Lodge.

After checking in we drove our car round to the rooms themselves. Ours was a decent sized room with 2 queen sized beds and ensuite facilities! Not bad not bad! Nite!

Rest day in LA!

2008-06-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

Today was an errands day in LA! Got up late and first up drove our rental car to LAX airport to pick up our Budget rental car to take to San Fran. Then we drove both cars back to Lomita and returned the Enterprise rental car. This all took around 2hrs! Sp now we’re driving a black 2 door Chevrolet Cobalt. It’s got basic features but looks sporty!

We returned to Boon Piou’s place and Di did a load of washing/drying. In the meantime I went out again to get my hair cut and find some lunch to bring back. I looked up hair dressers in the GPS and finally got my hair cut at the 4th one I visited! The first one was non-existent, the second closed, and third fully booked when I visited. I ended up at a Korean place funnily enough but she was really good! Finally I have nice short spiky hair again!!!

Next I plugged Mexican food into the GPS and found a place called Enquitos Mos or something like that! Got two burritos and the guy even threw in a scoop of corn chips for free! Went back to Di’s cousin’s place and we thoroughly enjoyed our Mexican lunch!

After lunch we decided to check out the shopping scene in LA and found the South Bay Galleria in our GPS. This was about 8 miles away. We checked the directory but were kinda disappointed at the range of stores. They did have some major department stores like Macy’s and Mervyns but they didn’t have the general American brands like Levis, Fossil, or Timberland etc. We did some window shopping and picked up some baby clothes from Gap for some of Di’s friends expecting. Then we grabbed a HUGE old fashioned lemonade in the food court. It was seriously like a 1 litre cup!!!

We left around 5:30pm and stopped by Albertsons supermarket on the way home to pick up some groceries for our roadtrip starting tomorrow! We got back around 7:15pm and Boon Piou, Dilys, and the kids were all home. Dilys was feeling slightly ill with a headache so she was asleep and stayed home whilst we went out for dinner.

Boon Piou took us to that Malaysian place he had wanted to take us to on Monday night called Belacan Grill. It wasn’t bad! We had great satay for starters, then mains of hainanese chicken, curry beef, belacan kangkong and chow kway teow. The kids really loved the chicken! Natalie loved the curry beef! The chow kway teow wasn’t bad, but the other dishes weren’t quite up to par. It was quite reasonably priced though at around USD10 per dish and it was nice to have Malaysian food again!

Universal Studios!

2008-06-03T22:34:00.000-07:00

Today we visited Universal Studios! We got there just after the studio’s opening time of 10am! We parked in the Curious George carpark and walked through the Universal Citywalk towards the park entrance! It reminded me very much of the Warner’s Bros Studios on the Gold Coast! There were quite a lot of people but it wasn’t exactly packed for a weekday.

First up we did the new Simpson’s Ride! We lined up for 30mins before finally reaching the front of the line! It was a motion simulator that took us on a rollercoaster and flying adventure over Springfield! Pretty good! Next we headed to the lower lot of the park and Di convinced me to go on the Jurassic Park ride! There was no line at this ride so we got straight in! This was a river style ride with an 84 foot waterfall drop at the end!

Next up we checked out the stage effects show which showed us some common visual, creature, and sound effects used. Then we checked out the Backdraft show which demonstrated how they did the fire scenes from the movie! The last thing we did before lunch was the Mummy ride! This was an indoor rollercoaster almost completely in the dark! It was short but pretty scary! Thankfully I didn’t feel sick afterwards!

We had lunch in the Jurassic café before heading back up to the upper lot to do the famous Universal Studio tour! Again we didn’t have to wait and we got straight on to a tram. They took us through the backlots which is apparently the largest in Hollywood. They showed us sets from the Fast and the Furious, Jaws, the Mummy, old western movie sets, and a huge outdoor blue screen used to film Evan Almighty. We also so Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives! Many of the sets had live action demonstrations eg the mechanical shark used in Jaws and the robots used to produce the stunts in the Fast and the Furious! We also saw the remains of a set that caught on fire just on Sunday!

After the 45 min tour we headed to the Waterworld live show! This was based on the movie Waterworld and the stage was a huge pool with much of the set from the movie. The show was really good! There was a storyline and lots of action with jet skis, powerboats, flying foxes, and even a huge boat plane!

Next up we saw the Terminator 3D show and then the cute animal actors show! Finally we caught the last session of the Shrek 4D show (the 4th D is the vibrating chair and air and water effects) before doing a spot of souvenir shopping before the studio closed at 6pm!

As we headed back to the carpark along the Citywalk, we decided to hang around and have dinner. Until then we filled the time by watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! It wasn’t as good as the original 3 unfortunately! When the movie finished at 10pm, most of the restaurants had closed! We had initially planned to eat dinner at Hard Rock Café but it was only serving drinks by the time we made it there.

Instead we had to settle for Jack in the Box drive through on the way back to Di’s cousin’s place. A long day but we made the most it and really enjoyed Universal Studios! Nite!

Hey there Hollywood!

2008-06-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

Today Boon Piou took the morning off to show us around Ranchos Palos Verdes! We visited Trumps National golf course before checking out some of the multimillion dollar mansions in Rolling Hills and Boon Piou’s dream home! Then it was off to Costcos to check out prices for a GPS!

Costcos is basically a huge warehouse that sells everything in bulk for cheap! You have to be a member to shop there. I think it costs around USD 30 per year. They didn’t stock the model we wanted though. Boon Piou got a call from work and had to rush off so he dropped us at Enterprise car rentals in Lomita. We got a Hyundai Sonata for about USD 55 per day and we were off!
Man it was weird driving on the left side of the car and right side of the road! Di had to constantly remind me which lane to drive in! I also had difficulty keeping the car in the middle of the lane and kept drifting to the right cos I’m used to right hand drive cars! We drove to Circuit City nearby and got a Garmin Nuvi 200W to use for our tour of California!

Next we drove to Santa Monica beach to grab some lunch and check out the Californian beach scene! We found free parking in Macy’s shopping centre and headed towards the water. Now finally we found a real beach like those back home! The beach had fine sand and stretched for miles! We headed to the famous Santa Monica pier and checked out the small carnival there and the Bubba Gump store before getting a taste of our first real American fast food!

Di got a cheeseburger and I got a fish fillet sandwich! Mmm so greasy! After lunch we went for a walk along the beach enjoying the warm Californian sun and watching people cycle and rollerblade along side us!

Mid afternoon we headed over to Beverly Hills and the famous Rodeo drive! We drove down the snazzy shopping strip with all the luxury brand names before turning into that street you always see in the movies of Beverly Hills lined with the tall palm trees!

Then we drove to nearby Hollywood! We parked under the Kodak Theatre and checked out the Hollywood walk of fame! We saw plenty of big names’ stars including those from the movie, tv, and music industries! Outside the Chinese theatre there were plenty of people checking out the hand and footprints of Hollywood’s famous in the sidewalk!

We left Hollywood around 6pm and headed back to Boon Piou’s place. It took almost an hour! Then we went for dinner! They wanted to take us to this Malaysian place for dinner but we went there and it was closed! So we went to a Japanese place instead called Hakone! We had sashimi and tempura/teriyaki combos - yum!

After dinner we watched some of Nigel’s soccer matches before playing Wii soccer! Nite!

London to Los Angeles!

2008-06-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

Slept in till 10am or so and enjoyed the chocolate croissants we had bought in France for breakky! Around 11 we said farewell to Paula and headed back to Dartford. We dropped Beng Kiet koko and Cheng Yee off at Dartford station before rushing back to Uncle Alex’s place so we could pack! We had an hour to pack and chow down a bowl of instant noodles before it was off to the airport!

Along the way we reflected upon what a great 5 weeks had been in Europe! Man the time went quick! People ask which city was the best but I really think it was all good, each city having its unique attractions!

We checked in on time around 2:30pm for our 4:15pm flight but turns out we were 1 of 25 ppl remaining to check in!!! It meant we didn’t get a window seat but we didn’t mind. Uncle Alex and Aunty Clem said farewell and we went through the departure gates!

Our flight left an hour late due to traffic at Heathrow but otherwise was quite good! Flight time was around 10 hrs 30mins to Los Angeles and we enjoyed watching Vantage Point, Cleaner, Definitely Maybe, and The Bucket List! The food was great once again! We had lamb curry with rice and banoffee pie for dinner and dessert, and chicken foccacia for the light meal.

We got to LA around 8pm local time but it didn’t take long to get our bags and get into the arrival hall! There Di’s cousin Boon Piou, his wife Dilys, and two kids Nigel and Natalie greeted us! We hadn’t met them before but they were super welcoming and hospitable! We loaded up their Honda Odyssey and they took us to Chilis for dinner! As we drove there from the airport we marveled at the lights and the busy multi lane highways of America’s second largest city! Dinner was great! The portions were huge and Di and I were glad we shared the plate of ribs and chicken we had ordered! I also got root beer - yum!

After dinner it was on to their place in Ranchos Palos Verdes! We got the grand tour of their huge single storey former ranch house! Finally we collapsed in bed, exhausted from our travels and the jet lag! Nite!

Day trip to France!

2008-05-31T22:32:00.000-07:00

Uncle Alex rapped on the door nice and early at 6:30am and after a quick cuppa tea, we were off on the motorway towards Folkestone! We had 6 ppl in the car - Uncle Alex, Aunty Clem, Paula, Cheng Yee, Di and I! It was surprisingly not too cramped in the back!

We checked in at Eurotunnel and then had a quick look at the duty free shops before queuing up to board our train! Soon we had driven onto the train and were zooming under the English Channel!

We arrived in France around 9:15am or so and after putting our clocks forward an hour, we headed south towards the seaside town of Bologne! The drive didn’t take long but there was sufficient time to get a bit of shuteye in the backseat!

It was sunny and reasonably warm as we pulled into Bologne! After parking near the old part of town, we walked downhill to the markets which was bustling with locals! We had a look around at the stalls selling everything from fruit and veges to flowers to clothes! Next we headed down to the docks to check out the fishermen’s catch! They were mostly selling sole but we also saw some huge lobsters too!

We headed back to the car and grabbed our pre-made lunch of turkey rolls that Paula had made. We enjoyed the warm sun in the garden near the carpark as we gobbled down lunch. Then it was time to explore the old part of town surrounded by an ancient wall! We found the gate into town and walked up cobblestone streets to the main street lined with craft shops and cafes! There was this annoying African man who came up to us asking us where we were from and a few other questions. Uncle Alex pretended not to understand what he was asking and after a while just walked by. He presumably wanted money but we noticed him hassling every other tourist walking by! We found a nice café to sit at and grab a drink before deciding it was time to move on!

Back in the car, we headed north to the town of Dunkirk! Again I fell asleep but soon enough we were there! We parked near the pier and then walked into the town centre where we found a hub of activity going on! It turned out to be some sort of agricultural fair and there were animal exhibits and stores promoting organic foods. After checking it out briefly, we escaped the crowds and continued walking around town. It was nearing 5pm and we were feeling hungry so we started to keep an eye out for places to eat! I had my stomach set on moules fritte (mussels and fries!).

Eventually we found a few cafes by the sea and picked one advertising moules fritte! They didn’t really have much of a selection and it took a bit of guesswork to figure out what the other dishes on the menu were! Our French waitress was friendly enough but could not speak a word of English! In the end Uncle Alex, Di and I got the moules fritte, Aunty Clem got steak, Cheng Yee got this local specialty of cold chicken/pork, whilst Paula decided to just have cheese on toast with fries! The mussels were great! Uncle Alex’s provencal sauce was probably the best though!

Filled up, we left Dunkirk and drove to Calais to do some shopping before catching our 9:50pm train back to the UK. We managed to find the outlet centre near Cite Europe but it had just closed as we pulled into the parking lot at 7pm! Disappointed we headed over to Cite Europe and Uncle Alex, Aunty Clem, and Paula went crazy at Carrefour and Tesco buying a whole trolley full of booze! They got even more at the duty free store after we had checked in!

Our 9:50pm train ended up being full and we were first on the 10:10pm train. We finally reached UK soil around 9:30pm after putting back our clocks! The drive back to Paula’s place was about 30mins and Beng Kiet koko welcomed us back around 10pm! Paula reheated some of last night’s Indian food and mmm was it good! We also enjoyed some of the wine we had bought! The perfect end to a nice day out! Nite!

London to Dartford!

2008-05-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

Got up early at 7am to have breakky with Fiona before she left for work. We cooked bacon, eggs, mushrooms, onions, and hash browns! We had a little accident with Fiona’s cast iron pot - the inner paintwork crackled and popped spoiling our mushrooms! Anyhow it was nice to have a big breakfast again!

We said farewell to Fiona as she left for work and then Di went back to sleep whilst I surfed the net. Around 11:30am we took our clothes which were still wet to the Laundromat to us the dryer. It did the trick! We skipped lunch and went to watch Iron Man at the local Empire cinema! Not bad!

After the movie we rushed back to Fiona’s place to finish packing our bags and then we were off to the train station to head to Dartford! We caught the underground to Embankment and walked to Charing Cross station to catch the southeastern train to Dartford. All up the journey took almost 2hrs! We arrived in Dartford at 6pm and Aunty Clem picked us up at the station. She called Beng Kiet koko who was on the train and he said he was only 10mins away so we decided to wait for him at the station. Twenty minutes later he turned up and explained that his train had been delayed cos some guy had jumped onto the tracks!

We got to Uncle Alex’s place and repacked our small luggage bag for our overnight stay at Paula’s! Around 7:30pm we drove to Maidstone, about a 20min drive away. We picked up Cheng Yee from Maidstone station and then headed to Paula’s place.

Paula’s place is a nice 2 storey semi detached place in a dead end street. It had a very homely feel about it! Paula welcomed us and took us on a tour! She has a living room, separate dining room, conservatory, downstairs and upstairs toilet, and 3 bedrooms, one with a shower ensuite! She also has a decent sized backyard and deck!

As soon as we entered, we could smell wafts of home cooked Indian cuisine! Mmmm said my stomach! We made ourselves at home and cracked open a bottle of wine whilst Paula finished preparing dinner and Aunty Clem her apple crumble dessert! Dinner was amazing! Tandoori chicken (spicy!), ginger chicken, baked salmon, curry chicken, and salad to cool things down! It was just really nice sitting down to a home cooked meal after being on the go for the last few weeks!
Ok better go to bed now cos it’s an early start for our trip to France tomorrow!

WICKED day in London!

2008-05-29T22:30:00.000-07:00

Today was our rest day in London! Slept in till 11am and spent the remainder of the morning doing more laundry and surfing the net before deciding to go out for lunch around 1:30pm. We grabbed some noodles at Coco noodles (beef pho noodles) before doing some shopping at M & S and then getting some groceries for dinner and tomorrow’s breakky from Tesco.

Then we headed back to Fiona’s place and watched Sweeney Todd (sick movie man!) whilst preparing our home cooked dinner of fettucine bolognaise with aubergine and funghi! Man it was good! Meaty and chunks of veges! Yeah! I dare say better than all the pasta we had in Italy!

At 6pm we caught the metro to Victoria station to see Wicked at the Apollo Theatre! We had prebooked the tickets online at lastminute.com for GBP 40 per ticket. The show was awesome!!! For those who don’t know, Wicked is the prequel to the Wizard of Oz! The set was amazing, the music awesome, and the lighting/stage effects spectacular! We’d highly recommend it to anyone! Now showing in London, Los Angeles, and Broadway as far as we know!

Got back to Fiona’s place around 11pm and she had dessert ready since we had cooked dinner! We enjoyed apple crumble and Ben and Jerry’s icecream whilst listening to the Wicked soundtrack, which Fiona had! Night!

Amsterdam to Brugge to London!

2008-05-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

Got up early for the last time and loaded up the coach! We left Amsterdam around 8:15am and headed towards Belgium!

Around 10:30am we stopped for a service stop and after watching Shawshank Redemption on the coach, we soon arrived in Brugge, Belgium around 1pm. We didn’t have long here cos we needed to make the ferry. Jaz rushed us into the main square and after giving a brief history of the place and some historical buildings of significance, she pointed out places to eat and places to shop and off we went!

We hurried to a chip stand cos apparently Belgium is famous for its chips with mayonnaise. Also got a hot dog. Thought both were rather ordinary actually! I guess we have good chips back home! We then looked around for Belgium’s other specialty, Belgian waffles! We walked back up the street we had come and found a take away waffle store. We each got a Belgian waffle with vanilla icecream and chocolate sauce. It came on basically 2 pieces of folded cardboard and was rather difficult to eat. We found a low lying section of wall alongside the street and sat down. The waffle was good but the icecream was rather disappointing!

The last thing we did there was check out the supermarket cos Jaz told us Belgian chocolate would be cheaper there. We didn’t find a huge range so we didn’t bother.

It was back on the bus at 2pm and we zoomed off towards Calais to board the ferry back to the UK. We arrived in Calais around 3:45pm to find that our ferry was running late due to strong winds across the channel. Our rescheduled departure time was 5:25pm! We spent the time passing through immigration, taking a last group photo, and checking out the dock. Jaz also revealed that she and Matty (our driver) are dating!

Our P&O ferry arrived around 4:30pm and we watched as cars, trucks, and buses from Dover were unloaded and then the batch going to Dover loaded. Our bus drove us onto the ferry to drop us off and we said farewell to Matty (he’s based in the Netherlands)!

On board the ferry we found quite a number of services and facilities including a restaurant, bar, gaming area, duty free shop, and bureau de change. We sat with Jon and Erika in the restaurant for the 75min journey across the channel. It was nice reflecting on the good times we had had!

The journey was mostly smooth and we arrived in Dover around 6:15pm English time. We boarded an Excalibur coach to take us back to London with the other Topdeck group. The trip took almost 2hrs as The Da Vinci Code was played on the tv. What made the journey unpleasant though was the stench of urine coming from the coach’s toilet! Jaz tried cleaning it with Coke and using deodorant but the stench remained with us pretty much for the whole journey! We had to use Jaz’s scented wipes and Erika’s perfume to mask it!

We were only too glad to get off early at Victoria station! Jon and Erika and Barrett and Krista also got off here. At the underground we said farewell and took the district line to Ealing Broadway. We got to Fiona’s place around 9pm. She hadn’t had dinner yet so we headed to a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner. It was Fiona’s treat and we got a 2 for 1 deal on the quesalladas. We shared some nachos for starters. Not bad!

Went back to Fiona’s place and Di put on scrubs! Ah…so nice to not have to wake up early tomorrow!!!

Final thoughts on the tour: Great 2 weeks!!! Got to see many places that we probably would not see on our own! Had a nice small group with people of similar age and life stages which was way better than it could’ve been if we had been stuck with double the number of 18 year olds! Good accommodation, alright food! Jaz was an awesome tour leader! She really looked after us and did everything she could to make our trip all the more enjoyable! Only downside was the early starts every day and some long driving days which meant we were quite tired much of the time. But hey we saw so much so it was worth it! Would recommend it to everyone!

Tour de Amsterdam!

2008-05-27T22:33:00.000-07:00

Our day started today with a bicycle tour of Amsterdam! Matty dropped us off in the museum district and Jaz led us to Mike’s Bike Tours where we met our tour guide for the morning. Another Topdeck group was there (a hostel group I think) and they were being issued with their bikes. Apparently they hadn’t booked their tour until this morning and the bike company had to call in another tour guide leader. The other group arrived first so they got our leader and we got the guy who was called in after he was out till 4:30am last night!

Anyhow, we got our bikes and our sleepy and what turned out to be kiwi tour guide led us off! I was a bit shakey at first but picked up quickly! Had to remember to stay on the right side of the road, that cars give way to bikes here, and to stay in single file! Some of the things our guide showed us included Von Lippel park, Leidesplein, the yuppy area, and some museums. He pointed out this public monument funded by taxpayers that looked quite elegant, kinda like a toned down Brandenberg Gate. He was rather cynical in pointing out that the latin inscription on the monument translated to ‘People do not piss against the wind’. How meaningful!

Di really enjoyed the bike tour but it finished all too soon at around 10:30am. After returning our bikes we were left to our own devices until the farewell dinner this evening. We decided to check out some markets in the south part of the museum district. Here we found stands mostly extentions of the shops behind them. All kinds of things were on sale including fresh fruit, meat, and seafood, clothing, and other typical market junk. We got ourselves a gelato and also bought some mixed nuts for snacking.

Around midday our stomachs were telling us to look for lunch so we started keeping an eye out for places to eat. Apparently traditional dutch food basically consists of lots of fried things but other cuisines they have there that are done well include Indonesian and Chinese.

We started walking towards central station where we intended to catch a bus back to the hotel for an afternoon nap, hoping to grab a bite somewhere along the way. We visited the flower markets along the way but still couldn’t find any food that looked appealing!

We ended up in Dam square and remembered that we could catch a tram from there to the hotel. We eventually found the right tram stop and were soon on the number 14 tram back to Bos en Lommerplein! The ride took around 20mins and when we got back, we had our hearts set on KFC! It turned out to be just as good as back home and it hit spot! Yeah!

Di spent the afternoon napping whilst I surfed the net (free wifi at last!). We had intended to go to A./nne Frank’s house before heading to dinner but Di was sleeping so peacefully and looked so wasted I didn’t have the heart to wake her.

At 6:15pm, we met most of the group out front on the coach and Matty drove us into town for dinner. We parked near Central station and walked to Sea Palace Chinese restaurant for dinner! Man I had my reservations about this floating restaurant with mostly non-chinese waiters but the food turned out to be quite good. We got rice and noodles (more like spaghetti!) with mains of sweet and sour pork, szechuan chicken, and seasonal veges on a huge platter. Dessert was icecream and fruit.

After dinner we went with the group to a nearby pub. Most of the group stopped by first at the coffee shop next door for a last joint/space cake/muffin and then joined us later. It was nice hanging out one last time and seeing the effects of the hash on the others!

At 10pm Matty drove us back to the hotel for the last night of the tour!

Berlin, Germany to Amsterdam, Netherlands!

2008-05-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

We found the lock this morning but not the sock! The lock turned out to be on the coach having fallen off my backpack. We set off around 7:45am, 15mins late after most of the tour group were trashed after their pubcrawl last night. Some had come back around 4am whilst some arrived back at the hotel just an hour before our departure time at 6:30am! Troy didn’t even make it back! Jaz left him instructions to catch a train from Berlin to Amsterdam.

We hit the highway (or should I say Autobahn) and drove west towards Amsterdam. We hit some traffic around 10am and here we are crawling our way towards Amsterdam!

After a lunch break at a roadside service station restaurant (we had an ok chicken schnitzel), we continued on watching Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers back to back on the coach! We finally reached Amsterdam at around 5:45pm after driving 670km in around 9hrs thanks to traffic! We were supposed to see a cheese and clog making demo but this was postponed to when we leave Amsterdam due to insufficient time today.

We checked into Best Western at Blue Tower which turned out to be just about our best accommodation so far! Nice clean accommodation with plasma tv, kettle and coffee/tea, but no fridge. One thing we’ve noticed throughout our trip in Europe is that when we boil water, there are often floaties in the water! Not sure if it’s the European water or our kettle! We tried the hotel’s kettle though and got the same result. Maybe it is something in the water…!

At 6:45pm we met up in foyer and Matty drove us to Central station. Then Jaz walked us to the Red Light District. Most of the group were seeing a live sex show at a place called Moulin Rouge but Jonathan, Erika, Di and I opted to just go for dinner and then a stroll afterwards. After walking around the huge Chinatown (conveniently situated in the red light district!), we ended up settling on an Indian restaurant since we’ll be having our farewell dinner tomorrow night at a floating Chinese restaurant.

The Indian waiter/owner was really really friendly! We ordered 2 curries and asked that he make them very hot and boy did he deliver! We were sweating and our noses were running and the red wine we ordered didn’t really help! The waiter stood there laughing at us!

After dinner we walked to Dam square to check out the National monument, the palace and a cathedral. Then we headed back to Moulin Rouge to meet up with the group for a nighttime tour of the red light district! Jaz led us through narrow passageways and down the infamous skinny alley. It was sad to see girls selling themselves in shop windows.

At around 10:30pm, the others went out for drinks, whilst Matty led us to the Central Station bus stop where we caught the number 21 bus back to our hotel! Nite!

Checking out Berlin!

2008-05-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

Today was our free day to explore Berlin! Started out with a Third Reich walking tour of the historical sites around Berlin. We all caught the U-Bahn to Mohrenstrafze and met our tour guide Jakob there. He started by pointing out the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda and other historical buildings around Wilhelmplatz before walking us over to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. This memorial was designed by American architect Peter Eisenman and completed in 2005. The Germans rather than trying to forget the past have the attitude of wanting to accept responsibility as a nation for their history.

The memorial consisted of 2711 concrete rectangular blocks laid out over an entire town block. They stand at slightly different angles and heights, with the towering blocks concentrated in the centre. The idea is to walk through the memorial and as you reach the centre the blocks towering over you represent the peak of the Nazi oppression and persecution of the Jews.

Next Jakob led us a to the nearby site of Hitler’s underground bunker. It is no longer accessible today after collapsing but he described how it had super thick walls (3.6m concrete walls and 4.3m for the ceiling) and was where Hitler committed suicide on 30th April 1945. Now there’s an inconspicuous carpark situated over it so that people can’t make a shrine out of it.

We headed on to a remnant of the Berlin Wall and the Topography of Terrors outdoor exhibit. The exhibit basically details the operations of the SS and Gestapo security forces during WWII. We noticed that someone had graffitied Ben Lee on a part of the wall! Looks like I don’t have to do it myself!

Our final stop was checkpoint Charlie, one of the 3 main border crossings between East and West Berlin during the cold war. After the tour we were left to our own devices. Di and I checked out some of the info boards around Checkpoint Charlie before deciding to look for lunch.

We walked up Friedrich St towards Under den linten St where some markets were marked out on the map. We didn’t end up finding the markets but we did find a small German pub in a backstreet where we had a yummy pork schnitzel and meatball with potato salad!

After lunch we checked out the Brandenburg gate before heading to the Reichstag (German Parliament House). We had a 30min wait in the hot sun before passing through security checks and ascending in a lift to the terrace level of the Reichstag. Up here we had a 360 view of the city and there was this glass dome with ramps around its walls that you could walk up to the peak of dome for an even better view! Inside the dome there was also information about the German Parliament’s history and we read that before walking up to the peak. At the top the roof was open and there was this circular bench that we reclined on to rest our weary legs! After a while it was too hot and time to look for a drink!

We left the Reichstag around 4pm and decided to check out the activities in the nearby park where the finish line of a cycling marathon was. We found a range of stores selling Brauwurst, Currywurst and every type of wurst etc before spotting one that sold slurpees! We quickly grabbed two and enjoyed them on a park bench near the Brandenburg Gate!

After this refreshment we spent the next 3 hours checking out the information centre at the Memorial for Murdered Jews and then the Topography of Terrors exhibit! Tired of reading signboards and sobered at the stuff we were reading about, we decided to get dinner around 7:30pm.

We bumped into Jonathan and Erika at Checkpoint Charlie who had just had dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant that they recommended! Since we were running out of time before our 8:45pm pickup, we decided to just go with that! We ordered red chicken curry which looked more green than red, and spicy fried beef with garlic and chillis which turned out to be fried duck in sweet and sour sauce! We couldn’t be bothered correcting the order and both dishes tasted good anyhow! Somehow we managed to finish the huge portions and afterwards I was so full I couldn’t lie down for a few hours!

Matty and the coach picked us up at Checkpoint Charlie at 8:50pm. The whole tour group was on their way to a pubcrawl that Di and I passed on cause we were already exhausted and stuffed! Got back to the hotel around 9:30pm and found that most of our laundry had dried save my jeans. We also realised that one lock and one sock was missing!!! Searched the entire hotel room and our backpacks and everything and couldn’t find them!!! Oh well! That takes our lost items tally to one travel adapter, one wedding ring, one lock and one sock! We’ll see if we can find em tomorrow morning!

Prague, Czech Republic to Berlin, Germany!

2008-05-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

Another long driving day today as we headed from Prague to Berlin. We stopped off at Dresden after crossing the Czech/German border around 10:30am. We then had around 2hrs 30mins to explore the town and get lunch!

Dresden is supposedly a thousand year old town that was almost completely destroyed by allied bombing during WWII cos that’s where many of the supply factories for the Nazis were. Today many of the original buildings have been rebuilt almost to original form. We had cursory looks at the opera house and towering cathedrals before heading towards a restaurant/café area. We walked around the block once and after being tempted by dirty Chinese, settled on a reasonable looking Vietnamese restaurant. We were wary cos the whole area was kinda quiet (being around 11am on a Sunday morning) and it looked like the equivalent of Darling Harbour’s eating areas or King Street wharf minus the water. Lunch turned out to be rather good though! We had pho beef noodles and crispy chicken rice which were both decent sized and reasonable value for money.

Re-energised we spent the hour we had left in Dresden walking along the riverside and checking out the inside of one of the large cathedrals there. Notably, there was a statue of Martin Luther outside one of the cathedrals so perhaps he was from this town?!

At 1pm it was back on the bus as we continued on to Berlin. We rolled into the German capital around 4pm and had a bus tour of the city! Jaz provided commentary and pointed out the city’s famous sites including the Brandenburg Gate, museum island, checkpoint Charlie, the Jewish war memorial, the city’s tower, and its parliamentary building the Reichstag. She described how the city was divided into East and West Berlin after WWII and the differences between the two sides of the city. We had a photostop at the East Side Gallery where a 1.3km remains of the Berlin wall still stood. Then it was on to our hotel!

Our 3 star hotel was rather good I must say! All the essentials including tv, fridge, and radiator heater to dry our washing! No wireless internet but the owner downstairs was super nice and let us use his main reception computer! We had about 90mins till dinner at 7pm and most of the group was using the Laundromat at the corner of the street so we decided to look for a supermarket instead. We found a small one in the underground station and picked up some sweet strawberries, popcorn and coke!

At 7pm we met in the lobby and Matt drove us to near the Berlin zoo where we were having dinner. We ate at a place called Joe’s and it was huge! It was kinda like a big beer garden with plenty of locals! Dinner was tomato soup for entrée with brautwurst with sauerkraut and mashed potato for mains. Dessert was icecream! Tried a Diesel drink which is half beer half coke! Sounds wrong but it was quite good, especially seeing as I’m not a seasoned beer drinker yet!

After dinner Matt drove us back to the hotel and we managed to do a load of washing at the Laundromat. The dryer didn’t work that well and some people were using it 3-4 times to get their clothes dry but it was already closing time after one run so we’ve hung up our clothes around our hotel room to dry! Nite!

Exploring Prague!

2008-05-23T20:59:00.001-07:00

Slept in till a luxurious 9am! Went down to breakfast to find a buffet that one might expect at lunchtime! Plenty of cold meats, cheeses, cocktail sausages and bread rolls were lain out in addition to cereal and oranges. Where were the bacon and eggs?! Ended up making hot dogs for breakky!

Di and I headed out around 10:30am for town! We caught the metro to Malostranska which got us out at the foot of the Prague Castle. We climbed the old castle steps (Stare zamecke schody) to the castle’s entrance and found swarms of tourists already there!!! Nuts!

There was a nice view of the city from the top of the castle steps and after taking it in, we battled our way against the hordes of tourists and through the narrow passageways and stairwells to the castle entrance! We found the ticket booth and with tickets in hand entered the Golden Lane. It’s basically a quaint little lane with a row of shops and an exhibition on weapons and armour from medieval times. Don’t really know what’s so golden bout it! Again we found ourselves in a river of tourists and with the drizzle that started, it was difficult to take our time and enjoy browsing the stores and exhibition. In the end, we were funneled through the exit at end of the lane!

We checked out Dalibor’s Tower next which used to be a prison and a torture chamber. Then we headed further inside the castle to St Goerge’s Square. We decided to check out the Old Royal Palace next. This turned out to be a stately hall with an adjoining chapel and throne room. Didn’t spend too long here again due the amount of ppl!

We headed out and around the corner to the spectacular St Vito’s Cathedral! We were dismayed to find a pretty long queue formed around the side of the cathedral but thankfully we only had to wait around 10-15mins to get in. Inside the most stunning thing were the colourful and intricate stain glassed windows! We walked around the many chapels before coming to a stairwell. We decided to climb it and 280 steps later up a spiral staircase we had reached the top of one of the church’s towers! Here we had an amazing view of Prague from all angles! Took plenty of photos and videos of the city’s famous buildings and the river with its many bridges. Afterwards it was all the way back down and out of the cathedral.

We checked out St George’s Basilica just because it was included in the ticket price but it turned out to be rather plain compared with St Vito’s Cathedral that we had just visited. Inside people were lining up to go down to a crypt which we think may have had a shrine or tomb dedicated to St George. In any case we were sick of lining up and our stomachs were grumbling so we left!

We headed back down the old castle steps to Malostranska and started looking for a place to eat. We ended up in Restaurace Malostranska which seemed reasonably priced with a traditional Czech menu. Di ordered roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut, and I had a pork schnitzel. Both were quite nice, though Di’s roast pork came in little lumps rather than a steak and the dumplings weren’t like Chinese dumplings, but rather like white bread cut out in circles!

After lunch we crossed the Charles bridge and saw the many statues alongside the bridge. Out numbering these statues were the stalls for tourists to buy their drawn self-portrait, jewelry, paintings and pictures of the city. We then checked out the Don Giovanni. Prague is famous for their puppet shows and this was one of the places which had 1 metre tall puppets. After finding out the price and that most of the show was singing and not in English we decided to keep heading along the street. We found a nice gelato shop where Ben had pistachio and I had caramel crème ice-cream. It was really nice.

Our next stop was the famous astronomical clock tower. We were there 5 minutes early and surrounded by tourists. On the hour, the skeletal statue rings a bell and begins to turn over an hourglass in its hand. There are windows further up which open and statues glide across them and face the crowd momentarily. The main bell then chimes (we think 17 times as it was 5pm) and the whole thing is over. The audience begins to applaud. I let out a big ‘is that it?!’ What a let down! It looked far more impressive than that performance!

After this disappointing event we took a walk to the Jewish Ghetto to see what we could find. We found out that they charged 300 Kr to see a handful of synagogues and their cemetery. Considering how late it was we thought it was too expensive since we probably only had a few hours to go through it. Also, we were only really interested to see maybe 1 synagogue and the cemetery which apparently is very unordered. We walked around the Jewish Ghetto and were able to sneak a peak into the cemetery and the outside of the synagogue.

We left then for a wander. Not really knowing what to do at this stage. We ended up briefly at the Powder Tower which was famous for storing the gun powder during its day and then headed through the shops for dinner. Jaz had recommended a restaurant near our train station so we headed there.

Dinner was huge, and quite good. Very meaty though. We ordered the pork leg in beer sauce and the quarter duck with potato dumplings and red cabbage. Halfway through some other guys from our tour found us and also had similar dishes. The pub had an interesting myth attached to it.

A beautiful woman, married to a rope maker lived in Prague. Her husband would travel away as his skills were needed elsewhere. Being bored, the woman asked her husband if she could open a pub. Her husband, being innocent of any misconduct arranged it and so began the pub. However, her clientele were male and soon it became known that she offered drinks and other services. When news of this spread to her husband, he returned to see it for himself and strangled her to death via his rope. It is said that her ghost now remains in the pub where she is cursed to relieve those with a broken heart. To accompany this story is a portrait of her in the pub.

After dinner we wandered around to do some shopping and returned back to the hotel.

Salzburg, Austria to Prague, Czech Republic!

2008-05-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Getting into the routine now of our travel days! Early wake up, quickly get changed and pack rest of clothes, take backpacks to hotel lobby, chow down breakky, then get on bus! Breakky wasn’t too impressive today but managed to make a cheese and salami/ham/devon roll for lunch out of it.

We were on the bus and rolling towards Mauthausen concentration camp around 7:30am. Around 8am Di was observing how her hands were a little dry cos she hadn’t put on her lavender hand cream last night. Then she made a dreadful realisation. Her wedding ring wasn’t on her finger!!! My heart sunk. She quickly went through when she last had it and where she could’ve lost it. She remembered having it on last night when she went to bed so we concluded that it must’ve have fallen off somewhere in the Salzburg hotel room this morning. Jaz called up the hotel to see if they could check the room for the ring. Unfortunately when she called back 30mins later the reception guy hadn’t found it and was going to ask the cleaners to have another search and call Jaz back if they found it. So far today they haven’t called =(. We’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that they probably won’t find it or maybe someone will and they’ll just keep it. Oh well - Di will just have to get another ring after just 7 and a half weeks of being married! I told her that means she has less to spend in the US!

We arrived in Mauthausen around 9:30am in time for a 10am video presentation about the history of the concentration camp. Although the primary purpose of this camp was for the prisoners to work a quarry mine, it didn’t diminish the shock and tragedy of the many deaths that still occurred here. The camp did have a gas chamber and crematoriums that were in use and human experimentation and torture occurred there too. The prisoners included not just Jews but also political prisoners from the former Soviet Union, Austria, Poland, and Spain.

After the video we had some time to check out the camp itself. It was sobering to walk through the exact same gates the prisoners would’ve been shepherded through. We had a look at the barracks where prisoners were crammed into, the gas chambers, the crematoriums, and the numerous memorials there. We also saw the notorious death staircase where prisoners were forced to carry 40-50kg quarry stones up the stairs 11hrs a day.

We left Mauthausen with a somewhat heavy feeling in our stomachs at what had occurred there and at the other concentration camps. This was not helped by a stopover at Maccas for lunch!

After lunch we drove for almost 5hrs towards Prague, taking probably an hour and a half longer than it should’ve due to getting stuck in traffic due to roadworks. The countryside was rather similar to that of England’s with its rolling hills covered with the yellow flowering rapeseed plants.

We reached Hotel Olympik Tristar in Prague around 5:30pm and checked in and here we are resting in our hotel room before dinner at 7pm! Simpsons is showing in German on cable tv which is rather interesting to watch!

We had a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant which was a buffet of stewed pork, roast chicken, rice, veges, and sponge cakes for dessert. Then we set off for our walking tour of Prague around 8:30pm!

We all caught the metro from Invalidovna to Mustek station in Wenceslas Square. Jaz gave us some time to change money and we managed to change some AUD to Czech krowns at a rate of about 14.80. Jaz then led us the old town square (Staromestske nam) with its astronomical clock, then past the Tyn church to the Jewish quarters (pointing out the Jewish ghetto where Jews were kept during WWII), finishing up with a walk along the river towards the famous Charles bridge. As the sun started to set and the city’s lights came on, we had stunning views of Prague Castle across the river on a slight hill.

After the tour, we went with Jaz and most of the tour group to one of her favourite pubs, a pub beneath this restaurant! You go through this ordinary looking Czech restaurant and at the back is this little staircase leading down below. At the foot of the staircase is a small bar and then there are quite a few tables in what may have once been a cellar. Quite a few of the guys and girls tried the local specialty Absinth! It’s basically a 70% vol bright green drink, the one that Van Gogh was high on when he got his ear cut off, and the one the bohemians drank in Moulin Rouge. The way you drink it is to heat up some sugar in a spoon with a lighter, then stir the melted sugar into the shot before drinking it. We didn’t try it but the guys told us it was like drinking metho! We tried their local beer instead and afterwards decided to call it a night!

We caught the metro back to Invalidovna and our hotel easily enough just as a slight drizzle began to fall. Yay we get to sleep in tomorrow! Nite!

Ljubljana, Slovenia to Salzburg, Austria!

2008-05-21T20:56:00.001-07:00

You don’t come to Europe for the food. You come for the sights, and today we got what we came for.

Breakfast was a sad buffet of sorry looking sausages, bread, fruit and cereal. We were disappointed after Croatia as the quality of food there was slightly better.

Our first destination was Lake Bled. It is a beautiful lake with an island (Bled Island) in the middle where a church is perched on top. Surrounding the lake are Alps with houses and one had a church on its slopes. A man in a row boat, rowed 7 of us to the island in the middle. It cost €10 a person for the ride to the island. Once off the boat, there was a large staircase before reaching the church on the island. We were told by Jaz, our tour guide, that legend has it that a husband was to carry his bride to the top of the stairs and ring a bell for a happy marriage. So 2 out of the 3 couples did this. Bonus for the boys was that the girl was to be silent, but I think that was the only up side.

Of course Ben didn’t carry me up the staircase! Are you kidding?!

When we reached the top it was a further €3 to enter the Church of Mary the Queen to ring the bell. Not a nice sounding bell, but it satisfied the tourists to ring it.
The island was very green. There were lots of healthy and lush looking trees and shrubs. The water was a distinct green colour but it blended in well with the surrounding Alps and lush forest. Although the weather was overcast it was really nice being on the island and also looking out.

We were accompanied by what seemed like 2 full bus loads of Japanese tourists, so you can imagine that the boat rowers were keen to get rid of us on the way back. So, being dropped a few metres further along the lake we walked back to our bus. We were met by a family of ducks. The ducklings were so cute! It was a complete family, Mummy duck, Daddy duck and 2 ducklings.

Next stop was Austria. However the ride getting into Austria as awesome! Huge mountain ranges with lush greenery and houses spotting the hillside. In the distance we saw some snow capped mountains. This is what I was waiting for. This was the scenery I had expected!

We arrived at Hotel Haunspergerhof at about 1:15pm. Our tour guide had arranged for us to join the Sound of Music tour at 2pm. So after having a quick lunch of an apple scroll and instant noodles we headed for the 4 hour bus tour.

Our tour guide, Beatrice, was a local Austrian who was proud of her country. She had a smile plastered on her face which Ben thought was quite scary. She told us about the real Von Trap family (yeah! I didn’t realize that either!) who ended up in America during the 2nd World War. The places from the movie we saw:

· Where they filmed the driveway to the Von Trap family’s house
· The original Gazebo
· The Baroness’ house and the lake beside it.
· The lake where they went for a bicycle ride.
· The church where the wedding scene was filmed
· Where they filmed the children in the trees when Captain Von Trap arrives home, and
· The area of which the helicopter shot the opening scenes (over one lake to another)

In the middle of the tour, Beatrice’s big surprise was a toboggan area where you could pay €4 to come down this hill. It was cold and we were wondering what relevance this had to the Sound of Music?! People did do it though. Beatrice tried to sell it by saying the original Maria Von Trap has ridden down this ride. Whatever!

We stopped in a town called Mondsee for an hour. Here was the church that their wedding was filmed in. We walked around a little and had an apple strudel which was recommended to us at a shop which had been open since the early 1600’s. It was really nice, perfect amount of sugars and cinnamon and the pastry was slightly crisp but not too much.

We arrived back in town at 6:15pm and took a walk through the main parts of town. It’s a similar town to Lublijana but it has it’s own history and character too. There is a fortress on top of the mountain (we did not have time to visit this) and a convent near it.

Dinner was provided by the tour. We had
· mixed vegetable soup
· Beef (I think) stew with some sort of pasta, and
· Ice-cream.

Not bad, pretty good compared to the last time they included dinner and it was at a restaurant!

All in all I had a good day! We go to Prague tomorrow!

Pag Island, Croatia to Ljubljana, Slovenia!

2008-05-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

Another early start today! After our last buffet breakky at Hotel Loza, we loaded the coach and left Novalja after a nice 3 nights there! The weather looked threatening as menacingly dark clouds rolled in overhead. We arrived at the ferry dock around 8am, a good 30mins before our 8:30am ferry. We spent the half hour walking around the docks and taking note of the contrasts between the harsh barren landscape before us and the signboards advertising idyllic resorts on the other side of the island! Also noted the presence of what looked like a modern military bunker/fortification on the hill overlooking the dock! Some of the boys had bought BB guns and were shooting each other like schoolboys playing brandings! This stopped when a police car pulled up along side the coach to wait for the ferry to the mainland!

The sea was choppy as we crossed over but the ferry was surprisingly stable. Once on the mainland it was time to nap as Matty drove us towards Slovenia! Di’s passport was again taken off the coach to be checked at the Croatian/Slovenian border but it was returned with no dramas. We rolled on towards the Slovenian capital Ljubljana after a brief service stop. Di and I ate our salami and cheese rolls whilst watching Snatch on the coach’s dvd/tv - awesome movie man!!!

We drove into the outskirts of Ljubljana and our hotel for the night around 2:30pm. Our hotel was actually situated on a camping/caravan/cabin site. This warranted some apprehension at first but the hotel rooms themselves turned out to be really nice! They were 3 star rooms with clean bathroom, tv, mini bar fridge, and heaters!

After an hour’s rest (during which we did some hand washing), we all got back on the coach and Matty drove us into the Slovenian capital’s center for our walking tour of the town. I was curious to check out the town that our missionaries the Box family recently lived in! It took almost 30mins to reach Congress square due to peak hour traffic. Once there Jaz led us off the bus and took us on a brief tour of some of the city’s landmarks, ending in the old town square. We saw some monuments, some churches including a beautiful Franciscan one, and the city’s renowned Triple Bridge (basically one bridge built initially, then two smaller side bridges built on either side of the original).

There was some light drizzle on and off and it was rather chilly at 9 degrees or so as we set off by ourselves to explore the city before dinner at 6:30pm. We decided to visit Ljubljana castle, perched high atop a mountain. To get up there we found the ticket booth to a funicular railway to take us up. It cost a reasonable 5 euros for a return ticket on the railway and entrance into the castle and its tower and virtual museum. Soon a couple more ppl from our tour group joined us to visit the castle.

We all went up on the railway which had glass walls allowing for nice views of the city as we ascended. At the top we disembarked and headed straight for the castle’s tower. We climbed up a spiral staircase and emerged at the open rooftop with sweeping 360 views of Ljubljana and its surrounds! It was drizzling though so we quickly took a few photos and went back down. We hung around for the 5pm virtual museum presentation which was a 23 min 3D video about the castle and a brief summary of Ljubljana’s history. The 3D effects weren’t that great and quite frankly I was a bit zonked out during some of the dry factual bits. Anyhow, some parts were interesting such as how Slovenia became an independent state after a 10 day war with its original rulers Yugoslavia.

After the presentation we quickly checked out the castle wall, an exhibition, and the shop before heading back down on the funicular railway. We checked out the dragon bridge, so called because of the dragon statues perched on 4 posts at either end of the bridge. It was erected in 1901 to mark the 40th anniversary of the accession of the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Josef when Slovenia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

We walked along the riverside and passed on some tempting gelato to save space for dinner! We met the others at 6pm at Sokol, a traditional Slovenian restaurant recommended by Jaz. Pretty much everyone was there! Most ppl ordered the game goulash but we tried the mushroom soup and game plate. The mushroom soup was nice and hearty and came in a bread bowl. The game mix took a while to come and when it did it wasn’t quite what we had imagined! There were medallions of deer, stag, and wild boar, each with a different type of sauce. They were accompanied by a dumpling type thing and polenta. We liked the stag and wild boar but the deer had a bit of a strong taste and the slight aftertaste of liver. I guess we took a gamble but at least we tried the local food!

After dinner we headed off to the supermarket to stock up on snacks and even found instant noodles in bowls! Got some pastries for lunch tomorrow too! Met the group back at Congress square at 8:30pm and Matty drove us back to our hotel! So that was our visit of Ljubljana! It was a nice mix of modern and historic elements and it’d actually be a nice place to live I reckon! It’s on to Austria tomorrow!

Day trip to Zadar, Croatia!

2008-05-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

Enjoyed another nice buffet breakky today before ducking across the road to the supermarket to pick up some supplies! We met Haydee in the hotel foyer and headed for the bus stop to Zadar, about a 20min walk away. When we got there we met up with Santiago, Dan, Goran, Sarah and Gemma who were also heading to town for the day. We caught the 11:50am Antonio Tours bus which took around 1hr 40mins to reach Zadar after picking up passengers in Pag and some other small bus stops along the way.

We didn’t really know where to get off the bus and just followed the others when they got off the bus! Once off, we walked towards the harbour and asked for tourist information. We were directed over a bridge that took us into the old part of Zadar with its surrounding city wall. After walking past some markets we reached the small town square and got maps from the information desk.

We split up from the others and checked out the tourist points on the map including a number of churches and small town squares. We found some gardens which were rather nice and the remains of the roman fortification of the city from ancient times! We climbed one of the church bell towers for 10 kuna pp and enjoyed a stunning view of the city and surrounds! Following our tourist map we went from one end of town to the other, eventually coming to the sea. Here we found an attraction called a sea organ! It kinda looked like steps going down into the sea and on the sides of the steps were small slits. As water flowed into the steps, musical tones emerged from the slits and holes that sounded like someone blowing over partially filled glass bottles of water. It was pretty cool!

We enjoyed a rest in some nearby gardens and then decided to continue on with our tour of Zadar! We looked for the bus station to check where the bus back to Novalja was going to leave but couldn’t find it. Heading back to the town square we bumped into the other guys and Dan managed to find out that the bus back left from a bus station outside of the old town area.

With this settled, we agreed to meet at a restaurant for dinner and wandered off to kill the hour or so before dinner. Di and I found a supermarket and got some salami and cheese to make lunch for tomorrow. Also found some handy cutlery and freezer bags. We then wandered to a bakery we had spotted earlier and got some rolls and a jam filled donut for tomorrow.

At 6pm we met the others including Jaz, Matt, Troy and Bronwyn (who had gone to Bosnia for the day!). Heard about how they had visited a town just over the border that still had evidence of the recent conflicts such as bullet ridden buildings. It was a sobering reminder of what a scary part of the world we were in!!!

Dinner was rather nice at a traditional Croatian restaurant! Di and I shared a mixed grill plate, a seafood risotto, and a vegetarian dish! The mixed grill came with a steak, grilled chicken, a burger pattie, and pork kebab. Rather nice although the meats were a bit overcooked. The vegetarian dish was what Jaz thought was buckwheat with spinach and a piece of fried cheese. Weird!!!

After dinner we all headed for the bus station, about a 15 min walk away as a light drizzle started. We got on the bus with 15 mins to spare and found it half full already. Some school kids who were on the bus into town were on the return bus back and they proved to be rude and rowdy for the entire trip back! We were relieved when most of them got off around Pag.

We caught the yellow local bus back to our hotel and packed for another early start tomorrow!

Rest day on Pag Island, Croatia!

2008-05-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Croatian tv programming I have to say is rather odd! Last night we were watching the Patriot and 2 things rather annoyed us! The first was the super long ad breaks! They just kept going on and on and on!!! Didn’t time them but let’s just say in one ad break I managed to have a shower and the show still hadn’t resumed yet! The second thing that annoyed us was how they broke the movie into 2 parts! Halfway through the movie, another show - Croatia’s Top Model - was shown! We had to wait until almost midnight to watch the second half of The Patriot! Hmmph!

Anyhow, cos of that today was a rest day! Slept in until around 9am when we had to get up to catch the end of breakky downstairs. The buffet breakfast was pretty good! There were croissants, bread with cheese and ham, sausages, omelettes, bacon, and yoghurt! We ate as much as we could in the hope of being full enough to skip lunch!

After breakky, Di was still tired so she went back to sleep whilst I flicked through our honeymoon photos selecting ones I’ll post up on the blog when we get good internet connection. Di slept till around 1pm and we called home before deciding to go out!

The weather wasn’t crash hot! There was a blistering wind and clouds overhead but we set out anyway. We walked around Novalja’s bay and around the head towards Strasko beach. Along the way we met Goran and Chris who had just done the walk. They warned us about the strong winds but that still didn’t fully prepare us for what we encountered around the corner! Away from the protection of the bay, the winds along the beach were gale force!!! I seriously thought a hurricane was coming or something! We could just about lean into the wind and it actually took effort to walk forwards against it! We continued along the beach, which wasn’t terribly impressive but maybe that was just because of the bad weather.

We found a path inland and took it to get away from the wind! We continued along the path and found a main road but later realised we had taken the long way back to town! Anyhow, it was a nice walk and we got to see the residential areas of town.

Back in town we checked out behind the main street but there wasn’t much. There was a sign pointing to the town ‘centar’ and that gave us hope that there might be a larger retail area nearby but we soon realised that the center of town was what we had already explored! As some rain drops began to fall, we quickly returned to our hotel around 5pm. We refreshed ourselves before dinner and I agreed to Di giving me a haircut! She cut it in the bathtub and spent almost an hour trimming my out of control hair! In the end it looked pretty good! It wasn’t super short but at least it was neater!

Dinner was in the hotel restaurant again. We were pleased to find a different menu on offer! We had roast pork with spaghetti Bolognese, penne, potato, and salad. Dessert was a fruit sponge cake. After dinner we went for a walk on the other side of the hotel, admiring the spectacular sunset over the bay! The skies were painted in wonderful hues of yellow, orange and red as we watched the glowing orange sun set!

Grabbed a gelato on the way back to the hotel and retired to our room to check out what else Croatian tv had to offer! Night!

Venice to Slovenia to Croatia!

2008-05-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

The 6:30am start did indeed hurt as we hurried to get changed, chow down breakky and then get our luggage on the tour bus! We set off nice and early and were soon zooming down the highway towards Slovenia! Most ppl on the bus were catching up on sleep lost from the early start! Around an hour or so in, Jaz told us that we were approaching the Italian-Slovenian border and soon enough we were in Slovenia (no border checks required as Slovenia is an EU country).

We drove on through lush green Slovenian countryside until we reached the town of Postojna. We headed for the caves that the town is famous for and arrived around 10am. We had an hour before the cave tour was to start so we checked out the local stores there. We grabbed a gelato before lining up to go into the caves. There must’ve been over a hundred ppl queuing up for the 11am tour!

We started by boarding a small electric train that took us about 2km into the caves. The train went really fast through narrow passageways and sometimes the cave ceiling was so low you felt you had to duck! Di rather enjoyed it! It was almost like a rollercoaster ride! Along the way we could see beautiful stalactites and stalagmites illuminated by spotlights. It was freezing cold as the train rushed through the cave system!

We saw the “old cave”, “spaghetti cave”, “white cave”, “red cave” and the “concert hall”. Original names huh? In the concert hall they actually hold concerts as it can fit a few thousand people. There is a train station from this hall which brought us back to the entrance. When we left, there were photographs from when we were getting on the train and on the train. Rather silly actually as a lot of the photos were of people not looking at the camera as we weren’t given any warning that the photo was being taken! Plus, the train ride wasn’t particularly thrilling for a funny face to be taken. We thought it was a waste of their money, but on reflection it probably costs about $1 to make and they sell it for $12.

Our next destination was Croatia. The officer in Slovenia possibly had never heard of Malaysia as he took my passport and had to check something with his computer. Getting into Croatia was easy, she barely looked at my passport.

On the bus we enjoyed our lunch of prepackaged salad from the supermarket whilst watching The Good Shepherd. The drive through Croatia took around 4 hrs with one stop at a service station halfway. We drove along the seaside with spectacular views of the Adriatic sea and some of the many islands off the coast of Croatia!

We took a bus/car carrying ferry over to the island of Pag, enjoying the warm sunshine and views of the coast and mountains! When one first catches glimpse of Pag, it kinda looks like a barren desert island. You can’t see any vegetation or wildlife! That was kinda worrying given we were supposed to be staying at a ‘resort’! To our relief, when we drove onto the island and into the town of Novalja, we found a beautiful seaside town! The town isn’t big and is clearly touristy but what struck us was the beautifully clear blue/turquoise waters!

We unloaded our gear from the bus and checked into Hotel Loza around 5pm! It isn’t exactly a resort but it’s right on the harbour promenade and has a nice big room with clean amenities. After dumping our bags, we changed some money across the road (1 AUD buys 4.15 kuna). Then we went for a walk along the harbour promenade. We walked around the bay and enjoyed views of Novalja with the Croatian mountain range in the background!

At 7pm we met up with the rest the group in foyer before having a buffet dinner together in the hotel’s restaurant. The food included salad, grilled whole fish, roast chicken, rice and spaghetti! Not bad! Dessert was banana with what we thought was chocolate flavoured Yogo on top drizzled with chocolate sauce. Better than it sounds!

After dinner it was raining outside so we decided to have an early night so here we are typing this as we watch The Patriot on tv! Nite!

Welcome to Topdeck Tours! First stop Venice!

2008-05-16T20:48:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of our tour and we set out early to explore Venice! After a light continental breakky, our tour group caught a bus to Piazzale Roma in Venice proper. This Piazzale is as far as vehicles can go onto Venice, which is built on 117 small islands. We hopped off the bus and Jaz led us on a weaving path through the narrow streets and small bridges crossing some of Venice’s 150 canals. She showed us the market area before we crossed the famous Rialto bridge, one of the 3 bridges which cross Venice’s Grand Canal.

It was early but the city was bustling with tourists wandering every which way, stopping to check maps, and taking photos of the canals and gondolas. Jaz also showed us a shop selling some of the Carnivale masks that Venice is famous for before we arrived at St Mark’s Square. We found even more people here as we crossed the square! Many were feeding the hundreds of pigeons that populate Venice that the locals are actually fond of. The throwing of a handful of seeds would cause a flutter of pigeons to flock towards it. They aren’t afraid of humans and were swooping really low all over the place! One lady even had pigeons perched all over her and was getting her photo taken!

We met our local tourist guide who failed to introduce herself properly. We kinda got the impression that she was just doing her job and wasn’t really keen about it. As she told us about some of the history of Venice and some of its buildings, we just didn’t find it that inspiring or fascinating. Maybe it was the way she waffled on about some random facts in her heavily accented english that we didn’t find interesting or couldn’t relate to, or maybe it was just her disjointed narrative style. Either way we weren’t terribly impressed!

The tour ended up in a Venetian lace making school where an American lady (of all people!) explained to us the various types of lace making techniques before proceeding to try and sell us them! After this, we were left to our own devices for the rest of the day. Most of the group went on the optional gondola ride but we didn’t think it was worth it for 19 euro a head. Instead we decided to get lunch at one of our other favourite fast food joints - Burger King! After lunch we made our way towards the Accademia area of Venice, passing through some small piazzas before crossing the grand canal.

We decided to visit the Guggenheim Museum, named after Peggy Guggenheim. Basically as far as we could surmise, she was a lady who inherited fortunes from her parents and used it to build up an impressive collection of contemporary art by artists such as Picasso, Kandinsky, and Marini. Don’t worry - I hadn’t heard of the last 2 until today! We entered the attached Nasher Sculpture garden and visited Peggy Guggenheim’s grave and also a plaque dedicated to the 12 or so pet dogs she had had. Then we checked out the museum itself. I enjoyed viewing the contemporary abstract artworks, trying to picture or imagine what the artists had in mind. Di didn’t think much of the gallery, especially some of the works that looked like the artist had just splattered paint randomly onto a canvas.

Afterwards we headed back to St Mark’s square to check out the basilica. The queue was much smaller than it had been in the morning and after we dumped our bags in the cloakroom, we entered. The inside was darker than other cathedrals we’ve been to and it was ornately decorated with real gold Catholic artworks. I think it reflects the wealth of the Venetians in the past as Venice was an important commercial hub.

We didn’t spend long inside before emerging into the daylight again. After being on our feet all day, we decided to start making our way back to our hotel. This is when things got interesting cos we had no idea where to go! We were trying to get back to the Rialto bridge to catch the Vaporreto (water bus) back to Piazzale Roma but after wandering the narrow streets for a good 30mins or so, we kept ending up in St Mark’s Square!

A piece of excitement was the fight that broke out while we were lost. We walked past 2 men outside a restaurant, speaking in each other’s face at about 5 cm away saying ‘Your food is sh*t’ and ‘No, you are sh*t’. We don’t know what the fight was about, but it was heated, very heated. The customer was American. The next minute we knew it, another man had pulled off his red t-shirt and thrown a punch at the man from the restaurant. It was a decent swing! They were quickly broken up by a woman, but I noticed that the man from the restaurant was wiping his face. He was facing away from us so we couldn’t see if there was blood.

My guess is that he either insulted the chef or didn’t pay a portion of his meal or something. However, these are all just guesses.

By some random turns and narrow lanes we found the Rialto bridge which has markets surrounding it. These are famous as it was the very reason why Venice was such a prosperous city so long ago. They are traders and these markets were where they would sell their foreign goods to whoever would buy it. We did not buy foreign products though as now they’re tourist traps with trinkets and other baits. Our guide told us to bargain in these markets, however our bargaining power was undermined by foolish (mainly American) tourists who paid full price for their products. They weren’t as desperate as the market owners in Florence. You can go somewhere else if you want that price… some other tourist will pay them the price they’re asking for.

We headed back to the main land of Venice. The boat we caught from Rialto Bridge along the Grand Canal back to where we may hop on a bus was called a Valporetto. It was a nice ride, although the boat sounded like it was struggling to move at times as the engine gurgled along the canal. It is dangerous business moving anywhere with a huge crowd. Like Asia, people pack into buses and ferries until you can’t help but touch someone else.

We caught the right bus back to our hotel, but we decided to stay on it as we were hoping to check out the Chinese food and supermarket on the way to the train station. Unfortunately our bus didn’t go down that street and since the bus was so full, we ended up getting off about 2 – 3 stops away from the intersection we wanted to turn at. The walk wasn’t too far and thankfully the supermarkets were open.

Interesting to note, there is a shortage of plastic forks in this area. Isn’t it uncanny that both supermarkets had all other utensils except for plastic forks! We started to wonder whether there was some sort of rule where you can’t sell forks off the shelf?

After this we headed to Ristorante Orientale where we devised plans on how we were going to swipe their take away chopsticks due to our inability to find plastic forks. We ate sweet and sour pork, flamingo beef and stir fried bean sprouts. Good for us, they served the dishes with serving spoons, so we easily swiped their wooden chopsticks. Heh heh. We’re going to look so asian tomorrow when we eat our supermarket salad with chopsticks!

Feeling full and smelling slightly of the Chinese restaurant we decided to catch a bus back to the hotel (we had a spare ticket which we wouldn’t be able to use another time). We sat at the closest bus stop waiting for a bus that would take us around the corner. After 2 buses had passed we agreed that we’d wait for one more bus and if that wasn’t it, we’d walk it.

What appeared to be a homeless guy approached us. In Italian and broken English we thought he was asking us for a cigarette. No, no that wasn’t it. Something about 20 Euros.. 2 Euros??? Sorry, ‘No Comprehende’ as Ben said to him. ‘Scuzy, scuzy, ciao’ he said as he departed. It was at this time Ben decided it was time to leave the bus stop.

At a somewhat quick pace and during the twilight we made our way back to the hotel. Overtaking us was the bus we had been waiting for. Darn it!

As we were walking away from the isolated bus stop where the homeless guy approached us, we agreed that we thought he was asking us for money. Twenty Euros? Got nothing to lose if you start high I suppose!

We have a 7am breakfast appointment tomorrow, which means a 6:30am start. This is going to hurt.

Florence to Venice!

2008-05-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

Left Florence nice and early on the 8:38am Eurostar Italia train to Venice! No problems getting to the station but it took a while for the platform number to come up. The trip took about 2 hrs 30mins. We were both so sleepy from the early start that we nodded off on the train! We arrived in Venice Mestre station around 11:05am!

Using our google map we hiked about 15-20mins to Hotel Centrale where we’re staying for the first 2 nights of the tour. Along the way our first impressions of mainland Venice was that it was cleaner, more modern and less touristy than any of Italy that we had seen thus far! We also passed a whole row of asian supermarkets and Chinese restaurants!!! We checked out the menus and they seemed reasonable so who knows, might end up there tomorrow night or something!

At the hotel reception desk, we found we were too early for check in so we dumped our bags in their locker room and decided to wander around the area and grab some lunch. We checked out the local shopping centre, the first one we’ve seen in Italy! It wasn’t big and there wasn’t a food court so we kept on going. We noticed that this part of Venice seemed pretty dead as there were hardly any people around, let alone tourists. Perhaps it was siesta time for the locals. We ended up in a little Trattoria around the corner and had some pretty decent pasta with salmon and ravioli. As has often been the case, we were the first people in the restaurant and by the time we left we had drawn a few more tables of people into the restaurant!

We checked out the local supermarket and fresh fruit/seafood market before heading back to our hotel to check in. Our room turned out to be decent enough, similar in standard to our hostel except that they provide towels and shampoo etc. After napping the whole afternoon, we went down to the hotel lobby to meet our tour group at 6pm. There was only one other couple there - Nick and Toni. Around 6:45pm, the tour bus arrived (from Rome - we’re joining the tour mid way) and we met Jaz our tour leader and Matt our driver. After admin stuff, we returned to our rooms before meeting again at 8pm to go out for dinner together.

We met a lovely mixed couple - Jordan (Aussie) and Erica (HK) - from Perth and ended up sitting with them for dinner. Jordan’s in e-commerce and Erica does government work and both are kinda on a second honeymoon! Heard about how the tour’s been going so far and it sounds pretty hectic! Glad we’ve been taking it easy thus far!

Dinner was pretty good (according to tour dinner standards apparently) and we had lasagna, pizza and tiramisu. Afterwards it was time to get a good a night’s rest for the actual start of our tour tomorrow! Nite!

Flourishing Finish in Florence!

2008-05-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

Today was our last full day in Florence! After a week now in Italy and 4 days in Florence, we went about our familiar routine today! Get up late, find a place for brunch/lunch, sight see in the afternoon, find a place for dinner, return to hostel to surf net/do laundry before bed!

For lunch today we tried an Italian fast food chain called Spizzica or something like that! We each got a quarter of a pizza and a side of salad or fruit salad. It was about the same price as Maccas and the quality was alright. After this we wandered towards the Uffizi gallery for our 2pm reserved entrance time. We got our tickets and then jumped the queue to enter the gallery. To our dismay, bottles and liquids of any kind weren’t allowed inside the gallery! After dumping them and passing through the security screen, we were in! We were about to proceed to the gallery proper when a lady told us ‘no backpacks!’ Man! We had to place our bags in the cloak room and take out all our valuables.

Finally we entered the gallery! We climbed some stairs to the second level and started wandering around appreciating the works of art. We had decided to skimp on the audioguide and guidebook figuring we’d just read the signboards (little did we know that a lot of them were in Italian, but we took the gamble as we are cheap). Without knowing what works in particular the Uffizi was famous for, we came across Catholic works from the 14th Century until the Renaissance by famous artists such as Boticelli, Caravaggio, and our favourite teenage mutant ninja turtles! Perhaps the most famous works there were Boticelli’s Birth of Venus and La Primavera. Besides being somewhat vaguely familiar, these paintings had glass screens over them and a continuous horde of people admiring them!

We noticed that a lot of the paintings were of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus. As pointed out by our St Peters tour guide, Jesus always looked like a little man sitting on a young woman’s lap. The people around them are either standing around them or visiting him close to when he was born. Another common paintings were of the holy trinity and the suggestion that Mary has been anointed or crowned by Jesus to be one of them. As expected as well, there are a lot of Jesus on the cross. However, a lot more of Mary and Jesus.

We also saw a few paintings of St Sebastian who was killed via arrows (as we gathered from the paintings). We don’t know anything about this guy. If you know we’d love for you to tell us!

We managed to cover most of the gallery in about 2 hours - 90 mins more than Carl and Clare! Feeling enlightened and rather cultured having spent the afternoon at a gallery, we decided to indulge ourselves with a gelato! Walking away from the gallery we stumbled upon a recommended gelateria on via dei nero. Mmm mmm!!! Authentic tasting gelato! Di tried their chocolate mousse and thought it may be close to the best she’s had!

Next stop was that handbag store we visited yesterday. Di had popped into a couple of other stores and checked out the markets and still the best value for quality she could find was at the Moretti store (On Via Giuseppe Verde which is a street off the Piazza Di Santa Croce). The elderly storekeeper recognized us and even remembered which bags Di was interested in! She ended up getting one for 48 euro, down from 56 euro. The storekeeper couldn’t speak much English but was really really sweet and in broken English and Italian asked us where we were from, where we were going etc. We were quite happy to give him the business!

We headed towards our predetermined restaurant for dinner, wandering through the San Lorenzo marketplace on the way. At one store there was this Indian fellow who wanted to sell us 2 belts for 35 euro initially, which Di then bargained down to 30 euro after threatening to walk away. I took forever to decide cos I actually wanted them for about 25 euro and when I finally asked for 28 euro, the guy must’ve been so fed up he just started putting the belts back onto his rack, giving up on us altogether! Hmmph! Man the bargaining game is tough! After checking out a few more stalls, I eventually bought 2 leather belts for 27 euro altogether from a bald Fabio that Di thought was rather good looking!

We had a really nice dinner at Il Giardino Trattoria restaurant near the main station. We enjoyed home made pasta with duck sauce and the famous Florentine steak, which is distinctively medium rare. Di and I thought it was similar to the restaurant cooked steaks we get back home - just as good! We also had a slice of tiramisu for dessert after being enticed by the nice African-Italiano waitress.

Having enjoyed a last nice meal in Florence, we headed back to our hostel to pack for our trip to Venice early tomorrow morning!

Florence's Naked Dude!

2008-05-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Today was another relaxing day in Florence! We hit the Renaissance city around 11:30pm and headed to our favourite restaurant starting with M for brunch! Afterwards we headed to Galleria Accademia ie. the home of the most famous naked dude ever carved - Michaelangelo’s David! When we arrived we found a huge queue so but we managed to join the shorter prebooked reservations line. We only waited 10mins or so and we were in! We took our time looking at the other works there, mostly Roman Catholic paintings of the cruxifixion and the virgin Mary. We also saw an exhibition of musical instruments including a Stradivarius violin and viola on display!

The piece de resistance of course was naked dude David, as in ‘David and Goliath’ David from the Old Testament. I must say he really was a masterpiece! He stood about 5 metres tall leaning back on his right foot with a pensive but frowned gaze to his left. What many guides were commenting on (as we eavesdropped!) were David’s big hands! Indeed they seemed out of proportion but they were beautifully sculpted with details such as tendon and veins readily apparent! We spent a good 15-20mins appreciating David before seeing the rest of the small gallery, the remainder of which was mostly a room a sculptures.

We emerged into the Florentine daylight again around 3pm and decided to go for a stroll! We walked through some piazzas and finally found a decent gelato place!!! Got my pistachio and nocciola fix and mmm man it was good! Nearby was a leather goods store and Di had her eyes on 2 handbags there! Decided not to jump into it and to shop around a bit (ie, my delay tactics for buying it for her straight away!)!!!

We walked across the river and up a hill to Piazzale Michaelangelo where we found a bronze replica of David. Here we had a sweeping view of Florence in all its glory! We could see the Duomo, the Palazzo Vechio and the river! There were way too many tourists and dodgy guys hawking their dodgy merchandise though which was kinda irritating and spoiling the atmostphere!

We walked back down and along the river towards the famous bridge the Ponte Vecchio. This bridge has actual shops lining both sides as it crosses the river! They were mostly expensive looking jewellery stores and we wondered who on earth would buy anything from them!

With our stomachs grumbling again, we decided to look for dinner. After walking around for about 30mins, we found a little Trattoria restaurant in a small street that had a fixed price menu of 12 euros for a first course, second course, veges, and wine/water. There were no printed menus once seated and instead the waitress told us the whole menu before taking our orders. This was somewhat off putting as we had to make our choices on the spot without being given the luxury of perousing a proper menu. I ended up choosing spicy macaroni and a fish dish with chips, whilst Di chose pesto pasta and chicken with salad. The house wine was reasonable and so were the entrees, despite Di’s pasta noodles looking and tasting exactly like Chinese Hokkien noodles! The mains were really ordinary! My fish turned out to be squid in a nasty tomato/spinach sauce and Di’s chicken was plain roast chicken. Ah well you win some you lose some!

Returned to our hostel and booked some USA accommodation whilst doing a load of washing/drying. Time to sleep now!

Day trip to Pisa!

2008-05-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

When we look at foreign foods (such as Chinese or Japanese) in Italy it’s quite amusing to see how dishes are described so that Italians may understand what they’re eating. For example, fried noodles is spaghetti with chicken. The most interesting was Ha Gao (dumplings) which was described as Cantonese Ravioli. It reminded me of my Dad who often describes Italian foods by using Asian foods! I remember him describing spaghetti as hokkien mee.

I’ve noticed however, that Italy has some resemblances to a 3rd world Asian country. For example, in Asia, where the pedestrian walks and where a car travels is often the same both just needs to fight their way through. The same with Italy. In many cases, as the footpaths are too small pedestrians are often spilling into the narrow streets.

Further, crossing the road for the pedestrian is often a game of chicken with the oncoming traffic. There are zebra markings on the road. However, if there isn’t a traffic light for the pedestrian, the person must step out on the street and hope the on coming cars will stop for them to cross, after all they are meant to. There is no such courtesy where a car slows down where a pedestrian looks like they might cross. When we first arrived in Rome, we often followed a local as there was always going to be one crossing when we needed to. Now, we’re more seasoned and we often step out and watch for the cars as they stop for us.

Another observation was the smell of urine that seems to pop out of no where. You get this in Sydney as well, so lets just say this is a characteristic that’s just plain gross and not necessary like a 3rd world country! In Pisa today, we came across some fresh produce in some markets. Whilst I was looking at the fruit (which looked much better than what we saw in the supermarket might I add) I was met by the stench of urine! Who sets up a stall next to the smell of urine?! These Italians, or should I say Indians/Africans!

By this stage I was starting to wonder whether our 1.5 hour train ride from Florence to Pisa was worth it. My first impressions while crossing the river in Pisa was, ‘This place is a dump.’

We finally reached the famous leaning tower of Pisa where there were markets set up to catch the wide eyed tourist. I made a deal with Ben, if entry fee was €5 or less we would climb the tower. Lucky for me, the people of Italy love to rip off the tourist at a whopping €15 per entry per person!

It was good to see the tower in person. The cathedral next to it was quite nice from the outside as well. We didn’t pay to go in, I don’t think it was worth it after seeing St Peters in Rome, everything would be nothing in comparison.

We had gelato on our way to the train station. Actually, more like ice and watered down cream. I chose chocolate chip and menthe (suppose to be mint!) and Ben had Strawberry and pistachio. I thought mine was so bad I didn’t want to waste the calories on it, so I threw it out after about 4 spoons of it. My disappointment with Pisa only solidified at this point!

Time to get out of here, this place sucks.

After another 1.5 hours, we were back in Florence. I got another gelato which was ok, not as good as Rome but much better than Pisa.

We headed out for dinner. We went to the Italian restaurant next to the Chinese place we ate at last night. I had a Risotto with cheese and cabbage while Ben had a spicy pizza with salami and cheese. Both were great dishes and we were happy with it. Florence is far better than Pisa!

On the way out of the restaurant, Ben was slightly tipsy on the red wine we had over dinner. It was at this point that I realised I had lost my hostel card (key for the room). Wasn’t the end of the world as Ben had one, but we would have to fork out €5 for the lost card! In that case, we decided to retrace our steps to where I may have lost it and low and behold we found it. Ben was very proud as he was the one who found it on the floor.

So, that is the end of our Pisa/Florence adventure. Tomorrow we see the Academia Museum and a bit more of Florence.

Rome to Florence!

2008-05-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

Today we travelled form Rome to Florence! It was also a kinda rest day. We checked out, took the Metro to Termini station and then got on the 9:55am ES express train to Florence! We sat next to an American couple from Wisconsen. The train left dead on time and soon we were whizzing our way through the Italian countryside! I was kinda sleepy still so I got some shut eye!

We reached Florence around 11:30am and made our way towards our Plus Florence Hostel on via Santa Caterina d’Alessandria. It was a short 10min walk and immediately we noticed the difference to Rome! Properly paved roads and sidewalks, less people, and different architecture! The city generally looked cleaner and more modern. We passed the Piazza della indipendenza and were soon checking in! The hostel was quite new and clean looking! Our room wasn’t ready yet so we dumped our bags in the locker room and went out again to get lunch!

Feeling like a change from Italian, we ended up in Maccas for our fast food fix! It was similarly priced to back home and similar quality. They have salad here on the menu too! After lunch we wandered around some markets near the station and then queued up to enter the famous Cathedral of Saint Maria del Fiore!

People were already lining up for the 1:30pm Sunday opening time! The church was quite splendid from the outside with its green, pink and white marble exterior and towering dome and duomo! Inside however, we found it rather bare compared to what we had seen in Rome and St Peter’s Basilica! Most of the walls were undecorated and apart from a few statues and tapestries, the most decorated part was the ceiling of the dome itself-a fresco called The Last Judgement by the artists Vasari and Zuccari. After appreciating this artwork, we exited and wandered back to our hostel to get the keys to our room.

We found our room to larger than that in Rome and just as clean! We were given linen to make our own bed and feeling rather buggered it was time for an afternoon snooze! We got up around 7pm and headed out to a nearby Chinese restaurant called Osir Restaurant around the corner from the hostel and recommended by it as having the best Chinese food in Florence! We knew it’d probably be substandard and overpriced but I was craving some dirty asian food so I was like bring on the greasy Chinese food!

Dinner turned out to be ok! We had sizzling steak and chilli eggplant with white rice. Instead of complimentary soup we got complimentary champagne! The standard was about that of a cheap Kingsford Chinese restaurant. The price was about 2-2.5 times more! Got back to the hostel and checked out some of the facilities - laundry, internet room, pool and sauna, pool tables, bar, terrace café with view of Florence - not bad for a hostel! Nighty nite!

Rest day in Rome!

2008-05-10T23:12:00.000-07:00

Slept in till 10:30am and had to leave the hostel for their routine cleaning period between 11am-3pm. We walked down the street to an Italian restaurant we had spotted the night before and had brunch! I had pasta Amatricana and Di had cannelloni but both were rather ordinary! Di said my pasta tasted like Heinz canned spaghetti!

Feeling ripped off we headed for a nice leisurely stroll past the Spanish steps towards Piazza del Popolo. We had a walk down via Marghutta which I had visited last time and then found our way up to some gardens called Villa Borghese behind the Piazza. It was nice seeing this side of Rome as we escaped the traffic and throngs of tourists. We grabbed an icecream but were disappointed at its artificial flavouring! We strolled through the park and found a nice bench to sit down at and nap. And here we are! I’ve just typed up yesterday’s blog and Di is napping on the park bench!

Around 3pm, we headed off from our lovely spot in the park to meet up with Carl and Clare near the colonnade on via Del Corso. On the way we grabbed another gelato from the shop near the Spagna metro station - this time it was the real deal yeah! Had pistachio and nocciola flavours mmm mmm! We stopped by the Ferrari store on the way for that photo with the F1 racer!

We met Carl and Clare a little late at 3:40pm and decided we’d see if we could see a movie in English somewhere in Rome! We had looked up some places the night before and the first one I had found - the Quirinetta - was just around the corner. To our disappointment we found it was closed so we went over to Trastevere to check out one that Carl had found online. We walked across the river Tevere and found the area called St Maria in Trastevere. We didn’t have a street address for the cinema so we started walking around and then asking some locals. Noone had heard of the cinema!!! We did find a small cinema but it only showed Italian films. In the end we gave up and had a coffee in the piazza. Man that was a mistake! Di ordered café latte which turned out to be almost all milk! Clare got ‘cold chocolate’ thinking it might be like iced chocolate but it turned out like hot chocolate made with cold water! I ordered iced coffee but got cold expresso! Carl’s fruit shake was the only one that turned out as we expected! On top of that it was rather pricey!

We were still full so we returned to Carl and Clare’s apartment to surf the net before going out again around 8pm to a restaurant in Largo de pallaro recommended by Gracelyn. We found it easily enough - Trattoria der Pallaro-an authentic Roman restaurant! We were seated by a sweet Italian old lady and soon afterwards, jugs of water and wine and antipasti started coming out! There were olives, salami and prosciutto, basil tomatoes, a chick pea type dish, and some fried things! Then the first course came out - tomato pasta! This was followed by the main course of roast pork, zucchini, and chips! The dolce was a cake and OJ but we were all so full we couldn’t finish! We got all this for 23.75 euros pp!

After dinner we said arrivederci to Carl and Clare as we parted ways for the last time! Had an awesome time with them and look forward to catching up back home!

Vatican City!

2008-05-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

Today we set off for our tour of the Vatican City! It was another brilliant day with clear blue skies and warm sunshine! We headed down to Piazza Barberini to catch the Metro but after checking a few entrances realised it was closed!!! A guy told us that we needed to take a bus and later we found out that the Metro was down because of a strike. It was about 9:30am and we needed to meet Carl and CLare at Vatican City at 10am for our tour! We thought about catching a bus but didn’t know which one exactly, where to catch it from and how to buy a ticket so we ended up walking towards Vatican City in the hope of flagging down a taxi along the way. About 40mins later we had walked all the way to Vatican City!

Exhausted already and with a whole day of walking ahead of us we joined the tour group and met up with Carl and Clare! Our Through Eternity tour group had 14 ppl in it and was led by an American tour guide called Gracelyn. She seemed friendly enough but I thought, man I’m gonna have to listen to her yakking away in her American accent all day!

We crossed St Peter’s Square and joined the relatively short queue into St Peter’s Basilica. After passing through the security screens, we got our audio headsets and entered the Basilica! It was quite impressive inside as we took in the magnitude of the place! Markers on the floor showed how some of the other large cathedrals and churches worldwide would fit inside St Peter’s! Marble columns soared towards the ceiling and huge sculptures looked down upon us as we walked towards the front of the church. Gracelyn gave us detailed explanations about several artworks and parts of the Basilica. Then we exited and walked over to the Vatican Museum.

Again the queue at the Vatican Museum was rather short and after buying our 14 euro tickets, we proceeded to the food court where we adjourned for a 45min lunch. Man were my legs happy to rest!!! Di and Carl gave Youth Group a call as Clare and I bought the lunch. I got chicken schnitzel, pasta and salad! Having recharged and rested our legs, we entered the painting rooms and some of the outdoor areas. Gracelyn said that if we were to spend 60 seconds looking at every single piece of artwork there, it’d still take 4 years to see everything! Consequently we only saw a fraction of everything there but what we saw was amazing! Works by Raphael, Caravaggio, and of course, Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel! The tour ended around 5pm and we ducked back into St Peter’s Basilica to see the rays of setting sun shining through the dome’s windows. It was quite spectacular!

Feeling peckish again, we headed over to nearby Piazza Risorgimento to find a gelato place that Gracelyn had recommended. Failing to remember the name of the place, we just picked a random one. This one wasn’t bad - I had melon and blueberry gelato! Afterwards we parted ways with Carl and Clare and took the Metro to the Spanish steps to pick up some dinner and find a supermarket. We grabbed some slices of pizza as we exited the station and sat down on the Spanish Steps to eat dinner! Afterwards we passed on a second gelato and headed to deSpar supermarket to pick up some fruit. Unfortunately they didn’t have any so we just got some snacks. It was nice returning to the hostel before dark for once and the rest was really welcome!

Ancient Rome!

2008-05-08T23:10:00.000-07:00

Another lovely day in Rome!!! The sky was clear blue as we left our hostel and started walking towards Carl and Clare’s place near Piazza Novona. On the way we picked up some groceries from a supermarket and some market stalls for breakfast! It took around 20mins to walk to their apartment. Once there, we spent almost an hour preparing mushroom, onion, and tomato omelettes for breakky plus expresso machine coffee! It was rather good though!

We set out around 11am for some of Rome’s major attractions! We wound our way through narrow cobblestone streets and the masses of tourists, not to mention the hawkers trying to sell their junk! We visited the Piazza Venezia and the Monument of Vittorio Emanuelle II, followed by the Capital Hill. It was boiling hot walking around and soon we were seeking shade wherever possible! Next we walked around the back to get a nice view of the Roman Forum and again the splendour of its columns and temples greeted my eyes! We got some guidebooks to help us work out what it would’ve been like 2000 years ago! Then we walked around to the entrance, purchased our tickets for the Palatine Hill and the Colosseum and got some audio guides for the forum itself.

We spent a good hour and a half walking around the forum trying to figure out the significance of the ruins still standing using our audio guides and guidebooks. Soon our stomachs were grumbling however so we returned our audio guides and then walked towards the Colosseum to find a place to eat! We were trying to avoid touristy priced restaurants but eventually found they were all similarly priced. We settled on Bar Colosseo and were seated on the sidewalk outside with a partial view of the Colosseum itself. We were served by a grumpy waitress who took our orders of pasta - spaghetti bolognaise (Di just had to try it!) and my fettucine carbonara. I have to say we were pretty disappointed with the quality of that lunch! Probably could’ve cooked it better at home myself!

After our late lunch, we headed to the Colosseum. The queues weren’t too bad as we had prepurchased our tickets. The Colosseum hadn’t changed much since I last saw it in 2004. They had covered up about one third of the exposed lower dungeons and it didn’t really look like they were going to cover the whole lot up further. We walked around the lower level appreciating the magnitude of the gladiatorial stadium and just how the Romans could’ve constructed a building so huge without machines! We headed up to the next level and had a quick browse of the exhibitions and the arena from above before deciding to leave around 5:30pm.

We rushed over the road to the Palatine Hill where the emperors used to reside. This was one place I had missed out on during my last visit and I was glad I could explore it on this occasion! We followed the signs to the House of Augustus, walking along nice garden paths with these fantastic trees with trunks that towered high into the sky before branching out to form a canopy of sorts with its leaves. Soon some ruins greeted us and we walked around the grounds appreciating the architecture and views of the Roman countryside from the hill.

As the sun started to set we head down back to the Forum and exited via the sacred way. Then we walked back down via dei fori imperiali and headed back to Carl and Clare’s apartments to rest our weary legs from a whole day of walking! On the way we spotted an internet café and booked our tickets for the 2 main galleries in Florence.

After a brief break at Carl and Clare’s, we went out for dinner at a restaurant just around the corner from their place, recommended by the apartment. Carl and Clare got a plate of self service antipasto and some penne pasta whilst Di and I got a capriciossa pizza and eggplant parmegiana. Yum Yum!!!

After dinner we walked back to our hostel to rest in anticipation of another day of walking tomorrow when we visit the Vatican city!

London to Rome!

2008-05-07T23:08:00.000-07:00

Di’s alarm clock woke us up at the crazy time of 5:30am for our flight to Rome!!! Uncle Alex drove us all the way to London Stansted airport - we had a good run and it only took 45mins! We got there around 7am but it took forever to check in! After checking in we got stopped at the security check cos of our small bottle of hand cleanser. Also lost the 2 tubs of yoghurt we had taken for breakky cos they were too big. Hmmph!!! Then the lady proceeded to empty my backpack and search every pocket and everything in it!!!

The flight was fine and we arrived slightly late around 12:25am. We caught the bus to Anagnina Metro stop no problems and then the metro to Barbarini stop. After wandering around Piazza Barberini looking for the right street name, we found via Quattro fontane and soon enough found our hostel, Ciao Bella at no. 159. We buzzed the door and the nice hostess Alina answered. We arrived there around 2pm and it was during their lockout cleaning time period of between 11am to 3pm when they clean the hostel everyday. We dumped our stuff and went down the road to have lunch (pizza set menu for 6 euros each!) before wandering around the neighborhood and returning to the hostel to check in at 3pm.

Alina still hadn’t finished preparing our room but it was ready within 15mins. It turned out to be a small room in the attic/mezzanine level. We had our own ensuite and it was clean so we didn’t mind that it was small. We dumped our packs and went out to meet up with Carl and Clare at the Trevi fountain!

We got to Fontana di Trevi around 3:40pm and Carl and Clare were nowhere to be seen! There were swarms of tourists around the fountain and it was difficult to spot them! Soon we got an SMS saying they were running 20mins late so we enjoyed the atmosphere and tried to work out the inscriptions on the fountain whilst waiting. Around 4pm they turned up and we spotted them, Carl looking suave in his new leather jacket!

We left the crowded fountain and headed towards the Spanish steps to find a place to eat. Carl and Clare hadn’t eaten yet and we didn’t mind a drink. We found one and they both got a similar pizza set menu to the one we had gotten and we got this dodgy kiwi fruit shake.

After lunch we grabbed some gelato enroute to the Spanish steps! Di got hazelnut and I got pistachio and man it was soooooooooooo good!!!!! I think I’ll be eating gelato every day!!! Carl wanted the nicer chocolate and nutty waffle cone for his gelato but after he had pointed at it, the lady started piling on the gelato and then sticking all kinds of fancy bits and pieces into it!!! Extra waffle bits, wafer pieces, chocolate cones you name it! With each extra bit she added in you could just see Carl wincing more and more cos he was already quite full having just eaten! To add insult to injury (if you can call it that!), when he got the bill the lady told him it cost 15 euros for his cone!!! We paid him out for the rest of the day - every time some of his gelato dripped, there was a euro gone!

We took our gelato over to the Spanish steps and sat down to enjoy the atmosphere and our treats! Carl somehow managed to eat his mammoth icecream! Don’t know whether he actually had the stomach for it or he just forced it down cos of how expensive it was!

At 6pm we joined a twilight walking tour of Rome that Carl and Clare had researched beforehand. The tour group was called Angel Tours and we picked them out cos of their yellow umbrellas with angels on em. We met our tour guide Jo (who happened to be from Melbourne Australia!) and soon we were off! We visited the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Novona, and lastly, Campi di Fiori. I had seen all these places before but it was actually nice knowing something about them! For example, the Spanish steps are called so simply cos they’re near the Spanish embassy. Jo was quite knowledgeable and through in some stories and Roman myths amongst all the factual stuff.

At 8pm we finished up in Campi di Fiori, known for its many pubs and restaurants. We were still full so we headed back to Carl and Clare’s serviced apartment behind Piazza Novona. We hung out there for an hour or so showing each other’s photos. When our stomachs started grumbling again, we went out to a restaurant in Campi di Fiori that Jo had recommended.

I had a calzone (folded pizza) and Di tried the ravioli with fetta cheese and spinach. Both were quite good! Don’t know if we can keep eating just pasta and pizza for the next week though! After dinner it was time to walk back to our hostel in Barberini!

Rest Day in Dartford!

2008-05-06T23:07:00.000-07:00

Today was rest day. I had been looking forward to this day for a while. I was getting weary from all the driving. (And along with that a bit whingy too I think…) We rarely spent more than 1 night in any place and most of the day we were in the car which I don’t find relaxing!

So, we slept in until midday at Uncle Alex’s and Auntie Clem’s place. After doing some washing and some errands we caught the bus to Bluewater which is their local shopping centre. It is huge! The bird’s eye view is a giant triangle and it is 2 stories high. It included stores such as Zara, Ted Baker, T.M.Lewin and Mark & Spencers.

The first thing we did was to have Pizza Express’ Diavolo pizza along with a Caesar salad side at 3pm. I was starving and even eyeing the dessert menu! Didn’t have room for that though.

We walked off our meal by buying a new pair of funky jeans for Ben and some underwear for myself. We aren’t big spenders as they were about £10 per item!

Before we knew it, it was 6pm! Yikes!

So we returned to the house to find Auntie Clem cooking us a home made Chinese meal. Just what we needed! On the menu:

1.) Sweet & Sour Chicken
2.) Ginger Chicken in dark Soya Sauce
3.) Chicken & Cashew Nut
4.) Mixed vegetables with scallops
5.) Boiled rice

The food was tops! Very nice, particularly after a whole week of pub food and eating out!

Tomorrow is Italy, Rome. Early wake up (5:30!)

Wrapping up Wales!

2008-05-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

I start writing this entry at 10:30pm as we sit in London’s newest parking lot - the M25 orbital ring road! Apparently a truck has overturned a mile or so up ahead. Doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere soon so I got the laptop out of the boot and here we go!

Woke up to a beautiful day in Shrewsbury! Guzzled down a cuppa tea and soon we were off once again! We headed into Shrewsbury town centre. Despite being a bank holiday we still had to pay for parking and we spotted a parking inspector issuing tickets to a whole row of cars one by one! We walked over to Shrewsbury castle and checked out Laura’s tower there. Then we crossed the English bridge over to Shrewsbury Abbey on the other side of town. We had a brief look inside the ancient church of England before hurrying back to our car to avoid getting a fine!

On we drove back across the border into Wales once more! The sun was breaking through the clouds as we pulled into Welshpool! Having skipped breakky, we were feeling hungry so we parked near the Somerfield there and started looking for a place to eat! Whilst looking, we spotted a market and ducked in to have a look. I browsed through a store selling second hand CDs but couldn’t find any bargains. By the time I had finished, the others had already browsed the rest of the stores and were moving on!

We managed to find a nice bistro to eat at around midday. We were the first ones there for lunch! Uncle Alex and I got the BBQ pork ribs, Di and Aunty Clem got the pork loins, and Paula got a chicken panini. All were quite good and we were glad we didn’t opt for some of the dodgy looking pubs we passed earlier!

Stomachs full once again we continued driving south through the Welsh countryside! We passed the towns of Newtown and Builth Wells before arriving at the town of Brecon! There seemed to be quite a lot of activity here! Heading up into the town centre we found a small carnival underway! We browsed some of the town’s shops before taking a peek at Brecon Castle and the Cathedral. After a dodgy cup of coffee at the Cathedral’s café, it was time to move on!

We drove solid for almost 2 hours east through the Welsh towns of Abergavenny and Monmouth before crossing the border and passing through the English towns of Gloucester and Cheltenham. Around 7pm we arrived at the small Cotswold village of Burford, 20miles west of Oxford. We had a quick walk around just to stretch our legs. All the shops were closed but the buildings were really quite historic and quaint looking!

Soon it was back into the car and full steam ahead towards London! We hit some traffic on the M40 and got off onto the M4 at High Wycombe. Around 8:30pm we arrived at Southall near Heathrow where we had decided to have dinner in London’s little India! Sure enough Southall’s main road was full of Indian restaurants and grocery shops! We had dinner at Giftos Lahore Karahi restaurant! This modern Indian restaurant reminded me of An’s Vietnamese restaurant back home in Bankstown where they use PDAs to take orders and the food comes out super quick! Giftos had plenty of atmosphere with many local Indians dining there and contemporary Indian music blaring in the background! The food was quite good too! We had 2 lamb dishes, 3 chicken dishes and a fish dish with some rice and naan. Mmm!!!

And here we find ourselves at 11:25pm crawling along the M25 back towards Dartford! Still haven’t reached the accident site yet but police, ambos, and tow trucks have been speeding up the shoulder! Looks like we’ll be arriving at Dartford early tomorrow morning!

So some final thoughts and stats on our Wales trip then eh?! We spent 3 days driving around the Welsh countryside and 2 nights at 3 travelodges after having trouble finding the right ones! We probably spent more time in the car than actually sightseeing but the towns that we did visit were really pretty! Got lost a couple of times and ended up visiting some nice Welsh rubbish tips and factories! Shouldn’t have followed that Peterstone barmaid’s advice - there wasn’t much to see in southern Wales. In retrospect we should’ve shot up to Northern Wales to check that out cos we missed out on that. All in all a good trip though with great company and great food and wine! Thanks Uncle Alex, Aunty Clem and Paula!!!

Exploring Western Wales!

2008-05-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

We set out from our Travelodge around 10am and drove northwest towards the town of Cardigan. The weather kept changing from sunny one moment to dark overhead clouds to patches of drizzle. There wasn’t much at Cardigan so we continued driving along the west coast of Wales looking for nice towns to check in at. Uncle Alex took a gamble and we left the beaten track for the small village of Tresaith. We weren’t disappointed this time! We found a nice stretch of sandy beach with steep seaside cliffs. As rain clouds threatened we didn’t stop long but headed on to the next town of Llagranog. This turned out to be another great find! We parked near the beach and before us was a gelato store! We all grabbed gelato (I had irish cream and strawberry!), then walked up a hillside adjacent to the beach to get a nice view. We weren’t up there for long before it started drizzling again and we had to go down! Filled up with gelato, we continued on!

We headed 26 miles north towards the next large town of Aberystwyth. Along the way we made a brief stop at Aberaeron which seemed to be a happening place given the number of people about! We had a look at some nice little gift and craft stores there. Then it was on to Aberystwyth itself! We headed straight for the marina. Di and I managed to find the English football team’s away jersey for her cousin’s nephew in LA that we’re staying with. When we came out, Uncle Alex had found a restaurant that was serving a Sunday carvery!

It was about 3pm by the time we sat down to our plates of roast beef, roast turkey and roast veges! The lady carving was not only terribly slow in serving but also unable to carve properly! As a result we received bits and pieces of meat rather than slices! Anyhow it was all good! I was half full to start with and way past my stop sign when I was done!

When we emerged from the restaurant, bellies full, it was drizzling again! Onwards we drove through the towns of Machynlleth and Dolgellau to the town of Porthmadog. This seaside town was quiet and dead as it was late Sunday afternoon already. We had a quick walk around the inlet as the sun emerged from behind the clouds. Then it was back in the car!

We drove inland through lovely valleys and over lush mountains with plenty more sheep! After passing through Bala we started looking for a pub to have an evening drink! Now that we wanted one, it was so hard to find one! We pulled into the small village of Corwen and spotted a hotel. Walking by it though it appeared shut so we headed onto another one. This was too noisy so we head on to the next one! The last one turned out to be shut! Frustrated we headed back to the car when we walked past that first hotel and realised that it was in fact open! We went in for drinks. I tried a lime and lager. The lady there was rather nice but must’ve miscalculated the price cos it only cost 5.80 pounds all up for the five of us!

We drove on to Llangollen, the last Welsh town before our final destination for the day - Shrewsbury. Llangollen was really picturesque! We walked over its bridge before spotting a nice pub near the river with an outdoor deck. Upon entering ‘The Corn Mill’, we found a friendly Welsh pub full of mainly young people. We enjoyed our second drink within the hour and nice views of the river.

Around 8:30pm we head off for our Travelodge in Shrewsbury! We drove along the A5 and were so relieved to pull into it after a long day of mostly driving! When we checked in however, we were told that we were at the wrong Travelodge! We were at the Baston Hill Travelodge rather than the Battlefield one! The guy gave us a map to the nearby one we were supposed to be staying at but we went almost 10miles the wrong way after misreading his dodgy map! We eventually pulled into the Battlefield Travelodge and checked out the Spar convenience store there before retiring to our rooms! We skipped dinner and snacked on chips, fruit, and chocolate for supper! So all in all a long day of mostly being in the car but we saw heaps of nice Welsh countryside! What lies in store for us tomorrow?!

Welcome to Wales!

2008-05-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

Had a good night’s rest but still felt like sleeping in! Would have if it were not for the fact we were heading off to Wales today! Paula came over around 8:45am and we set out on the motorway! We cruised along the M25, then M4 with little traffic, stopping in Reading for a break. Managed to find a travel adaptor at the WH Smith there so all up we’ve spent 18.98 pounds on stupid adaptors!

We passed the city of Bristol and were soon crossing the mouth of the Severn river into Wales! After being welcomed by the Welsh with a toll, we continued west along the M4, checking the map for nice seaside towns to visit. We headed into the town of Peterstone and grabbed a drink at the local pub there where the barmaid suggested we visit Cardiff bay and the nice little towns of Sully and Llantwit Major. A guy sitting at the bar told us we could spend hours, even a whole day at Cardiff Bay!

With high expectations, we drove into the Welsh capital and tried to find Cardiff Bay. We got lost along the way however and ended up in an industrial area with lovely views of rubbish tips, factories, and warehouses! We eventually found it and parked near the visitor centre which looked like a tubular UFO or something! We went inside, got some info, and then walked around the bay. It was quite picturesque to some degree but small and the water in the bay was rather filthy! We passed many piers where cruises were leaving presumably to show people around the bay.

There weren’t many people around for the long weekend. We passed the Millenium Stadium and started looking for somewhere for a bite. After walking around the restaurants for a while, we settled on an express lunch special at an Italian restaurant overlooking the bay. The penne and linguini were rather good!

With our stomachs filled up again, we left Cardiff Bay after spending just over an hour there, and following that barmaid’s suggestion, headed along the coast to the village of Sully. Sully was so impressive that we drove right through it without knowing and ended up in yet another industrial area! Turning back, we decided to just keep heading on to the bigger nearby town of Barry.

We followed tourist signs to Barry Island and a pebble beach called The Knap but neither warranted more than a brief stop. The seaside was disappointing as the water was muddy and brown coloured. We went around in circles a few times trying to get out of Barry but eventually found a sign to Llantwit Major. We passed Cardiff International Airport and drove along small Welsh country roads, passing fields dotted with heaps of sheep and their lambs.

When we arrived at Llantwit Major, we found yet another small dead village! We couldn’t really work out why on earth that barmaid had suggested we visit it! We saw a sign pointing to the beach so we followed that down a narrow road full of speedhumps and found another small pebble beach with again, filthy water! Having had enough of the Welsh seaside, we decided to head straight to our Travelodge, check in and then go out later.

We drove past the larger cities of Bridgend, Port Talbot and Swansea and realised we probably should’ve stopped at the later as we had originally intended. Again the barmaid was at fault cos they had told us that Swansea wasn’t worth stopping at but as drove by we caught a glimpse of its scenic coastline. Anyhow, with some difficulty we found our Travelodge at Cross Hands near the Aldi. We checked in and had a cuppa tea before going out again around 7pm to look for dinner.

The Travelodge receptionist had recommended we visit Carmarthen or try the nearby Cross Hands pub called the Phoenix. We headed north west the 12miles or so to Carmarthen. This town was quite large but again, dead quiet! We parked and walked around looking for a nice pub that might serve up good Welsh food but as we walked all around town, none of them looked appealing! Most were dingy, had few patrons, or had unruly locals hanging outside it. With stomachs rumbling, we decided to head back to Cross Hands and dine at the Phoenix! We were glad we did! We feasted on roast lamb, chicken, and for the second night in a row, Uncle Alex had the ultimate mixed grill! The food and portions were just right and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal except for Aunty Clem who was disappointed with her steak and ale pie.

After dinner we retired to our Travelodge and enjoyed Paula’s Spanish wine!

York to Dartford!

2008-05-02T22:41:00.001-07:00

Enjoyed a nice breakky of eggs on toast outside in the warm sunshine flooding Paul’s garden as his hens dusted themselves in the flowerbed! Then all too soon it was time to head off! We said farewell as Paul’s repairers started arriving to assess the damage.

We drove south on the A1, looking for a carwash to clean Chee Yuan’s car before giving it back to him. We pulled into a couple of service stops but the best we could find was an automatic car wash, which Chee Yuan would not want his car put through! We ended up at a Shell service station by the air and water pumps hand washing his car with a rag we found in the boot! After we had cleaned it best we could, we continued down the A1 and pulled into Biggleswade where Chee Yuan works right on time, just before 3pm.

Meeting up with him proved to be difficult! He told us to meet him at the Asda supermarket carpark but driving along the main road, we couldn’t spot the Asda! Eventually by chance we found the carpark! We met up with him and walked back to his office for him to collect his things. Then we grabbed a bite from Grieggs bakery before he dropped us to the Biggleswade train station to catch the train to Dartford.

The train ride was long, tiring and expensive! We had our big packs to carry and by the time we got into Kings Cross station it was almost 5pm - peak hour! We caught the packed underground to Charing Cross and made it just in time for the 5:25pm service to Gravesend via Dartford. That journey took about 40mins so all up we were on trains for 2hours!

Aunty Clem picked us up from Dartford train station and we returned to their place to dump our stuff and put in a load of washing. Then it was off for dinner at a country pub called The Green Man, about a 20min drive away. It was packed for a Friday night but we didn’t have to wait too long for a table! Uncle Alex got the mixed meat grill, Aunty Clem tried the duck, Di got the lamb shank, and I ordered the mixed fish grill. We enjoyed the cosy environment and chatting over drinks. The food took a while to come but it allowed us to build up our appetites! The food portions were huge and tasty as we shared around our food, me largely in an attempt to get the others to help me finish my plate! Got back to Dartford just after 10pm and called Oz!

Edinburgh to York

2008-05-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

We left Edinburgh around 9:30am and drove south east towards Berwick upon Tweed. Dark clouds rolled overhead as we drove an hour to the Scottish/English border! Soon we driving along the coast as we pulled into the historic village of Berwick upon Tweed! We drove down the main road and found people lining the sides and police directing traffic! We figured some sort of parade was about to happen so we quickly parked our car and joined the crowds! Sure enough a parade of horses soon came marching down the main street with police escort. They stopped at the town hall steps and there was a ceremony of sorts between some official looking people there and the horsemen. Afterwards they started singing what must’ve been the town song and then there were cheers of hip hip hooray! We had no idea what they were cheering about until we asked a little old lady who explained that it was the May Day celebrations! Sure enough there were some kids nearby who soon started dancing around a May pole! We figured this must be kinda rare nowadays so we were really fortunate to witness it!

We walked around the town a bit and after an hour there our parking time expired and we set off again! We drove 2 hours south, stopping just once for lunch at you guessed it, Burger King! We pulled into the town of Thorganby around 3pm and Paul promptly came outside to greet us! Helene it turned out was working an overnight shift and we didn’t to meet her but we managed to say hi on the phone. Paul warmly welcomed us and made us feel right at home! We had a cuppa tea in the conservatory where it was nice and warm! Paul explained that his house was subsiding and that 12 weeks of repairs would need to be done! Then it was time for a short nap/break and we managed to use his recently acquired wireless internet!

Around 5:30pm, we drove to the outskirts of York and then walked along the river Ouse towards town. As we had both visited York before, parts of it became familiar! We walked along the walls - something I missed out on last visit - and then through parts of town with Paul as our personal local tour guide! With the sun setting and our stomachs rumbling, we headed back to Thorganby and ducked into the Ferryboat Inn for a drink! Di had the local apple cider which turned out to be alcoholic unexpectedly and she felt lightheaded after! We returned to Paul’s place around the corner and he started preparing our Spanish dinner-bread and sides for entrée, Basque Tuna for mains, and fresh garden grown rhubarb for dessert! All were really yummy and we were so full afterwards!

We retired into the cozy living room and Paul played us a selection of his favourite English folk rock music on CD, some of which he played along to on his guitar and harmonica! We enjoyed this until just past midnight!

Lazy Day in Edinburgh!

2008-04-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

Today was supposed to be a day spent exploring Edinburgh! We did do that to some extent but probably not enough to do it justice! We got up and were both feeling in need of a rest day of sorts so we decided to take it easy. We had a dodgy breakky at the Little Chef restaurant adjacent to our Travelodge to start the day. Di got pancakes with mushrooms and a hash brown and I ordered a sausage, egg and mushroom roll. The servings however came out small and poorly cooked and I got bacon instead of eggs! On top of that we paid almost 8 pounds for it (AUD20)!!!

We set off for Glenkinchie distillery, about a 30min drive south east of our Travelodge in Musselburgh. We drove through rolling Scottish hills and quaint little villages before we arrived in Pencaitland, East Lothian where the distillery was! We got our tickets and were just in time to join a tour of the distillery with another couple. We learnt the process of making a single malt scotch whiskey - malting, mashing, fermentation, distillation, and maturation. Can’t exactly remember what each of those words means now but an interesting fact was that to be called Scotch whiskey, a whiskey has to be matured for at least 3 years by law. At the end of the tour we got to sample the whiskey! Now we’re not really whiskey drinkers and Di especially found it difficult to appreciate. I thought it was quite nice, although I couldn’t take too much each sip for fear of feeling as if I had drunk pure metho! We bought some bottles as gifts, took some photos of the distillery grounds with Floppy and then headed off!

We next visited Livingston Outlet Shopping centre on the south west outskirts of Edinburgh. Here we found lots of brand name outlet stores such as Levis, Gap, Sketchers etc. We managed to find a cool travel adapter there but only later realised that it only took 2 pronged Aussie plugs, not the 3rd earthing pin! We had lunch at the pub there around 2pm - a burger deal and afternoon fish and chips deal for 8 pounds all up! Then it was time to hit the shops! Di bought a top from Selects for 4.99 pounds, and at a store called Donnays, we picked up 5 pairs of anklet socks for 2 pounds, 2 umbrellas for 5 and 2 pounds, and a light hooded jacket for me for 10 pounds. It was nearing closing time and Di picked up a Levi hooded jacket for 14 pounds in a bout of last minute shopping.

We left Livingston and feeling guilty for not having seen the Scottish capital at all, headed into Edinburgh town centre itself. We parked near Edinburgh castle and went for a walk around the castle, some of the churches and museums, and the nearby gardens. It was really really pretty and we wished we could’ve gone inside the castle, churches and museums! I guess that’s something for next time we visit!

We had dinner at a small Italian restaurant near the castle after deciding we needed a change from all the pub food! We had hearty minestrone soup and penne boscaiola. Yum! We then returned to our Travelodge to get some much needed rest before our drive south tomorrow!

Braveheart Land aye!

2008-04-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

I am under a time limit for this entry as I left our power converter in our last room!

Ben and I celebrated our 1 month anniversary driving around Scotland. Beginning in Glasgow we saw Loch Lomond, the Trassach’s, the town and Castle of Stirling and finished in the capital, Edinburgh. From the towns surrounding Loch Lomond, being Balloch and Luss we really enjoyed the scenery. It’s a beautiful place, however the view in Ballach was tainted by rubbish scattered on the banks of the inlet.

At Luss we stopped for another bowl of soup and scones. They were good. The soup was a traditional Scottish soup (called Scotch broth) which included lamb, oats and a collection of vegetables. The scone was a large one with double cream and strawberry jam. Yum!

After Luss we headed off to the Trassach’s which according to the information booklet would be considered the soul of Scotland. It was a nice drive through the winding roads, rolling hills and various Loch’s. However, the view was marred slightly when the information booklet stated that a lot of the land had been felled for its timber and no piece of land has been untouched by man. Evidence of this was everywhere including a large pile of felled logs up upon a hill.

Still, the views were nice, however I think the Lake District was better in terms of colours and the stone walls running all over the mountain sides and along the road.

We pushed on to Stirling where we visited Stirling Castle. We arrived at about 3pm and spent about 2.5 hours there! The castle sits on top of a hill and is still under renovation and restoration. However, we did get to see the Great Hall which has been restored to what it would have looked like around the time of King James VI (we think). The tour guide of the castle was a quirky man, telling us fibs such as the castle being haunted.

There were a few interesting pieces in the castle, including the ancient kitchen, but one to note was the Unicorn Tapestry which the original is in New York. They are recreating these for the Queen’s chamber once it’s restored. There were 5 scenes to this tapestry, all to be recreated on tapestry by the people working on the castle. Explained by the exhibit, the unicorn was a symbol representing Christ, the men representing his enemies. The scenes were:

One: The men heading out to capture the unicorn. These men represented Christ’s enemies.
Two: The unicorn purifying water for the other animals to drink from which symbolized Christ’s death for our sin.
Three: The unicorn being captured although it tried to escape through a river.
Four: The unicorn being brought to the King. The unicorn had a crown of thorns.
Five: The unicorn alive within a circular fencing. This was to symbolize Christ’s conquering death.

Interesting, I thought, but it took me some time to get my head around the link between a unicorn and Christ!

As it was about 6pm when we left the castle we headed into town for dinner.

We found a bar which charged around £5 per meal. When we were inside we discovered that dinner would be £12 for both of us. We could choose anything on the menu and there were a limited selection of alcohol we could choose from. Dinner was good!

I had a coke along with the Manhattan burger (very Scottish!) which was a beef patty with cheese & mushrooms. Ben had the scampi with chips together with a class of house white. I was starving after only sharing soup and a scone all day so dinner was very satisfying!

Now, here we are in Edinburgh. Ben is watching the soccer whilst I type this entry. Our room looks exactly the same as the other two except; the chair, the kettle and the bathroom taps. Convenient eh?

Lakes District!

2008-04-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

Woke up to a frosty Scottish morning! Went over to the Marks and Spencer mini-store and got a chocolate croissant and snail for breakky! Then it was time to head off to explore the Lake District! We drove south, took the Junction 40 exit and were soon entering the north lakes region. The road became windy and we enjoyed the scenic countryside, with its splendid array of springtime colours and many sheep dotting it. To Di’s delight, we spotted many spring lambs, taking their first steps and playing alongside their mothers in the fields.

We stopped by at Ullswater Lake and found a little outdoors/camping store where we got a sleeping bag liner for 10 pounds. We then continued driving south, further into the Lake District. Soon we reached the township of Windermere, a quaint little town adjacent to Lake Windermere. We found a parking and then walked around the town centre, which was having major roadworks done. We spotted a nice café and seeking refuge from the chill, we headed inside for a bite! We enjoyed a hearty zucchini soup with focaccia bread, and some onion rings as we read the local papers.

After we finished, we left the shop to discover it was pouring rain! We ran from shelter to shelter as we headed back to the car and ended up like 2 drowned rats in the sanctuary of Chee Yuan’s car! We headed down to the Lake itself but seeing as it was raining, we decided to head on to the next town. We headed up to Keswick and by then the rain had stopped and the sun had come out! We parked in the town square and walked to a nearby park by a river to have our own made lunch of turkey and cream cheese rolls. During lunch we were joined by a cute chubby chirping bird so small it could fit in the palm of your hand! It enjoyed the bits of cream cheese that fell on the floor, happily pecking away!

We spent the rest of our parking meter time wandering the streets and shops of Keswick. We visited an art museum, random craft shops, and a tea pottery to name some. We left at 2:30pm and drove back towards Carlisle, past our Travelodge, and on towards Glasgow. We hit some traffic on the motorway at the outskirts of Glasgow and got lost near our next Travelodge when the GPS gave us wrong directions! We found the Paisley Road Travelodge in the end and checked in around 6pm!

Glasgow appeared to be much bigger than expected and on the map it indeed is bigger than Edinburgh! We headed out for dinner to the nearby quay and after walking around the shops twice, settled on Mexican food over the Nandos, Burger King, an American Italian chain restaurant, and the expensive casino restaurant. We had fajitas buy one get one free (to my delight!) as it was a Monday night special! The chicken and steak fajitas arrived on sizzling hot plates atop loads of onion and capsicum with sides of cheese, sour cream, and salsa. We made our tortilla rolls and mmmmmm it hit the spot, curing our hunger pangs!

After dinner we retired to our room and watched iRobot, halfway through which I fell asleep! Nite!

London to Carlisle!

2008-04-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

As I sit here in bed on the laptop, Ben is watching ‘Underworld’. I think one thing that I’ve learnt about Ben during our Honeymoon is that he is actually a normal guy. Often when we watch TV in our room he flicks to the soccer or some other non-girly channel. Don’t worry, I think Love Actually is still his favourite though.

Well, here we are in a place called Carlisle. It is north of London, Birmingham and the Lakes District. I believe we are on the northern side of Britain and we will cross the boarder into Scotland tomorrow. It took us about 6 hours to get here from London and we shall be seeing the Lakes District tomorrow before we head for the land of Kilts and the Loch Ness. We had initially planned to do this today but we spent the morning sleeping at my cousin’s place, having a big breakfast, watching Scrubs (Season 7!) and shopping for lunch and fruit at Tesco.

It was a nice drive up, although a bit long for my liking. Once you get out of London the driving is much better as there aren’t as many cars and three lane motorways.

We stopped for lunch at the ‘Poplar’ rest stop at about 3pm. We made sandwiches from smoked salmon, cream cheese and some bread rolls.

We reached our Travelodge at about 6:30pm and I was pleasantly surprised at the state of the rooms. There wasn’t an unpleasant smell and everything appeared clean. Perhaps I have been in south east asia for too long, but I was very happy. The last time I stayed in a Travelodge was with my parents in October 2007 and I remember one of our rooms had a strange smell (I thought it was urine) and we found a large black spider near my luggage.

The only downside about this place is that when you’re outside you’re surrounded by a strong stench which I think is either manure or vomit. You get the idea? Really gross.

Early night tonight, another day of driving tomorrow!

Hastings and Brighton!

2008-04-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

The sun was shining (surprisingly for the UK!) through the window as we arose at 10am and had a nice cheese on toast breakky with Uncle Alex and Aunty Clem. Seeing as how it was such a good day, we decided to head to Hastings and Brighton, both towns on the southern coast of the UK. We drove towards Hastings (as in the famous Battle of Hastings), about a 1 hr 20 min drive south east from Dartford. On the way we stopped by a small town called Battle where there was a historic fort.

Hastings was full of people coming out for the weekend to enjoy the sun and sand! Except that there wasn’t any sand - it was a pebble beach. And although there was plenty of sun, it was still quite cool so everyone on the ‘beach’ were all dressed which looked somewhat odd! Reminded me of the bus loads of Asians who go to Bondi Beach fully dressed, line up on the beach, take their photo, then get back on the bus!

We grabbed some fish and chips from the asian run fish and chips store that Uncle Alex and Aunty Clem always go to! Then we took it to the beach to sit on the pebbles and eat! Mmm…man it was good after not having fish and chips for at least a month! After lunch we checked out the Fisherman’s Museum and then off we went again!

The drive to Brighton took about an hour! We checked out the apparently world famous Brighton Pier that extends quite far out to sea! On top is a small amusement park! We grabbed icecreams and walked around the carnival. After a quick look we headed over to Cheng Yee’s place! She and her flatmate Tammy were in and it was nice seeing her after so many years! We caught up briefly for 15mins or so and then it was time to go cos we had to meet Di’s cousins in central London for dinner.

We left Brighton around 6:15pm and dinner was supposed to be at 6:45pm! The traffic into London was awful and 6:45pm rolled around, then 7:45pm, and we felt sooo bad for making Fiona and Chee Yen wait! We found the nearest tube at Brixton and Uncle Alex and Aunty Clem dropped us off there! By the time we met up with Fiona at Bond St it was 8:30pm and we were almost 2hrs late for dinner!!! We hurried to the restaurant on Marylebone Lane, a French one picked by Chee Yen called Le Relais de Venise. People were queuing up outside!!! Chee Yen and his girlfriend Alice met us shortly after and we apologised profusely!!! We didn’t have to wait too long to get in. Dinner was a set menu of a French mustard salad for entrée and steak and fries for mains. It was quite good but I was still full from our late lunch and the icecream so probably didn’t enjoy it as much as I otherwise would’ve if I was ravenous!

It was nice meeting Chee Yen and Alice and getting to know them! Fiona was her chatty self! After dinner we got Chee Yen’s car and we used his GPS to find our way to Fiona’s place in Ealing Broadway. She lives in a smalls studio atop a 3 storey terrace house converted into 4 apartments. And here we are! We head for Scotland tomorrow!

HK to London!

2008-04-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

Our alarm woke us up around 6:30am and we quickly got changed, checked out and caught the MTR to Hong Kong Station. We checked in there with 5 mins to spare and then caught the Airport Express to HKIA for our flight at 8:45am! At the airport we grabbed a muffin from the food court (all we could afford with what little HKD we had left!) and then headed for the departure gate.

The flight was 13hrs but actually not too bad! I watched 4 movies - Batman Begins, PS I Love You, Lions for Lambs, and I can’t remember the last one! Managed to shut my eyes for a bit and only felt slightly airsick at the very beginning of the flight. Again the food was great! Got Haagen Daas cookies and cream icecream this time!

We reached London 30 mins later than our scheduled arrival time of 2:35pm and by the time we got our baggage and all, it was around 3:45pm. Immigration took a while to clear because the customs officers asked us sooooo many questions! “How long are you staying?”, “Where in Europe will you be going to?”, “How are you 2 related?”, “How much money do you have?”, “Where are you going after UK?” and on and on! We thought it might’ve been cos of Di’s Malaysian passport. Apparently people traffic humans into the UK under the pretext of being married.

Uncle Alex arrived only a few mins after we got out. He had come straight from work and was slightly late because of traffic. The same traffic meant our drive back to Dartford took over an hour on the M25! We got to Uncle Alex’s place at around 5:15pm. Aunty Clem was already home and preparing a roast dinner! The place looked the same and memories from my last trip here in 2004 came flooding back!

We unpacked and had showers before going to fetch Beng Kiet koko from the railway station, as he was coming over for dinner! It was nice catching up and showing him photos! Dinner was a yummy affair and just the solution for 3 weeks of greasy asian food! We had roast pork and roast lamb with veges. Can’t forget the wine as well! After all that we were so buggered as we had been up almost 20 over hours so it was time for bed!

More shopping in HK!

2008-04-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

There are so many people in Hong Kong. One barely has enough room to stretch out your arm without coming into contact with another person. So as you can imagine, getting from A to B is quite a task, you literally need to push your way through the hundreds of window shopping girls, the guys talking on their mobile and meandering along the street and the thousands of people who simply change their mind in which direction to go to! Meanwhile, you have others who are pushing their way through to get from C to D.

I think it’s the being shoved that gets to me most. Whilst in the MTR (HK train) I have flashes of scenes of me pushing a tiny honkie girl out the train just because she nudged me on her way out. ‘You want to get out fast?! Let me help you!’ Fortunately (for Ben that is), I find some will within me to control myself and restrain from the temptation.

I think it’s the ‘me first’ attitude that pervades Honkie society. Another example, whilst at the airport, waiting for our express train to come, an old man had left his luggage right in front of where the train doors were to open (these areas are marked in this country). He was no where to be seen, but his luggage was to represent his space in the pecking order. Me first.

In comparison to Thailand the marketing strategy is slightly different but similarly irritating. Not so much do they try and lure you in. You enter the store on your own accord, but once they see that you’re in their store, they’ll begin following you like a puppy needing a home. If you see an item they’ll quickly rattle something to you in Cantonese about how you can buy 10 and get 1 free eco bag. I personally don’t like being followed. I feel watched and it’s kinda creepy.

Our day today was another of shopping. We were going to go to Disneyland but I wasn’t feeling too good so I wanted another ‘rest’ day. Waking up at midday we found a busy restaurant in Quarry Bay. We walked in although there was no sign of an English menu. All we saw was hanging meat, Roast pork and soya sauce chicken. Once inside we breathed a sigh of relief when the waiter said there was an English menu. We ate roast duck leg, soya sauce chicken, roast pork and BBQ pork with rice. Thank you hanging meat.

We then headed back to Tsim Sha Tsui for round 2 of shopping. We were in Ocean Terminal/Harbour City following the recommendation of Ben’s friend. Not having much luck as I married a tight arse who doesn’t spend more than AU20 on a pair of shorts. For those who don’t know the shopping centre, level 1 was lined with stores such as Zara, Prada, Versace and Burberry. We promptly looked for the nearest escalator. This floor had stores like Levi’s, Polo Sport, FCUK & United Colors of Benetton. We were starting to feel disappointed with this shopping centre until we found G2000. However, since we had inspected most of their stores in Hong Kong, Malaysia AND Singapore we weren’t too excited.

Tired from our disappointment we found a dessert place. I’m such a western when it comes to desserts so I settled for the mixed fruit and vanilla ice-cream. The ice-cream was not vanilla! What’s wrong with these people?! Ben had a strawberry Sago pudding. However all the excitement and Honkie air was starting to get to him as he felt queasy mid-dessert. His pre-mature diagnosis was that his lifelong problem of not being able to burp was causing a build up in gases in his stomach which wanted to head north. Failing an alternative, he headed to the bathroom for some relief. It didn’t help much so we bailed on the restaurant before things got worse.

He seemed to recover ok, far away from his Strawberry sago. We found a pair of shorts at Bossini, another one of Ben’s favourites. As it was getting late we headed back home via MTR. It was packed. So packed that you needn’t worry that you weren’t holding on to a hand rail. The person next to you will hold you as the train trusted forward. However, either the gases mentioned before made a come back or being packed like sardines didn’t agree with Ben as he started feeling nauseous again. So we quickly exited at Causeway Bay and headed for Victoria Park. Unfortunately we didn’t see much of the park as it was fenced off. However, it gave Ben a chance to catch his breath, let out some gas… whatever he needed to do.

With Ben feeling better, we grabbed dinner at Ajisen Ramen. We had done enough toying with Honkie food for Ben’s body. Ben had ramen with corn, egg and pork while I had ramen with katsu don (snitchzel pork basically).

All in all, another day of shopping in Hong Kong. I was quite happy with our choice of lunch today, I enjoyed the rice! However, without knowing the language I think that puts us at a great disadvantage in getting the better food that is out here. Also I must commend Hong Kong’s great transport system with trains coming every 2 minutes and really helpful signage in their stations. There are entrances to these stations practically everywhere with at least 4 different ways to enter and exit the station and everything is clearly marked!

One question though. Why do people walk up the stairs on the left but stand on the right of escalators?

Shopping in HK!

2008-04-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

Slept in until midday today!!! Woke up to an overcast day, not too hot, not too cold. We caught the MTR to Causeway Bay and started looking for a place to eat lunch, having missed breakky! We got out from the station at Sogo department store and, not knowing in particular where to eat, walked towards Times Square in the hope of finding something. There was no food court at Times Square so we headed back towards Sogo and randomly went down a street that seemed to have a lot of restaurants.

We couldn’t read the Chinese menus of many places but we eventually settled on one that had an English menu. It was a typical HK eatery filled with Honkies so we supposed it should be ok, even if the menu contained an unusual mix of Chinese, Italian, and Jap food! We ordered steamed chicken with ginger and shallots and deep fried salt and pepper squid. It was alright, similar I guess to the food you’d get at one of the Kingsford restaurants back home.

After lunch it was time to begin our shopping! Up until now we had said “Yeah we can get it in HK” so now that we were here, we supposedly had heaps to get! Unfortunately there weren’t many sales on but I picked up some business shirts at my favourite store G2000 for between HKD99-220, and a pair of jeans at Bossini for HKD180 including alteration for leg length. Di was a bit pickier regarding the fashion here and only found a cool stretchable belt at a travel store in Times Square.

We grabbed some drinks at Pacific Coffee in Times Square and used their internet before deciding to return to our hotel for a rest! We got our new room and were pleased that it was indeed non-smoking and harbour facing, even if you could only see a sliver of harbour between the 2 skyscrapers before us! Di was buggered for some reason and slept soundly!

We ate dinner at a place called Café de Coral. Now you Honkies are probably laughing at us right now, but we had to try it! During lunch time the place near our hotel was loaded with people! Ben had the Chicken katsu with rice and Japanese curry and I had bolognaise sauce on rice with an egg on top. It wasn’t too bad, and it was cheap. However, I wouldn’t recommend that place in a hurry!

We went shopping after dinner in Shim Sha Tsui. Ben found a couple of shirts while I bought a few more things including shoes and swimmers! We spent the majority of our time in Esprit!

Phuket to Singapore to HK!

2008-04-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Our alarm woke us up way too early at 5 something in the morning cos Di hadn’t adjusted her phone’s time to local Thai time! Got up around 7am and had a quick breakky before checking out of our wonderful Burasari Resort and catching our pre-booked taxi to Phuket International Airport! We checked in our bags - 3kg overweight cos of AirAsia’s stingy 15kg/person baggage allowance! I only realised after we had paid the excess baggage fee of THB495 that 1.2kg of that overweight baggage was the water I had taken from the resort and packed into our luggage! Darn it! My asianness got the better of me! Airport security about not being able to take water on planes is also to blame!

Anyhow, guzzled down my ice lemon tea I had taken from the resort’s free minibar (hehehe) and then passed through immigration. The flight to Singapore was pretty full but thankfully brief, only taking 1hr 20mins. There we were greeted by Mama Leo, Uncle Hin, Aunty Ge-mite, and James. We checked in our baggage for our Jetstar flight to HK and then went to the airport staff canteen to have some lunch!

Couldn’t decide what to have there so ended up having Chow Kuay Teow and ice tea. We sat around and chatted for an hour or so before Jennifer rocked up with Jeremy! They had dropped by just to say hi! Around 3pm it was time to go to the departure gate so we said farewell!

The flight to HK was uncomfortable due to the dodgy Jetstar seats and took about 3hrs 30mins. We caught the airport express to HK station, then the MTR from Central to Quarry Bay. Harbour Point Hotel was easy to find, being directly opposite the MTR station! We checked in and were given a basic city view smoking room as there were no other rooms available in the hotel. They promised to transfer us to a non-smoking harbour view room tomorrow.

Not being bothered to go too far to find dinner, we resorted to dinner at the nearby Maccas we had spotted on the way to the hotel. After dinner we returned to our hotel to watch some National Geographic Channel and how our planet has been screwed up by human existence! Just a reminder about the fall of man I suppose and how we fail to rule ourselves or the world properly.

Awesome Blossum Body Scrub!

2008-04-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

Another leisurely day in laid back Phuket!

Woke up 9:30am, snoozed till 10am before realising we’d better get up before missing breakky!

After breakky, we caught a taxi (after bargaining the fare from THB400 to 300!) to Central Shopping Centre, about a 20min drive inland from Patong beach. This shopping centre and department store was recommended by Di’s cousin Janet. This was our first venture out of Patong beach! We probably shouldn’t have bothered!

The shopping centre was modern and the airconditioning welcoming on this particularly humid day. Many brand name stores were there but few had sales on. We checked out Central Department store itself and Di managed to pick out some shorts for about THB575 (~AUD20) Other than that, we couldn’t find any other bargains despite having plenty of thai baht to spend (ie, get rid of!).

We had a late lunch at a Thai fast food chain called Yum Saap. We had mama instant noodle tom yum soup and mama instant noodle minced pork soup. Not bad for only THB160 (~AUD5.50). After lunch we walked around a bit more before deciding to just return to the resort!

We spent the afternoon napping and woke up around 7pm for dinner! We head down the road to the same area we had dinner last night. We tried the next restaurant down this time - More Ma Seafood Restaurant. We had deep fried sweet and sour whole fish, green curry chicken, and deep fried squid. All not bad but we agreed the first night’s dinner was still the best! I guess you get what you pay for and tonight we only paid THB600.

Of note though, our dinner was somewhat disturbed by a group of Aussie bogans at a neighbouring table. They were loud, obnoxious towards the waiting staff, and had singlets with greasy slicked back hair and full on beer guts. They not only acted like a bunch of dim witted blockheads, they put the Aussie character and spirit to shame!

After dinner we hurried back to the resort for our body scrub at 9pm! We had the Orange Blossum 60min Body Scrub. This was rather interesting being my first massage/body scrub experience! Pleasant wafts of citrus and flowery fragrances filled the air as soothing music played in the background! The scrub was kinda like a light massage but still nice! I kinda almost fell asleep during it! 60mins later we left feeling relaxed and with smoother skin!

We returned to our room to pack for an early start tomorrow! We fly to Singapore, then to HK! G’nite!

"Yes, halo! Massage?! Massage?!"

2008-04-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

(In a Thai accent)
‘Halo, I’ve seen you before, is it Singapore? Malaysia?’
‘Halo, massage?’
‘Halo, Taxi?’
‘Halo, Seafood? Ho Sec, Ho Sec’

If you can last 5 minutes in Patong Beach without being asked one of the above I applaud you. They are everywhere and pinching on my last nerve. ‘No, I don’t want a massage, if I did, I’d come to you!’ There’s a shirt we found at the shops which reads something along the lines of:

‘No I don’t want a f**
Shirt
Tuk Tuk
Suit
Or
Massage’

If it wasn’t so vulgar I would seriously consider buying one as it reflect my sentiments exactly. I really don’t understand how these people see this method as an effective marketing strategy!

Our day today was much like yesterday except we went for a swim in one of Burasari’s pools and managed to see Patong Beach by daylight. The beach was covered with deck chairs and people. As with everywhere else in Patong Beach there were people selling hair braiding services, massages and parasailing rides. For some reason I expected a bit better, you know, like in the postcards. I was disappointed.

The day was hot, so we headed back to the resort plus the dark grey storm clouds were looming. The slogan of Burasari is actually, ‘feel at home’ and I will grant them that. I feel very comfortable in our resort room. Air-conditioning, it’s quiet and clean! We were supposed to head out to a shopping centre my cousins had recommended… but we ended up staying in again and sleeping until 5pm.

Dinner was at Keaw Restaurant which had the appearance of a slightly more upmarket hawker centre but wasn’t quite the touristy dining which lined the main streets. We had Tom Yum, Chicken Satay and Pad Thai. The first and last were recommended by our waitress. My favourite was the tom yum, the others were ordinary and Ben and I wondered if they were altered for the tourist taste buds. In terms of cost, it was a little bit more than half the price of the meal we had last night at around AU$17. So, pretty ordinary.

We had Swenson’s again tonight. We were actually going to try Haagen Dazs but it was overpriced and there weren’t many flavours.

One special mention has got to go to the guy who served us at Carrefour last night. This guy had foundation, eye shadow and lipstick on! I kid you not! We had lined up to buy some fruit called Mango-Steins. When it was our turn, he took our bag and placed it under the counter without saying a word to us. Ben and I were confused as we had planned to buy it, not give it to him for his supper. We decided to leave it, but as we walked out we realized that we needed to have it weighed and tagged before going to the check out. But our check-out dude was funny.

Bumming in Phuket!

2008-04-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

Slept in until about 9am and decided to go down for our buffet breakfast! We enjoyed bacon, sausages, eggs, and fruit at the Terrace Restaurant adjacent to ponds with waterfalls! Man it was nice! After breakfast we walked around the resort a bit and then headed back to our room! This was our chill out, do nothing day!!!

We watched some tv and then slept all afternoon! By the time we woke up it was 7pm! We waited for the evening rain to stop then headed out to explore Patong Beach!

The nightlife was happening everywhere and it was so touristy! We walked almost all the way to the north end of Patong passing by numerous restaurants, displaying their fresh seafood by the roadside! There these massive Phuket lobsters and prawns that would've given Tanjung Tualang's in Malaysia a running for its money! We eventually decided to have dinner at Tantawan Restaurant, attached to the Thara Patong Beach Resort. We had yummy deep fried sweet and sour Garoupa whole fish, a thai lemon/chicken soup and rice! It was similar to the thai food we get back in Sydney but slightly cheaper. I guess we were paying tourist prices but we didn’t mind as long as we didn’t get sick from it!

After dinner we walked around the block, passing night clubs, bars, plenty of massage parlours, tour desks, and a few street stores! We visited Jungceylon shopping mall and did some window shopping before having a banana split hot fudge at Swensens Icecream Parlour!

We head back to the resort exhausted from our night out and watched some tv and used the wifi internet and here we are, up to date!

Penang to Phuket!

2008-04-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

Got up at a lazy 9am and packed before Aunty Chooi Ee and Rachel came to pick us up from the apartment. They took us to Tanjung Bunga for breakfast - Char Kway Teow and Wan Tan Mee! We also tried the Chee Cheong Fun! After breakfast, we went to Aunty Chooi Gnoh’s place to meet up with Uncle Alex and co. After Uncle Alex and Di enjoyed a freshly cracked open durian, we evacuated the house and drove to Komtar shopping centre to do a spot of shopping before Uncle Alex and co. were to return to KL. I got some meds at the local pharmacy there before dropping off some wedding photos to get developed.

We returned to Pulau Tikus and said farewell to Uncle Alex, Paul, Helene and Denise. Didn’t get to see Aunty Clem the whole time they were in Penang as she was spending time with her sisters. They left at around 12:30pm or so and then we went for lunch at Gurney Drive with Aunties Chooi Gnoh, Janette, and Chooi Ee plus Rachel! We had 3 kinds of noodles - char hor fun, fried mee, and oyster noodles. Then we went to the nearby Gurney Plaza again to do some last minute shopping in Penang!

Around 2:30pm we went back to Komtar to collect our photos which turned out pretty nice! Then we returned to Pulau Tikus to relax for a bit! Had some fruit and some shut eye before it was time to head south to avoid the peak hour traffic. We said farewell to Aunties Chooi Gnoh and Janette and left with Aunty Chooi Ee and Rachel. It was only 4:30pm or so, so we went to Sunshine Mall to have some curry fish head before we were to fly off! Di also got some jeans at the department store there for around AUD25 tailored and all!

At 6pm or so we head on over to Penang International Airport for our flight to Phuket. We checked in only to be told that our flight had been delayed!!! We were told that due to mechanical problems, our flight was now at 11pm instead of 7:40pm! We decided to check in our bags anyway and we went back with Aunty Chooi Ee and Rachel to their place in Sungai Ara to wait for our flight.

Uncle Karsar was home and we met Rachel’s dog Princess who was currently having her period and hence in ‘heat’! We went for a walk around the block and it was funny how all the male dogs in the neighbourhood barked at her non-stop was we walked by! Got back to their place and watched some tv and had a lie down in Jonathan Khoo’s old room.

10pm rolled around and the Khoos took us to the airport for the second time! We said farewell and then head on through the departure gates. Our flight ended up leaving at 11:45pm or so on a Berjaya Air plane, probably chartered by Firefly. The flight was only 1hr 15mins or so and we napped on the plane.

We reached Phuket International Airport around 12:15am local time, quickly got our luggage and easily got a taxi to our hotel. The drive from the airport to the hotel was about 40mins. Burasari Resort was so nice in comparison to the places we had stayed at till now! Di couldn’t stop smiling but I was just exhausted I think!

So what are some last thoughts on our time in Malaysia? Really enjoyed the food, especially the char kway teow! Overate way too many times but thankfully didn't get sick! It was great catching up with people and particularly great to see Popo so happy! The wedding dinner went well and from what I can tell, most people seemed to enjoy themselves. We did heaps in the 1 week we were in Malaysia and looking forward to a real break in Phuket!

Tour around Penang!

2008-04-17T22:01:00.000-07:00

Got up around 9:30am for our ‘tour’ around Penang! We drove to Pulau Tikus and Uncle Alex and the gang had already driven up from Sungai Ara. Mum and dad had errands to do so they didn’t join us. Our first stop was Kek Lok Si temple. In the sweltering heat we climbed up the steps, past the rows of stores selling touristy junk, to the pond that contained the turtles. Man the water was filthy! Poor turtles!!! We continued up to the temple itself and enjoyed some views of Penang.

After returning to the bottom again, we went round the corner to Bukit Bendara (Penang Hill) and caught the 12pm train just in time! It was packed, hot and uncomfortable but we beared with it. The journey took about 20mins up the mountain. At the top we were greeted by sweeping views of the island, Penang Bridge, and the mainland. We also enjoyed the cooler air at 600 over metres above sea level.

Feeling peckish, we had a quick snack of ABC Ice Kacang! Yummy! Di also treated herself to a sugarhit in the form of a snickers icecream. Recharged, we decided to do the rainforest canopy walk. We trekked 1600m to get there, passing by some English style houses on the way. Man it was the most exercise we had done since arriving in Malaysia! We eventually reached the start of the walk - Uncle Alex, Denise, Rachel, Di and myself chose to do it. The walk was awesome! We walked along a narrow suspended boardwalk of sorts high above the ground. It was 220m in all and it was definitely worth the walk!

After trekking the 1600m back, we checked out the view from that hotel we always visit, then took the 2:30pm train back down. Feeling hungry again, we headed straight for the nearby hawker area and had Claypot Chicken rice and Wantan mee for lunch! Then it was on with the tour!

We visited the Botanical Gardens next, followed by 2 buddhist temples, one Thai and the other Burmese. Then we returned to Aunty Chooi Gnoh’s place to rest! We played the piano and had some shut eye. My parents returned from their shopping around 6:30pm and we said farewell to them as they were returning to Ipoh this evening. They’ll be heading to Taiwan tomorrow at 2:30pm from KL.

After they left, we went out for dinner at a banana leaf place that served up Indian curries and chutneys on banana leaves with papadums and rice. It was quite good! Paul and I enjoyed a refreshing Tiger beer. After dinner we got dropped back to the hotel by Uncle Karsar after an encouraging chat in the car!

Relaxing in Penang!

2008-04-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

Slept in to a lazy 10am before having some Kaya puffs and leaving for Pulau Tikus! We drove to Aunty Chooi Gnoh’s place but no one was home! Craving Penang Chow Kuay Teow, we decided to go to the nearby hawker stores to get our fix! Driving out however, we ran into Aunties Chooi Gnoh, Janette, and Chooi Ee plus Rachel driving home after going to the Jelutong Markets! Followed them back to the house and caught up for a while before deciding to go out to Gurney Plaza for a spot of shopping!

Spent 2 hours there and got some boardies and 3 T-shirts from Bodyglove, as well as some Croc slippers from Parkson Grand - very comfy! Got a screen protector for the new camera and also got some general stuff from Cold Storage downstairs. Met up again with mum and dad who had also picked up some goodies and returned to Aunty Chooi Gnoh’s place for a lunch of home cooked crabs and pippies!

After lunch we headed out to Georgetown and enjoyed some Cendol at the famous Penang Road store - sooooo good! Then went to Prangin Mall to do some more shopping. There didn’t buy much, mainly window shopping. Dad bought a new camera – Ixus 950IS for RM850, including most accessories.

Returned to Pulau Tikus and met up with Uncle Karsar who had returned from work. Around 6:45pm, Uncle Alex and Sam-ku Chong arrived from Ipoh, followed soon after by Sam-ku with Paul, Helene, and Denise! Aunty Clem had been dropped off with Aunty Rose at their sister’s place.

We caught up for a little bit before going to Air Hitam for a hawker store dinner! We had popiah, cuttlefish and vege, and Hokkien Char plus Chow Hor Fun. All not bad! After dinner the UK gang headed with Uncle Karsar and family to Sungai Ara and we returned to Batu Ferringhi for the night!

Ipoh to Penang!

2008-04-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

Got up at 9:30am and met Ng-ku at her clinic for breakfast at the famous Kopitiam! On the way dad dropped off a jacket to be tailored. We had kaya toast, mee goreng, hor fun with char siew and siew yok, and of course their famous white coffee. Man I so felt like I had overeaten again even though I didn’t eat much! Maybe it was because I was still full from the night before or because there was no A/C at the kopitiam.

After breakfast, Ng-ku dropped mum, me and Di off at the Professional Hair Salon next to Excelsior Hotel to have our haircut whilst dad went to do some errands. Almost 2 hours later we all emerged with rather stylish haircuts I must say! Di had hers cut the shortest I’ve ever seen it and I had mine done short but with the front slightly longer and swept to the left with moulding paste and hairspray. Looks like I’ll have to get some hair products!

After our haircuts we got picked up by Ng-ku and dad and it was time for lunch already! Man I still felt full so didn’t eat very much! We had Ipoh Hor Fun and Popiah but I literally only had a few bites! Then we returned to Ng-ku’s place for a rest before our trip to Penang. Di slept but I stayed up catching up on this journal and backing up photos.

Di and my parents woke up around 5pm and thought about hanging around for dinner cos Uncle Alex and co are coming up from KL this evening but then realized that it’d be too late to drive to Penang after dinner. So we left around 6pm after saying bye to Ng-ku and Ng-ku Chong. The drive was surprisingly quick and within 1 hr 30mins we had reached the Penang Bridge. We were initially going to meet up with Aunty Chooi Gnoh and co for dinner but told them to go ahead cos by the time we reached Batu Ferringhi it was past 8pm.

We checked into the Sri Sayang Apartments (a day earlier than we had initially booked) and they had vacancy for tonight. Initially we were given room 2003 but a toilet didn’t work so we changed rooms to 3203. The apartment was quite basic but had all the necessities including tv, fridge, clean bedrooms and bathrooms, and of course air conditioning! Starting to feel somewhat hungry, we went to the nearby hawker centre to grab some Penang food! Unfortunately the chow kuay teow store was closed so we had to settle for overpriced (Batu Ferringhi is a touristy area) satay, char hor fun, har mee, and chicken vindaloo. It was ok but not the best food we’ve had! We decided we’d meet up with the Penang gang tomorrow as it was past 10pm by the time we finished dinner. G’nite!

Pangkor Island!

2008-04-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

Skipped our hotel breakky this morning and instead checked out and went for breakfast with mum and dad at Ipoh Central Kopi store. I tried the curry mee and Di tried the wanton mee. Not bad not bad! My curry mee had char siew, pork, and cockles in it which was unusual!

After breakfast we went to the Amang factory to meet up with Sam-ku. When we arrived sure enough Popo was already there and her face lit up when she saw us! We went to the office to meet Tai-pak who explained the factory’s processing methods and the different minerals produced. Then we met up with Sam-ku and left for Pangkor Island!

The drive to Lumut was about 45mins. We found a shady spot to park in and then dad paid for his and mum’s tickets to Taiwan (RM4554 for 2ppl for 6 night tour incl flights) at the local Maybank. Then we headed to the jetty, got our tickets and boarded the ferry for Pulau Pangkor!

The ride was about 30mins and rather scenic! When we reached the island Sam-ku negotiated a taxi for us for 2 hours and off we went on our island tour! We first visited an old dutch fort from the 1600s where they used to store tin ore supplies. Then it was on to Telok Dalam, a nice beach and bay with some islands not too far offshore that made the formation of a tortoise! We laid out a mat on the sand and enjoyed the cool breeze and some boiled peanuts and watercrest fruits we had bought. I took heaps of photos of the tortoise islands and the turquoise coloured water which looked soooooooooo inviting! Shame we didn’t have longer to take a dip!

We continued on around the island to the sotong (squid) shop that we always visit. We tried their samples of dried spicy sotong before buying 2 huge bags full of it - yum! After some canned drink refreshments, we got driven to town for lunch (fishball and seaweed soup, mussel omelette, and ginger and shallot fish fillets) before it was already time to catch the ferry back to Lumut. We didn’t have to wait for one as we made the 2:50pm one and soon we were on the way back to Ipoh!

We reached Ng-ku’s place around 5pm and they were surprised to see us home so early! We had a nice nap and cooling shower before dinner with Popo, Tai-pak, Ng-ku, Ng-ku Chong, and my parents at a seafood place 2 doors down from the Yee Clinic. We had chilli crabs and salted duck egg crabs, chilli pippies and fish in black bean sauce! The crabs were firm but heaps smaller than the Aussie ones and I preferred the chilli style (dry type) over the salted egg style. That dinner was our shout and so cheap (RM174)! Popo as usual asked how much the meal was and when she found out she approved of the restaurant and the meal!

We retired to Ng-ku’s place and enjoyed some red wine (Jacob’s Creek Cabernet Merlot 2003) before showing Ng-ku and Ng-ku Chong some photos of our Sydney wedding. By the time we finished showing them the pics it was already 11pm! Nitey nite!

Cameron Highlands

2008-04-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

Had our breakfast again at hotel restaurant before saying goodbye to a whole bunch of Di’s relatives who were returning home. Also said goodbye to Papa and Mama Leo who were going back with some relatives. We then met mum and dad in the hotel foyer. We went round the block to meet up with Sei-ku, Sei-ku Chong, John, Yang and Ng-ku and Ng-ku Chong who were having breakfast at a dim sum place. We said bye to Sei-ku and family, returning to KL today.

Then we drove to Tai-pak’s place to pick up Popo to take her to the Cameron Highlands. This seems to be a regular occurrence everytime we come back but Popo really enjoys it! We set off around 10:30pm after loading up the car with Popo’s wheelchair and equipment for the day. The drive was pleasant and vaguely familiar - the last time I visited Cameron Highlands was in 2006. We ascended into the highlands and reached a strawberry and vegetable farm where we stopped to have some strawberry juice! Then it was on to Kampong Raja where we found a nice seafood place with wheelchair access for Popo. We had a catfish and 2 vegetable dishes for lunch - yum! As we ate lunch, the afternoon monsoon rains began to pour down! Thankfully we were able to back the car into the porch dining area and get Popo back into the car dry!

We headed on to Brinchang and the Boh tea plantation next! It was similar to the last visit and we enjoyed the cool air and views of the scenic valleys and mountains covered with tea trees. We managed to catch the end of the tea plantation factory tour before we sat down to enjoy some Boh tea at their lookout area. Popo was really enjoying it! After taking some nice photos, it was 4:30pm already and the factory was closing! We quickly bought some lychee boh tea for Jon and then it was time to leave!

We next drove on to the main Cameronian township of Tanah Rata. We didn’t spend long here, just taking a stroll along the main street and visiting the garden before it was time to leave! We drove back the way we came, this time I was driving to give dad a break. As we descended from the highlands, a mist came down and it reduced visibility to a few metres! We made it safely down to the bottom however and soon were entering Ipoh.

We dropped Popo off for her shower and dinner at Tai-pak’s place - you could tell she really enjoyed the day! She couldn’t stop smiling! Then we went for dinner at Ipoh’s famous Tauge Ayam place (chicken and beansprout with hor fun noodles. The beansprout is famous as it is grown using limestone water which makes it fat and juicy!). Then we returned to our hotel to get some clothes to wash at Tai-pak’s place. At Tai-pak’s place we went through the red packets we had received from the wedding dinner.

At around 11:30pm we were done and it was time to get some welcome rest before our trip to Pangkor Island tomorrow!

Malaysian Wedding Dinner!

2008-04-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

Today was the day of our Malaysian wedding dinner! It started off with a nice buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We met some of Di’s relatives there! Afterwards, we gathered in the hotel foyer for the Ipoh tour that Tai-pak had arranged. Now I initially thought that it was going to be a small minibus driven by my dad or uncle but when the bus arrived it was a full on coach sized bus complete with driver and tour leader!

There were around 24 of us I think, including Tai-pak, mum, dad, Papa and Mama Leo, the group from Penang, Uncle Roy and family, and a bunch of Di’s relatives. We set off around 9:30am! The tour leader gave commentary in Cantonese on the town of Ipoh. Our first stop was Sam Poh Tong temple, built into the side of some limestone caves. We got dropped off and then entered the temple. Inside the temple were plenty of Buddhist statues and after walking through a tunnel section of the cave, we emerged into an open sunlit area. There we found an enclosure that housed what must have been at least 50 tortoises, ranging in size from tiny to huge! We took some photos of them, as well as some group photos. Then it was back on the bus!

Our next stop was a pomelo farm! We don’t really get pomelos in Australia I don’t think but they’re kinda like grapefruits except almost the size of watermelons! We had a look at the trees and took photos of them, many bigger than our heads! Some people bought some and then it was back on the bus to continue the tour!

We drove about an hour to Tanjung Tualang where we next visited an old tin mining dredge. About 10 of us disembarded for the tour of the dredge which cost RM15 per person. It apparently is the last of the dredges and is being kept for historical purposes. Briefly, Ipoh and its surrounding towns once played home to almost 55% of the world’s tin ore supplies and tin along with rubber were the main two exports from Malaysia. This changed in 1985 when for some reason the value of tin dropped and almost overnight the industry became no longer profitable. We were led onto the dredge by a guy called Steven who gave all kinds of details about it. It’s about 30x30m and weighs 4500 tonnes. Imagine a large pontoon on a pond with a like a factory or warehouse made of steel built on top of the pontoon. The tour lasted about 45mins by which time we were hot and exhausted from climbing all over the dredge!

We returned to the a/c sanctuary of the coach and then headed to Tanjung Tualang town itself for lunch at the restaurant there famous for its huge live prawns. We also had its awesome fried rice, fried tofu and veges!

After lunch we returned to Ipoh to prepare for the wedding dinner! We had a nice 2 hour nap before Di went to get her hair cut at the nearby salon whilst I did some errands (buying shampoo, coordinating the arrival of the cake etc).

Di came back around 7pm and we awaited the phone call from Sei-ku to indicate when we should go across the road to Restoran Overseas to make our entrance. The came at about 7:45pm and we quickly got changed, Di into Sei-ku’s kua and me into my suit! We walked through the drizzling rain across the street and were escorted by Yang koko to the side entrance of the restaurant where we found both sets of parents waiting to make their entrance too.

John boy started singing You and Me by Lifehouse and that was our queue to enter! There were about 10 tables of 10 people and we took up about half the restaurant. Di’s side had 5 tables and mine 5 as well. Everyone was standing and applauding as we entered, greeted Popo and then took our seats. Sei-ku, the MC for the night took the mike and welcomed everyone before announcing the first course!

We had three courses including suckling pig, roast pork and soup before it was time for Tai-pak’s and my dad’s speeches. Their speeches were brief but meaningful and they had heart felt words towards both Di and myself. After a couple more courses, Bing koko, Yang koko, and Shaun each gave a toast to Di and myself in the traditional Chinese custom of Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmm Seng! Even Popo got involved! She looked so happy!!!

It was then time for the tea ceremony which only my relatives took part in. First Popo, then my dad’s relos including the 5 cousins there (Bing koko, Yang koko, Shaun, John and Jim). Then my mum’s side including Uncle Roy, Aunty Chooi Ee, and some cousins (Rachel, Cheryl, Sebastian). Sei-ku kinda conducted the ceremony but it was definitely less structured and formal than Joe koko’s one.

After the ceremony, a few more courses came and we snuck in some table shots. Then it was time to cut the 3 tiered sponge cake Tai-pak had insisted we have! We cut the cake and had some photos taken. Then it was time for my speech, only Papa Leo had forgotten to bring the laptop containing the speech! We stalled a bit whilst he went to the hotel to pick it up. Not long after all was good and it was time for my speech! It was basically a huge thank you speech and I tried not to leave anyone out. Afterwards, that was a wrap for the night and we stood near the door to indicate that the night was over and it was time to leave! This kinda seemed like we were kicking our guests out but Sei-ku pointed out that it’s the custom and that if you don’t do it no one will leave! Plus the restaurant apparently was supposed to close at 11pm and it was already near that.

We bid everyone goodnight! Everyone seemed to have had a good night and at the end of it Di and I were kinda relieved, even though we hadn’t had to do much for it thanks to Tai-pak’s efforts. We retired to our hotel room to change before Di’s cousins invited us across the hallway to hangout with them for a bit. They played truth or dare with us but we just told the truth every time. Then it was just chatter chatter until we were all too tired to continue! We finally returned to our room around 1:30am exhausted and grateful to welcome much needed rest!

KL to Ipoh!

2008-04-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

Got up around 10:30am and went over to Aunty Jenny’s place a few doors down for breakfast – fried mee hoon! Then we went with Aunty Jenny, Tracy (Di’s cousin), and Di’s mum to Sunway Pyramid to find a top for Di to wear tonight. We found a nice red one at Elle for MYR 99.00. Next was lunch at Esquire’s Szechuan/Shanghainese restaurant, also at Sunway Pyramid. We had eggplant, pork, and fried dumpling dishes.

After lunch we returned to PJ and Rodney’s place to pack. We finally got to meet his twins Samuel and Sara - they are sooooooooooo cute!!! We gave them the soft toys we got for them and although being initially shy, they eventually warmed up to us! We wished we could play with them longer but alas it was time to leave for Ipoh.

We left PJ around 3pm and took the leisurely 2hr drive up to Ipoh. The journey was hazardous due to the heavy afternoon monsoon rain and some roadworks, not to mention the crazy Malaysian drivers! Thankfully we made it to Ipoh intact and checked into the Excelsior Hotel.

The hotel looked rather drab from the outside but inside it was alright. The rooms were comfortable and what you’d expect of a 3 star hotel. We settled into our rooms and I gave my dad a call - turns out they were already in the hotel! My Aunties Chooi Gnoh, Janette, and Chooi Ee were upstairs in their hotel room and my parents were with them. After Di had a quick shower they took us over to Uncle Swee Ching’s place to meet Popo.

When we saw Popo her face just lit up! We greeted her and hugged her and gave her the abalone from Australia. We didn’t understand what she was saying to us but we guessed it was something along the lines of her complaining as usual that we didn’t know how to speak Hakka. Sure enough it was! Apparently she also made an observation of Di being rather faired skinned and me darker - a compliment to Di I suppose?

We returned to the hotel to get changed and then at 7pm we met up with the Penang Aunties and drove together back to Uncle Swee Ching’s place for the dinner itself. There weren’t too many people there when we arrived but some more came later. They had the marquees all set up like when Soo Jeje had her wedding and they had food catered. All the aunties were there but the only cousins there were Bing koko and John. Mum’s side of the family came as well, including Uncle Roy and family. Cheryl and Sebastian are both grown up now! Dinner was hakka food including yummy bean sprouts!

After dinner it was time to “pay respects to the ancestors”. This turned out to be rather dodgy. We were told that all we were to do was to pay respects to the Lee ancestors and that because we were Christian, we didn’t have to do the jockstick thing, or pray, or bow down etc. Basically, my aunty explained that we were acknowledging that we are where we are today because of what our ancestors before us had done. I kinda took this to be similar to Remembrance day where we take a minute’s silence to reflect on what the Anzacs did to give us the freedom we enjoy today. Then as we were reflecting, my aunty started explaining that Popo was asking the ancestors to bless us and to give us a long lasting marriage and kids and that’s when things turned dodgy. By then it was all over. It’s hard to know whether this was ancestor worship exactly on our part. I myself know that I wasn’t putting any idol before God but did my Popo know that? I guess in retrospect I should’ve intervened and said that we didn’t agree with the last part about the ancestors being able to bless us etc. I pray that we might have more opportunities to explain the gospel to my relos.

After this, we headed to Aunty Yook Yong’s place where Aunty Ginny had the Kua (like a Chong Sum type traditional wedding dress) that she had brought from KL for Di to wear. It was bright red and looked quite nice. Di tried it on and it fit, just. I thought she actually looked quite nice in it but it was just a tad small for her. Anyhow, she agreed to wear it for part of the evening tomorrow night and change into her green dress after.

That brings us up to date for today! Nite!

Singapore to KL

2008-04-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

We awoke at a lazy 10:45am to our last day in Singapore! After taking down our washing we set out for the city with the set purpose of finding a gift for Janet and Jennifer and exchanging the rest of our SGD for Thai Baht and HKD. We got off the MRT at City Hall and after a quick bathroom break at Fairmont Hotel, we started enquiring about gift vouchers for day spas/massages. We checked out the Fairmont’s day spa but it was way overpriced! We instead found one called SK Boutique at Raffles Place shopping centre and got Janet and Jennifer a 60min essential massage each.

Next we took the MRT one stop to Raffles Place and made our way to change alley. With calculator and notepad in hand, we found the best rates for Thai Baht (22.95) and HKD (5.675). We got THB 10000, and HKD 1000, leaving us with SGD 60 or so. By this time it was around 1pm and time for a bite!

We found a food court beneath Raffles Place and grabbed some Mee Siam and Fried Wanton Noodles (dry). After chow time it was time to return to Simei. Jennifer met us at the MRT station and drove us back to Janet’s. We quickly packed and then Jennifer drove us to Harbourfront Vivo Shopping centre where our coach was departing from.

We said farewell to Jennifer and boarded our Aeroline Plus Coach to Petaling Jaya at 4pm. It took 30mins to reach the border and another 30mins to go through immigration on both sides. The usual afternoon downpour began and here we are on the highway to PJ!

So what are my thoughts on our time in Singapore after 4 nights and 4 days? Great all in all! Having seen most of the sights on my last trip here in 2006, we mostly slept, overate, and did a spot of shopping. The food I have to say is still not as authentic as Malaysia’s and more pricey. However I loved the clean environment and efficient MRT. The shopping was ok but I guess it isn’t sale time at the moment. The waterpark was just to my liking and I must say, the weather wasn’t as hot and humid as I remember. It was a real pleasure meeting Di’s relatives Jennifer, Janet, Aunties Ge Bor, Ge Mite, and Lynn.

The coach trip to PJ wasn’t too bad. Two movies were screened - Training Day and Transformers which helped pass the time. They also served us a meal of Nasi Lemak, fruit, and tea. We arrived in PJ at 9pm near the Menara Axis Hotel I think, and were immediately greeted by Di’s Aunty Jenny and dad. They brought us to a mamak store for dinner - we had tissue roti, nasi lemak (the real deal!), and sotong/curry chicken with rice.

After dinner, Aunty Jenny dropped us off to Rodney and Pei-jin’s place (Rodney is Aunty Jenny’s son and hence Di’s cousin). They have a brand new place! It’s in a complex with a security guard and all. Very nice and clean with all the modern amenities! They showed us around, introduced us to their sleeping twins Samuel and Sara, and then our guestroom. We said good night to Di’s dad and Aunty (who lives a few houses down) and then hit the sack exhausted!

Singapore Chilli Crab!

2008-04-09T21:51:00.000-07:00

Woke up late and did some washing at Janet’s house. Mental note, check ALL of Ben’s pockets before putting a load to wash. Yes, that’s right, our clothes came out dirtier than it had been before it went in because small bits of tissue were distributed to all sections of our clothing.

Breakfast/morning tea/lunch was a $108 set menu at Long Beach Seafood Restaurant located in Singapore’s Eastcoast parkway. Our stomachs were grumbling and we were enjoying the feeling of being hungry for a change. It is highly recommended to put your stomach in this state but hard to do when you’re in Singapore! On the menu was:
1) Scallops in fried yam
2) Sambal Cuttle Fish and Kang Kong
3) Special roast chicken
4) White bait rice,
5) Chilli Crab, and
6) Almond jelly with longan for dessert.

We managed to get through everything except for the rice and chicken. Ben wants me to write that the crab was firm, the sauce sweet. The chicken appeared dry but was in fact quite moist. My favourite was probably the Kang Kong. With our bellies full, we went to the Pasir Ris Wild Wild Wet which is a small water theme park.

At Wild wild wet we first jumped into the Shiok river which circled the other rides. We found ourselves some donuts which took us some time to master. I kept falling backwards and sidewards while jumping on them! We then tried the rides. In my opinion, they were quite tame. The first was a slide where you jump into large round rafts which take you down. The second, a dark tunnel which was probably the longest of the three. Then there was the open slide. To my surprise, these are the types of rides that are at Ben’s adrenalin limit. I thought they were very tame.

After much pleading and dragging, we went on the ride called the ‘Slide up’. It involved a figure eight tube which we sat on facing each other while holding on as hard as we could. Then, starting on top, if you imagine a half pipe that you find at a skate park, we flew down one side and were on the other side. Ben’s face was priceless. As soon as I saw it, I couldn’t stop laughing! His eyes were closed and you could tell he was really not enjoying the thrill of falling at such a fast rate. You could almost hear his thoughts, ‘why am I doing this?!’

You may not be surprised, but I didn’t manage to get him to go on this ride again.

Next we hit the wave pool (Tsunami).

After one more round of the Shiok River, we decided to head out and grab a drink and dessert. Durian Chendol and Iced tea were on the menu. So good.

Jennifer picked us up and we headed over to Ge Bor’s house for her famous chicken rice. We ate so much that Ben was feeling nauseous and we had to wait a few moments before we drove back to Jennifer’s place. I also go my durian hit, yum! It was nice chatting to my uncle and seeing my aunt again. My Aunt was very happy that we enjoyed her food so much.

All in all, a pretty cruisy day, and I think just what we needed :P.

Singapore Sights!

2008-04-08T21:49:00.000-07:00

It is finally my turn to write an entry, I was wondering how long Ben would let me get away without writing one! Before I recount what we did today, I must say that returning to Singapore for the second time within 6 months has made it feel as though I’ve returned home again. So many things are familiar, the family, the transport system, the distinct Singaporean odour in the air and who can fail to mention the random people catching a nap on the side of the street. So, I guess apart from the fact that I don’t have to go to work, it doesn’t quite feel like a ‘honeymoon’ as such.

Anyways, this morning we kicked off at around 9:30 after having nearly 12 hours of sleep. We were picked up by Jennifer for breakfast at Changi Village’s hawker centre. On the menu was char kway teow, radish cake & mince pork noodles along with Sugarcane juice for Ben and grass jelly drinks for the girls. The hawker centre was one of the originals left, that is, open air (no air-conditioning!), round fixed tables with round fixed stools surrounding it. Singapore isn’t a day-time city, so a lot of the stalls weren’t open at about 10am in the morning.

After a filling breakfast, we headed over to the water park in Pasir Ris hoping to spend the day floating around on huge blown up donuts in a man made wave pool or sliding down a number of water slides. However, after finding our way through the construction site, we found that the park was closed on Tuesdays! Equipped with our swimming gear (and for Ben, Jeremy’s swimming trunks) we headed back to Simei to get changed and pick up our day pack. We will go back Wednesday, between 1 and 7pm when it is suppose to be open… maybe.

Instead, we spent the day at the Tampanies mall, the Esplanade (including a walk past the giant Durians (concert hall) to the Merlion and then to Clarke Quay) and Suntec City. We had a small lunch of nasi lamak, 5 satay sticks and an otak in Tampanies.

Dinner was shouted by Jennifer at the Fairmont Hotel which featured a Chinese puppet opera. We were told the opera was in very old Hainanese and that no one in our party understood it, even my Dad’s 2nd oldest sister! It was interesting, neither Ben and I had ever been to a Chinese opera before, let alone a puppet Chinese opera. However, I think Jeremy captured all our sentiments when he said ‘it’s more like noise now than music’ during the 1st of the 4 acts!

Nevertheless, the restaurant pre-empted that no one would understand the opera and left storylines on the tables. A very rough summary of the storyline is this:

Act 1:
General gets injured, pretty girl helps nurse General. They fall in love and ‘become one’.

Act 2:
General is forced by his mother to marry his cousin whom his mother adopted. Because the General is such a mummy’s boy he does so, but doesn’t show the same affection to his wife as he would’ve to the pretty girl in the above act. Mother’s solution to her suspicions about her Son’s failing relationship is to demand a grandson. (Good one Mum.)

Act 3:
We learn about the General’s boy’s success as an imperial scholar. (Please note that we left the scene after this act… we had finished dinner).

Act 4:
Twenty years later, General meets pretty girl who tells of her impregnation when they ‘became one’ and how she bore a Son but had to give him up due to poverty. As the Son had the same name as the boy in Act 3, the General discovers that he adopted his own Son and had become a success. They unite and then it’s happily every after.

Dinner was: Suckling Pig, Peking Duck, Braised Eel, Ginger pork, San Choy Bao duck.

But, who can end a story without a classic example of asianess! Instead of leaving for home straight after dinner we waited around the hotel until 9:30pm. Not because we had nothing to do with our time or there was a long line for an item we wanted. Oh no. We were waiting because at this magical time, all pastries and sandwiches at a particular café (Pregal) were half price! What a bargain and certainly worth the wait! (Please note, heavy sarcasm). At that, I hung my head low to know I was in the company of real Asians and my husband was secretly applauding them for the great idea.

Oh, and another observation, my cousin’s son, Jeremy will one day be well equipped to serenade an unsuspecting girl as he currently knows most of the words from his Mum’s CD of the hits by ‘Michael Learns to Rock’. Very cute.

First day in Sing-a-pore!

2008-04-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

Woke up surprisingly ‘early’ at around 9:30am! We couldn’t go back to sleep so we decided to get up and hit the town! Today really felt like the first real day of our honeymoon. I guess being able to wake up at our leisure, being able to do whatever we want and make as much or as little of the day is the kind of freedom that only holidays afford! We walked towards the Simei MRT and Eastpoint shopping centre and found the breakky place Janet had taken Di to on her last visit to Singapore – Pick and Bites chain food outlet! For SGD5, we had a hearty breakky of Mee Siam and Teh Tarik! We then had a brief browse of Eastpoint shopping centre before Jennifer picked us up to take us shopping!

We drove to Harbourfront Shopping Centre, the newest shopping centre in Singapore! It started pouring rain along the way but we sort refuge in the underground car park. We picked up our bus tickets to PJ and after a brief look see, we decided to head over to Raffles Place to check out the exchange rates to change some SGD to Thai Baht and HKD. There we found rows and rows of money changers! Decided to change money at the end of stay in Singapore and headed to Orchard Rd for lunch!

We met up with Jennifer’s mum (Ge Bor) and another of Di’s aunties (Ge Mite) at Mandarin Hotel. They were really friendly and warm people! We took the elevator up to Chatterbox, a restaurant famous for its chicken rice! We ordered 2 chicken rice, 1 lobster laksa, and 1 Nasi Lemak – in retrospect way too much!!! Whilst we were waiting for the meal, we checked out the 360 degree view from the restaurant of Singapore’s skyline! I was surprised to note so much greenery amongst the landscape! Di pointed out her old school and places she had lived whilst in Singapore. Lunch was a yummy affair and we did well to finish most of it! The food challenge between Singapore and Malaysia was officially launched! I have to say the chicken rice was pretty good but is it really worth SGD20?! I’d have to compare it at the same sitting with the best Malaysia has to offer to see which comes out on top! The lobster laksa was different but really nice! The soup base and sambal sauce were flavoursome but I’m not sure that it can beat Malaysia’s! We went away from lunch full to the brim!!!

After lunch Jennifer took us to the basement of Takashimaya to have more Teh Tarik, the evaporative milk version! Then she and the aunties left and Di and I spent the afternoon shopping at Takashimaya and The Heeren shopping malls. I got a pair of shorts and 2 dry glo polo shirts from my favourite store Giordano! Also picked up a casual dress shirt from a metro/gay store at The Heeren shopping centre! Worn out by 6pm, we grabbed some dessert (Cendol and Sago) at an underground food court and decided to return to Janet’s place at Simei to rest and maybe go out for dinner late in the evening.

As we reached Janet’s place, she herself was returning from work. We spent the evening chatting, showing her photos and updating this journal! 10pm rolled around and we realized that we were still stuffed from lunch so we decided to forego dinner - what a waste of a meal eh?! Instead we did a quiet time reading 1 Timothy which reminded us about salvation through faith and warning us against false teachers. And that wrapped up our first full day in Singapore!

NZ to Singapore!

2008-04-06T21:46:00.000-07:00

Woke up on time and headed to the dining room for our included continental breakfast of cereal, muffins, fruit and yoghurt. We then caught our pre-booked shuttle back to Auckland International Airport and had plenty of time to spare to check in! After check in, we headed to the skydeck to appreciate a nice view of the airport and surrounding Auckland Bay. We then passed through immigration and boarded flight NZ 81 to Hong Kong! The flight was sooooooooooo long – 11 hours! Di watched 6 movies – Bee Movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks, I Am Legend, Chicken Little, Enchanted, and The Golden Compass!!! We were really impressed by the food and service though – we got served ice-cream, chips, multiple refills of drinks and decent main meals!

Reached HK on time at 6:15pm and that’s when our Amazing Race style running to make our flight to Singapore began! We had 1 hr 20mins to check in to our Jetstar flight 3K 696 departing at 8:15pm, not knowing how to transfer between flights, and not knowing which terminal to check in at! Our NZ plane seemed to take forever to taxi to the terminal but we eventually made it at 6:35pm and we literally ran off the plane! We jolted down the terminal and headed towards the arrival area. Failing to see a transfer counter where we could enquire about transferring, we decided we’d just have to go through immigration, collect our baggage and find out where to go from there in the arrival hall. That we did!

We reached the arrival hall at 7pm and after checking the departure board, discovered we had to make our way to Terminal 2 to check in for our Jetstar flight! The race was on again! We ran up, down, through HKIA’s maze of passageways and made our way to Terminal 2 easily enough at around 7:!5pm! Yeah baby – c’mon!!! We checked in and were told to make our way to the departure gate straight away! This again involved more escalators, a train ride, and winding passageways! Along the way I realized my glasses were missing!!! After comtemplating leaving the Medibank Private covered glasses behind, we decided to return to Immigration to see if he had left them there – sure enough he had! We made our way to the gate with a few minutes to spare and at 8:15pm we were on our way to Singa-pore!

The flight to Singapore was uneventful and we arrived on time at around midnight! We collected our luggage promptly and entered the arrival hall where we were greeted by Jennifer (Di’s cousin) and her son Jeremy. I was really hungry so we went to the airport Delifrance to grab a quick bite – mushroom and cheese pizza! After satisfying my hunger pangs, Jennifer drove us to Janet’s place (another of Di’s cousins and Jennifer’s sister) in Simei. Whilst we were dragging our luggage up to her place on the 4th floor, my stomach began rumbling - the kind of rumbling that indicates impending disaster! I ditched the luggage I was carrying in the stairwell and ran up to Janet’s place. By that time it was almost 1:30am and a sleepy eyed Janet greeted us at the door. By way of introduction, Di said “Hi Janet! This is Ben! He really needs to use your toilet!” Janet rushed to get her keys and it seemed to take an eternity for her to open the door whilst my stomach grumbled away! Eventually she got it open and I rushed to her toilet - ah the relief!!! Afterwards I formally introduced myself to Janet and we let her get some rest whilst we had showers before bed!

Bendi's Amazing Race!

2008-04-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe it – after so many months of planning, the start of our round the world honeymoon has finally arrived!!! Here’s a summary of our itinerary: Sydney-Auckland-HK-Singapore-KL-Ipoh-Penang-Phuket-HK-London-Glasgow-Edinburgh-York-London-Wales-London-Rome-Florence-Venice-Croatia-Salzburg-Prague-Berlin-Amsterdam-London-Los Angeles-Las Vegas-Grand Canyon-Las-Vegas-Yosemite NP-San Francisco- Vancouver-Auckland-Sydney!

Woke up early and after some last minute packing, rushed out the door and got driven by Jon and Angie to Strathfield to pick up our official photos from Saxon Cole photographers! Had a quick preview of the photos, liked what we saw and then made our way to Carl and Clare’s wedding at St Thomas’ in North Sydney!

We were running late but made it just before the bride arrived hehehe! Got a nice seat near the youth group kids and before long, it was Clare’s turn to walk down the aisle! She looked radiant as she walked towards a beaming Carl, standing at the altar. The ceremony was short and sweet with one funny moment in particular when Carl dropped the ring!!! After the ceremony we took some photos on the lawn outside before saying quick farewells to the St Mark’s people there!

We left for the airport and made it there with plenty of time to spare! Jon and Angie parked the car whilst we checked in. Turns out Shaun (Ben’s cousin) was also departing (for KL) at the same time so we met up with him and Teng Teng who was there to see him off! All too soon it was time to say farewell and after a group photo and hugs, we said bye to Teng, Jon and Angie! We proceeded with Shaun to the foodcourt for a quick bite of Oportos before heading through immigration to the departure gates. There we got our GST back for my suit, our new camera (Ixus 80IS) and our wedding rings! Then we said bon voyage to Shaun, made some last minute farewell phone calls to family, and headed for gate 58 to board flight NZ 118 to Auckland, NZ!

The flight was short and pleasant! We enjoyed watching Juno and were surprised to even receive a light lunch! We reached Auckland at 8:30pm NZ time and the first of the dramas began! As we collected our last piece of baggage, a customs officer approached us with a beagle sniffer dog. The cute dog started sniffing Di’s backpack and she was asked to open it. There inside was Floppy, our stuffed toy dog companion for our round the world honeymoon! The officer asked us some questions about Floppy and Di answered that he may contain wheat stuffing inside him. That’s when we started worrying! NZ seems to have as strict quarantine laws as Australia and we feared that Floppy might not be allowed into NZ! With heavy heart we headed to quarantine and presented Floppy to the officer there. She asked us some more questions about him, in particular, whether we had microwaved him yet (he’s the type of stuffed toy you microwave to warm up then take to bed to snuggle with). We replied ‘yes many times’ and after a closer look, the satisfied customs officer allowed Floppy through! Yay!

Next was when we got our bags X-rayed and Floppy again caused problems! He was in the same bag as Di’s laptop and after coming through the X-ray machine, the officers asked us to open up the bag for closer inspection but they just grinned when they saw that Floppy was just a stuffed toy.

We finally entered the arrival hall and made our way to the visitor information centre to call the free shuttle to our motel. Turns out another passenger was headed to the same motel, Oakwood Manor and we were directed to follow him to the bus stop. We decided for Di to follow him and for me to get some dinner (Maccas) but when I found Di, she was waiting in what turned out to be the wrong place and we had missed the shuttle! This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise cos we had left a folder of our travel documents at the Information Counter and the guy there came to return it to us whilst we were waiting for the next shuttle!

We were finally shuttled to Oakwood Manor motel and checked in somewhat weary eyed from the day’s dramas! We chowed down our Maccas and had quick showers before gratefully climbing into bed for some blissful sleep!