Trakka's Life Story

Damn You Facebook!

2012-02-11T15:09:00.000-08:00

Facebook - I love it, use it all the time, but I realise that it is the reason I haven't written on my blog for nearly 3 years. This travel blog was started as a way to record all my trips and let people at home know what I was doing. But then, along came Facebook, and made it so much easier to post photos and quick updates on where I was and what was happening. It was a lot less effort than blogging, and so I didn't mind the decline of my blog. I thought - this is what happens, new technology comes along, and you change and adapt.

But. I have been going through this old blog now, and realising how the extra effort of blogging was actually worth it. So much more detail. Such funny stories. Things I totally forgot! You can really capture my mood - and I am sure I will appreciate it as I get older, and already regret that I didn't record anything since July 2009!!!

It isn't like I haven't been doing anything. I have been on some trips, had big events (did I mention my wedding in 2009? Don't think so - whoops. Lots has happened. Shall I recap?

2009

Moved back to Australia, and lived in Aidan's parents house while they were in Perth.

Went to NYC for two weeks on a $900 flight with my friend Christina - which I actually did chronicle.

First fostered, then adopted, a crazy little dog called Snorty, which was rechristened Coco, then quickly rechristened again to Croco, after she stopped her good behaviour and went back to the ways which has resulted in her being returned to the pound TWICE!

Also, got married - at the Australian museum, which I didn't write anything about and maybe I should have. It was small, fun, but...well, let's just say I am not the 'bridal' type, and am glad to never have a wedding again. The benefit, obviously, was that I got to marry the most perfect man for me in the world.

This was also the first year of my business - talk about an emotional roller coaster - but three years on I can say that it is going fine.

In December that year I went to China and Hong Kong - for business and pleasure. Still haven't been back to Hong Kong, which makes me mad! My favourite place on earth.... For business we went to Beijing and Shanghai, then 10 nights in Hong Kong on the way home. We didn't do much work, ate a lot, and had a christmas food extravaganza at the Marriott buffet!

We also spent a day in Macau - my generous cousins, Kenny & Co, picked us up from the ferry, and drove us around all day long to see the sights. We ate yum cha, Portugese custard tarts, saw fishing villages, the big cathedral (or remains of), and of course - casinos. Finished off that night with a lovely meal at a Portugese/Chinese restaurant, and back to Hong Kong on the boat.

Also in Hong Kong we went to Disneyland - of the three I have been to (Paris & LA were the others) Hong Kong was by far the best.

2010

In 2010 we continued on with the business, kicked out our renters and moved into our flat. It was at this point which I achieved my most proud achievement - of my whole life!

Getting Croc into our flat. The neighbours in our block of flats were particularly nasty about Croc, having never met her, seen her or anything. They said a blanket "There are no dogs allowed, and never will be! (maybe a cat)". Well, we tried to reason, we tried to negotiate - to no avail. They would not listen, or bend in the slightest. Now, while we understand you dont' want a barking annoying dog in a flat, we knew croc would be fine (she only barks at pedestrian traffic, and she wouldn't be able to see it.)

So, we took them to a tribunal and despite the fact that they tried to scare us by saying "Our application is being written by so and so, who is a solicitor" - we WON! WE WON! I remember clearly I was in the sushi train at Crows Nest when Aidan gave me the news, with Christina, and we ran home, and went and got Croc, and took her to the flat!

Gratifyingly, the biggest biatch in the building saw us come in with croc and instantly rang the Strata manager, who then rang us to tell us we couldn't have Croc until agreement from the Tribunal. AHAHAHAH I had SUCH pleasure telling htem I had it, and I have such pleasure, to this day, swanning around with Croc, letting Croc wee out the front on the verge, etc. etc. Even when the biatch walks past me with Croc and says "YUCK" really loud.

p.s. we saw the application the 'solicitor' made - I feel sad, she must be dyslexic.

So, that was one of the best achievements of 2010.

2010 was also the year of our first anniversary, which coincided with travelling to Vanuatu for Sharon Keller's wedding. A big holiday with lots of friends, it was very fun, and Aidan got to pat a Dugong.

Also in 2010, I turned 30. To celebrate, we visited Nerissa & Andrea on the way to China for work meetings.

We stayed in their apartment in Dubai for a couple of weeks, then went for a few nights at Bab Al Shams, for my actual birthday. Bab's is a desert resort out of Dubai, and is the most beautiful hotel I have ever stayed in.

We had drinks on the roof and watched the sunset, swam in the pool overlooking the desert, had a 'high tea' of sorts, and went to an Emirati spectacular for my dinner. The couple of days, which was to celebrate my 30th, involved me twice being mistaken for a child.

1. On checkin, the valet was walking us from the car to the front desk, and he was saying something to me, kind of mumbling, and it sounded like "do you want a lollipop", so I just kind of smiled and nodded. When he brought me said lollipop, Andrea was outraged and asked for one for the rest of us!

2. At the Emirati extravaganza restaurant, Nerissa and Andrea could barely hide their laughter, as the receipt had charged us for 3 adults and one child.

Us females keeping our surnames was another thing to confuse the Emirati's who called me Miss Moore, Nerissa was Mrs Moore, and Andrea was Mr Moore.

After 2 nights there, we went driving through the desert for hours and hours to Oman, to our hotel on the coast at Muscat. RIGHT on the coast - it was beautiful and we spent hours in the warm ocean. We took drives out into the pebbly and rocky Omani desert, to a fort in the middle of nowhere, and ate on the floor in a private room at a 'traditional' Omani restaurant. The room had a tv, which we didn't use. The food was kind of disgusting, and the innocuous sounding "Omani bread" turned out to be a disgusting bread in milk affair.

This month also saw us going to Beijing for work, and later Shanghai for Amy Zhao's wedding to Neo. Located in 'Thames Town' in Shanghai, which is a faux English town, the wedding was outside, next to a boat, on which we then took a 10 minute ride around the lake, then proceeded inside for a big banquet, where we were on the bridal table. (Similar to when Amy took us to her friend's wedding, we were on the bridal table even though we had never met the bride).

2011

Must remember to finish writing this post later - it involved - a month in Paris, trip to Dubai for christmas, moving in to our first office and hiring some staff....

Also, involved two hospitalisations only 2 weeks apart. The first when I smashed a wine glass making scones for the Royal wedding, and cut an artery and had to go to the hospital, where they gave me morphine for twice my weight and didn't realise the deepness of the cut until 5 hours later when I had actually sprayed blood high in the air like a geyser. The grossest thing to happen to me ever! The pain of needles into the cut was revolting.

Two weeks later I was hospitalised the day after Aidan's birthday, for my kidneys. Of course there is still 'nothing wrong with them'.

An Incomplete Post on NYC

2009-07-08T00:23:00.000-07:00

Due to the recession, I was able to go on a fantastic holiday this year. For $908 I got a return flight to NYC with my friend Christina.

While this seemed blessed, it was actually fraught with bad omen happenings. First, my free accommodation fell through, meaning it would cost more than I originally thought. Then, when I went to pick up the US dollars I ordered online from the North Sydney Westpac branch - I discovered it had been blown up the night before by the ATM bandits. Then, the swine flu hit just days before we left, and some cases were seen to be in NYC (from spring break uni students returning from mexico - and I was staying with a uni student).

Add to this the fact that I was going away over Aidan's birthday (me being absent minded and mean), and that I had massive guilt over our new business/no money/responsibility to work, and I wasn't feeling completely fab about this holiday.

However, some good omens were around too. I got alternative accommodation with my friends Nicole and Will who I met in Shanghai. Christina and I got UPGRADED to premium economy from Sydney to NYC, which was awesome, and I don't want to go back to economy.
So, as per usual, despite being in a nicer class, I still hated the flight. I think it is the air on board - it makes me feel ill, makes my skin dry, my nose run, my throat hurt, my hair be disgusting.

Qantas to the US was much more retarded than I remember it being for my trips to Shanghai. They were disorganised and slow, and there were constant big long waits. At Los Angeles we had to do an annoying, slow changeover. But there was one piece of comedy gold. At LAX, we were lining up (for the 2384th time that day), when I spied next to the elevators and behind a poll, far away from the security people, a lone denim handbag. Being my alert but not alarmed self, I thought I would tell security because #1 it was an abandoned bag, and #2, it was a horrible ugly denim bag, which no one would care being blown up. But to my surprise, in what I thought would be the most security conscious country in the world - the abandoned bag was actually owned by security personnel, so there was no cause for alarm. Maybe it was just a test.

Frugality (is that a word?) went out the window as soon as we arrived into the city - we got a cab from the airport. If I was with Sue-Ellen there would have been no consideration of a shuttle bus I am sure. Arrive at Will and Nicoles- beautiful apartment in a fantastic location. so lovely. went out for mexcian and walked around the neighbourhood.

For the first 5 or so days, I woke crack of dawn due to the time difference, and would do some work, email some people, skype with Aidan, before going downtown on the tube to meet christina.

Our first few days of shopping were quite adhoc, as we wandered aimlessly (like my last time in NYC). But we did eat at a yummy patisserie where I got the BEST chocolate eclair (better than Paul and Chatswood, but not as good as the chocolate mille feuille.)

First purchase in NYC - we each got a pair of plastic haviana looking thongs for $2.k50 so we could get a manicure and pecdicure. also, very comfortable.

We went to bridal garden to try on wedding dresses, but the dresses made me feel wierd - I would feel uncomfortable in that kind of a get up. Went to a thrift store - tried on pouffy wedding dress, but actually didn't mind it.

In the evenings I generally came back to Nicole and Will's flat while christina went out to bars with her friends, because I am quite the homebody. It was an excellent balance of holiday and normality, meaning that every day I was quite relaxed and refreshed.

One morning I went for a neighbourhood walk (upper west side - lovely area) with will and nicole and saw Zabar's, H&H bagels, the Dakota, and then had smoked salmon cream cheese bagels at a recommended place - huge. no more food all day. Went down town to meet christina, and tried on wedding dress again in thrift store. still not sure. then went to greenwich village whree we wandered all day and I bought things for everyone else except myself - annoying. Bought myself a second hand book, called 2 histories of England - one written by Jane Austen and one by Charles Dickens, in their own styles, which I think might be good. THen I came home to get reeady for a night out wiht will and nicole. we first went down to greenwich village to a variety show being held in a bar/pub. We had to rack up a minimumbill with horrible bar food, but the entertainment (magicians, comedians, poets and singers) was not too bad, not amateur at all. Then we went uptown, to little Korea, for some karaoke, which Nicole and I dominated as per usual, but really, if you aren't going to pick songs, then how are you going to get to sing? After that we went to an American diner where I had a milkshake (beautiful) and macaroni cheese (horrific, but everyone else helped me so that was fine).

And this is where the blog post deteriorates into partial comments and reminders...to be fixed up in the future....or not...probably not...

Up the road from nicole's flat is the Alice in Wonderland cafe, where I went with nicole and Christina. Sooooo cute. Teapots, morning tea cake stand. ..v. cute. then walked with DMF across park. saw his baby and fancy apartment. Met Freya and her friend for lunch. Accidentally ordered the seafood platter. Went shopping in midtown in the afternoon. Got $5 t-shirt and $10 dress from Urban outfitters. Home for dinner, Will gave me spaghettin

Woodbury common - bus out through the country side. High end goods on special. Shouldn't buy high end goods anyway really. v. bad. and they are not me. Did buy Jimmy Choo's for wedding though. And I think they are the same ones I tried on in London with Sue at Selfridges like 2 years ago and said 'I want to wear these to my wedding!!!!', and now I am. how funny.

Brooklyn - Prospect Park, One Girl Cookie (amazing), NZ pie shop - rip off, and sausage roll no good anyway.

Lincoln Centre string ensemble

photography exhibition - Fashion Photography - International centre of photography - Avedon fashion collection 1944-2000 - very very good, despite my non-knowledge of fashion

bought my wedding dress at a small independent boutique in Greenwich Village. Very plain, and not cheap. Will be the first bride to have pockets I imagine.

Shake Shack

UN Markets

Central station food

central park - jennifer aniston

Cowgirl in Greenwich village

Staaten Island Ferry

Battery Park

free $15 voucher from a stranger!!! In Bloomingdales.

NYC is fun and interesting, but not really my kind of city. While London can be pretentious (and so can Sydney, and Shanghai), in NYC it is too in your face. Everything seems to be about appearances, which I dislike (my good friends Nicole and Will obviously bucked this trend). Also, they have this work-hard play-hard culture which is just so not me.

So while it is the favourite city of loads of people I know, it isn't for me, and I think it will be a while till I go back.

Managing Freak Outs

2009-04-20T20:12:00.001-07:00

Starting a new business is not meant to be easy - if it was, everyone would do it, because the perks are unbelievable. All your work is done to benefit yourself and your time is yours to do with what you want. I can stay at home in my dressing gown during winter if I want or go to the beach all day in summer. When the sky is blue I don't have to stare out the window and wish I was enjoying it, and when it is raining I don't have to worry about commuting through it.

The downside to the business is that it has brought a new uncertainty to my life - though I should be used to it by now. I have quit jobs in the past with no job to go to, so maybe this is easier for me than for other people who have been tied to a wage for longer.

Still, I find myself worrying about my uncertain income stream and need to give myself mantra's like:

"At these uncertain times, no one really has job security (except public servants, and you already tried and rejected that), so it isn't like you are the exception to the rule"

"Living with uncertain income makes you appreciate the money you do have a LOT more"

"Considering it is year 1 of the company, and a global economic crisis - we only need to keep our head above water for it to be considered a success"

Most importantly though, when I worry that I have done the wrong thing in chucking in my job, I just have to ask myself "Would I want to go to the office today for $xx?". The answer has so far always been no.

Tracy's New Adventure

2009-02-15T20:46:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated this blog for quite a while I know. I have not had any more travel stories to write, because I am now back in Australia.

In December 2008 I moved from Shanghai to Sydney, where I am now living and having my very own at home adventure - quite literally actually. Aidan and I have started our own business, from home (for now).

We opened an office for Aidan's UK company in Shanghai, and they were a digital marketing company. After that experience, we decided to work for ourselves and open a similar business here in Sydney Australia.

Luckily we have already got ourselves some clients to keep us busy, although always on the lookout for more, and we are becoming Jack of All Trades with not only having to work on the actual consulting work we do, but also having to worry about the finances, sales, PR, admin, etc. etc. All practiced for in China though.

I am actually finding it massively rewarding. Anyone that knows me knows that I have a short attention span. In class I was always the person who the teacher gets mad at for finishing her work first then distracting others. At normal jobs I would get restless sitting around from 9-5. Now I work my own hours, and there is heaps to do to keep me interested.

Also, because my livelihood is linked directly to what I achieve in a day, I find that I don't get that malaise that you seem to get with other jobs, where it is so easy to bludge off for a while because you can. Now I am working for myself I can actually see the point of all the work I am doing (whereas working in the govt, while interesting, I could not see the results of any of my labour).

What we actually do, if anyone is interested, is a form of marketing. This is for businesses with websites only, and what we do is we help your website get exposure. Because what is the point of your business having a website if no one knows it is there, right?

So we can give you all techy advice on how to increase your ranking in search engines, which means that if you sell toothbrushes, and someone types in toothbrush into Google, we help you rank there, so they can maybe choose your business!It is kind of competitive, because remember, there are only 10 spots on page 1, and how often do people click through to page 2? Meanwhile, while toothbrush might not be a super competitive term, other terms, like car insurance, are massively competitive. This part of it is called Search Engine Optimisation.

Alternatively, you can buy ad space on search engines. That is, do nothing to your site, and just pay to have your ad there when someone types in 'toothbrush'. This is called Pay Per Click Marketing. And what we can do is, we can buy the adspace for you. The reason you would get someone to buy the adspace for you rather than do it yourself is because 1. there are a bazillion keywords you need to consider and 2. it is an auction system, so you need to be careful how you bid. Too high and you waste money, too low and your ad won't appear. If you have a lot of key words, it can get to be a lot of work. I think I am pretty well suited to this aspect of the company, because of my experience in web analytics, and the fact that I have always been a numbers kind of person.

Anyway, so after all that, that is what the go is with what I am doing now. I probably won't be blogging much about it on here, because it isn't travel related, but I do blog regularly on our work blog now.

Something brand new and exciting, keeping me very busy, keeping me on my toes! It will probably curb the ability for travel for a little while, but not forever. And I hope to fit a trip in this year anyway....

SIchuan Province

2008-10-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

My latest, and perhaps last trip for now in China, was to Sichuan Province, with my friend Emma from Canberra.

Sichuan is in south western China (which is really south central china), right next to Tibet. It is where the big earthquake was earlier this year, home to panda's, and also has embraced a lot of Tibetan type culture due to its close proximity.

Sichuan province has a tonne of really interesting things, and really should be higher on the list of things to do in China I think.

The reasons I went were for panda's, the giant budda in Leshan, and the Jiu Zhai Gou national park.

We flew into Chengdu on a Saturday. Chengdu, while listed as the third most liveable city in China, was a bit of a hole I thought. It had the worst smog of anywhere I have been in China! Worse than Beijing. Like all Chinese cities it just seems a bit sprawling, smoggy and run down, with the odd bursts of new (which quickly look old as the smog settles onto it and makes it all dirty looking).

The best thing about the city of Chengdu, apart from pandas which I will get to soon, was the hostel we stayed at. Sims Cozy Guesthouse. While I am not a big fan of hostels in general, this one was amazing. We had our own room which had its own bathroom - all very clean and nicely presented. We also had our own dvd player in the room, and got fruit baskets twice in three days! We used the dvd player to watch 30 Rock season 2 and Mamma Mia (twice)!

They had a great travel desk downstairs which helped us organise our tours, and a bar with cheap food and fresh juice. They also have a cute little puppy, which always helps the ambience.

The day after we arrived, we took a bus to see the panda's at the panda research centre. Despite the horrible smog, the center was actually really well done. All quiet and green, bamboo forests, etc. There are around 50 panda's there, and 8 babies, which were each around 3 months old. So cute! Although, from pictures I can see that they are horribly ugly when they are just born. They are like a bald pink mouse, with a long skinny tail and everything, and it is no surprise that when they give birth for the first time, panda's often get such a fright that they try and kill the ugly little parasite. But then after only two months they are much bigger and covered in fur and super cute.

I got lots of photo's and some videos - videos are actually better I think,as it really shows how cute they are!But you can see how they are endangered, as they seem quite stupid, they don't naturally know how to procreate, and they have evolved so that they eat bamboo, which it is difficult for them to digest, it requires them to eat around 40kg of the stuff a day, and doesn't give them much energy. I think they are really thick.

The park also has red panda's - which aren't really panda's at all are they? they are like raccoons or something. Poor red panda's, no one cares about them.

While at the panda centre, we met a lovely woman called Janice. Janice is a Canadian-Chinese, who has left her canadian job as a project manager and came to volunteer in the reconstruction process post-earthquake in Sichuan. She also speaks and reads mandarin, so Emma and I (and a few others) tagged along after her as she took us to a local jiaozi or dumpling restaurant for lunch. For less than $2 each we ate our fill of dumplings filled with a variety of celery, chives or meat. It reawakened my fat cat expat guilt on how much I spend on western food in Shanghai....

In the afternoon we explored a nearby monastery, drinking tea in their tea garden, seeing the millions of turtles in their turtle pond (will have nightmares), and enjoying the tranquil gardens in the middle of the horrible smoggy city (Cannot stress enough how smoggy Chengdu was).

After this Emma, Janice and I went to a nearby snack street where I was not brave enough to partake in the sweet-purple-soup-tofu something or other Emma and Janice ate, however I did eat some of the wierd sticky ricey ball thing (only because Ihad had it before). Then spat it out and was laughed at by locals. It could have been worse though - we saw roasted rabbit heads, and millions of tiny little roast birds that I think were song birds (mean! I thought they were pets!!!).

There was also the stinky tofu of course (fermented tofu, like normal tofu wasn't bad enough) and lots of spicy meat on a stick - Sichuan is known for being the home of super spicy food, so spicy in fact that it numbs your mouth and is sometimes used in rural areas as an anaesthetic. (seriously)

The next day, we went in a mini bus for a three hour drive out to Leshan to see the thousand buddha caves, and then the giant budda. The thousand budda caves are a lot of carvings in a cliff lining a river. I am not sure if there really were 1,000 buddha's, but there were lots and lots. All carved into different configurations, different sizes, etc. Afterwards we ate in a local restaurant full of bai jiu drinking locals who were totally off their face. As the only one of our small group that had any chinese at all, I was responsible for organising the lunch - looking into the kitchen and using a mixture of pointing and not-real words, I ordered us a lavish 6-course vegetarian meal for around $4 each.

After this we headed to see the giant buddha (Dafo). Since the destruction of the big giant sculptures in Afghanistan by the Taliban, this buddha is now the biggest in the world. It is over 70m high, and carved into a cliff over a river, facing another horrible smoggy city. (poor china, it has such beautiful historic and natural wonders, and such horrible cities/suburbs/etc).

I mean, I am quite getting over China having lived in Shanghai for a year now, but travelling to Sichuan reminded me of the lovely things that China has to offer. Many say that Shanghai is not the real China anyway - I think that is such bull. China has over 100 cities with more than 1 million people. Big new cities are China now - they are just not the China you might have expected.

Anyway, after three nights in Chengdu, we then took a regional flight to Jiu Zhai Gou, around 50 minutes away (or a treacherous 10 hour bus ride - no thank you!), and 3,000m higher in altitude than Chengdu. It is the most amazing airport I have been too, in that it is way up in the mountains.

Jiu Zhai Gou is home to another UNESCO site - the Jiu Zhai Gou national park, which is what we went to see. Not many westerners go there for some reason. It is a bit out of the way for the wealthier time-poor tourists, and too expensive for the time-rich money-poor backpackers. Entry to the park is 310RMB per day, or around $50. However, we went for two days, which shows how worth it it was - considering how tight I am.

Jiu Zhai Gou is a 620 square km reserve of mountains, valleys, lakes, snow capped peaks and tibetan villages. It is famous for its amazing coloured waterways, which vary in colour from bright acqua's (sp?) to blues and greens. Seriously, the photos of the place look photo-shopped, but I have been, and can say it is all 100% natural!

We were lucky, we went at the best time of the year, when the leaves are changing colours, which adds to the surreal brightly coloured nature of the place. For two days we walked and bussed (they have a great bus service in the park, as it is too big to just walk all the way) around the park. Taking a million photo's and sometimes being the subject of photo's - lots of chinese tourists there, not many westerners, meant that we were often photographed paparrazzi-style. At one point we had a crowd of people in front of us taking photo's while we ate some biscuits. One had a tripod set up! (emma refused to remove her sunnies at his request, but I am a sucker...). I wonder what they do with these photos?

In testament to how beautiful this area is - on the 1.5 hour taxi drive from the airport to our hotel, our taxi driver pulled over 3 times to take photo's even though he is from there! The first time he pulled over in the middle of nowhere, I thought we were going to be murdered! but he just wanted to take photo's of his cab with the beautiful scenery in the background.

The Jiu Zhai Gou hotel was not very good at all. I wish Sims was up there. The rooms were nice enough, but freezing cold, and the tv had no english channels - which we missed since there is nothing else to do in a national park area at night. For respite we kept going to the Sheraton down the road, for meals, use the internet, get warm...

Ah, now the piece de resistance of the trip. The trip home. I couldn't get a direct flight to SHanghai from Jiu Zhai Gou, so I had to go back to Chengdu. This was all fine, fine, although inconvenient, and meaning a long wait in between flights. So, when I finally got on the connecting flight home, I was, to be honest, a bit cranky and ready to sleep on the plane. However, I was unfortunately seated next to a "Little Emperor". A tiny, loud, bossy little boy, who would scream at me in Chinese, calling me Ayi (aunty) and refusing to stop talking to me even though I couldn't understand a word of his slurred mandarin. I kept telling his mum I didn't understand, but she didn't care, glad to have his attention off herself, and she often disappeared leaving me with him, as he jumped over my lap, kicked everything in sight and pulled the armrests up and down for hours.

And then comes my number 1 China story - the mother reached for the airsickness bag, and I thought - Oh CHRIST! he is going to spew, which could make me spew. But he didn't seem ill, so then I thought, - She is just going to spit in it, which, while disgusting, is very common in China, and perhaps bearable.

No, on both counts. As she opened the bag, the boy stood up on the chair right next to me, and began pissing in the bag. Seriously. He pissed in the paper bag, she folded it up (and I freaked out about what she might be going to do with it), then she wiped him down with some tissues and handed the whole sorry mess to the poor air hostess!!!

They then repeated the process again later in the flight!!!! Seriously. Ah China...

Things to do in Shanghai

2008-09-17T22:13:00.001-07:00

This is just a list, so I remember where to take visitors, and so any of my friends can know the good things to do/see in Shanghai (and not stupid recommended tourist things only)

the Bund - obviously. You can walk here from East Nanjing Metro station. Go at night, so you can see the lights, but not after 10 when they might have shut them off. Boat rides are quite nice, and not too expensive. Ignore the millions of people selling crap. You could have dinner at one of the restaurants here, but I think it is a big fat rip off, and really not worth the money. The restaurants I have been to (Whampoa Club, Sens and Bund, New Heights), indeed have good views, but are so expensive - such a rip off.

Lujiazui - the other side of the river to the Bund. You can have a nice walk along, and look back on the Bund, see the Pearl Tower (do not bother going up), and then visit the Super Brands Mall near the station.

Jinmao Tower or World Financial Centre - the two tall buildings, WFC is the taller, and you get much better views than from the Pearl. Jinmao has good restaurants on the 54th floor, with cool views, and also a great hotel lobby bar on the 54th floor that has views up to the top (another 50 floors).

Taikang Lu (get in taxi, say "Taikang Lu, Sinan Lu"). this is an arty cafe type area, in the french concession, where you can chat away the day, search for gifts, look at art, and all in these converted old lane houses.

Dolar Shop - this is a chain hot pot restaurant, and one of my big faves. So delicious, so cheap, english menus if you ask for them, and individual pots. very Chinese.

Wu Jiang Lu - combines street food at one end, with new yuppy shops at the other (Cold Stone!yum!). Just get out at West Nanjing Road Tube station. (Also, the new M&S is here!).

Moganshan Lu - this is another arty street. I'm not that into art.

Red Town - Shanghai Sculpture Space - lots of galleries - also where I work! Eat at Beca, get the Napoleon crepe. you can walk from Hongqiao Lu tube.

Element fresh - western style restaurant chain, but HEALTHY, and nice restaurant atmosphere. I recommend the breakfasts, the juices and the quesadillas! Good for those westerners who can't handle chinese food 24x7 (me and Aidan).

Ruijin Guest house - only because it is pretty, not because it is particularly good food. Old style Shanghai house on Ruijin Lu, with a bar at the bottom and restaurants up top.

1001 nights - this is a fab restaurant on Hengshan lu, middle eastern food. my fave, they burst your eardrums every half hour when they bring out the dancing girls though.

Julu Lu and Changde lu - the best shopping streets (still not that fab).

Yu Gardens (sa Yu Yuan to the taxi driver. It is not near a metro station). for around 50RMB you can stroll through the beautiful gardens. Ignore all the shops/touristy stuff surrounding it, once you get in there, it is v. tranquil.

Obviously the museums...but I haven't ben to them yet!!! I am so bad.

DVD Stores - one of the highlights for all my guests is going to buy dvds for around 8RMB each, which makes box sets, v.v.v. cheap. The best ones I find are on Dagu Lu near Ruijin Er Lu.

The fabric markets - a big pull for tourism, but still, I think they are a nightmare. don't recommend at all.

Yangshuo

2008-09-04T00:28:00.001-07:00

Aidan has a friend called Scotty who lives in Yangshuo (south China, near Guilin), and works for a company called China Climb. So, while their other friend Dogger was visiting us in Shanghai, we all went down for four days in Yangshuo.

It was simply the most beautiful place I have ever been in china, and due to my being ill for 70% of the time I was there, I need to return, ASAP, and enjoy it properly.

Even driving from the Airport in Guilin to Yangshuo was a beautiful 90 minute drive past thick green fields and wierd looking karst hills (these things that pop straight up out of the ground).

Yangshuo is a relatively small city of I reckon about 30,000 people, and in the centre of that is the main street, nearby a river. From any direction, getting out of town to the country side was very quick.

We went to meet Scotty first at his cool offices in China Climb. This was a three or so stagger-storied building with a bar and lounge at the bottom, and random climbing (frisbee-looking) people loitering about.

Surrounding the offices were many other bars, restaurants, little shops and juice stands. A five minute walk away, at the quieter end of teh street was our hotel (hardest beds in the universe)

After a quick drink (fresh apple juice with ice, only 6RMB for a super large one!), we hopped on some bikes (5RMB for the afternoon!!) and rode out to the river for a swim.

Yes, I know, river swimming in China doesn't sound realistic...dirty water, diseases, etc. But the water seeeeeemed ok, and I swam in it. In fact, we jumped off bridges into it, swam around, and then they sat under the bridge and drank beer like derros)

Yes, I was sick the next day, but no one else was, so I will not blame the water.

Surrounding the river are green fields and lots and lots of karst mountains - just beautiful. The most beautiful spot I have seen in China - see, you really need locals to help you.

I didn't even need a towel, as the river water was so warm, and the air dried me quickly, and we rode back into town in our swimmers.

That night we had dinner out in the town, and I was pleased that food in Yangshuo, unlike Shanghai, is VERY similar to the Chinese food westerners have seen before...hooray!

The next day I got very ill, with high fevers, etc, and so that was the end of fun for me in Yangshuo, on only my second day :(

However, it was so beautiful, I cannot harbour bad memories of it. #1 place in China I say! (even if it is very touristy...).

Up to my knees in Shanghai

2008-08-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

So today I thought I would write about this Chinese wedding i went to on the weekend, but now I am wet, cold and worried I have contracted typhoid, so instead I will write about the flood I had to walk through to get to work today (who knew I was so dedicated ---really I am not, my chinese colleagues wouldn't give up, not me!).

We woke up to what was seriously, continuous thunder, at around 6:30, and steady rain.

At 10, I headed off to work. Since it is impossible to get taxis in the rain, I walked to Nanjing West Road Tube station and got the train. It was raining on the way, but not too hard.

While on the train, I got a call from my colleague Amy, asking where I am, if I am alright, and that she would wait for me at Hongqiao station(where we get off to go to work), because there is some water around the station.

I didn't really understand, and thought I would be fine, as i wore my cons today, not sandals.

Well, some water is an understatement. There were cars stopped and stranded in the street it was so flooded - right outside the station.

At this point, i should have just gone back home. But no. We walked through the one small alley which wasn't flooded (crowded therefore with bikes, people and many many cars), to Honqiao Lu trying to find a non-flooded way to get through.

Amy, before we left the station, suggested we hire a rickshaw guy to take us to work, but I thought we could find a safe way to walk. I thought it would be a rip off. I thought it would be dangerous, like we would get in an accident.

Eventually, we made our way to Huai Hai Lu, which is the road our work is on, only to discover it was also flooded. Finally, we had to suck it up and just walk through this dirty brown water up to our calves in some spots.

When it came to crossing the road/river, I just gave in, and we hired a bike to take us across. Not only did he take us across the road though, as the entire of Red Town (our work complex) was flooded, so he had to take us up the river to our building.

I am ashamed to say, that for three people, we only paid 10 Kuai. Why am I so tight?!?!?!

Admittedly, if I had been with Aidan, he would have charged us 200 I am sure.

So anyway, that was todays adventure...

Empire of the Sun

2008-08-20T01:52:00.001-07:00

I have not written in this blog for ages. You know how life happens, and you think nothing interesting is happening, but really, I am sure there are interesting things going on that I will want to remember, so I will start writing more regular, shorter, blogs, in an effort to record my lifes happenings and not skip over my actual life. Isn't it ridiculous that I am only recording my travelling...I am living in Shanghai! there is so much I will want to remember just from here!

Similarly, I should really get round to putting up some posts about my time in London as well...

Where have I been the last 3 months? Well, I have still been in Shanghai - working, making new friends, and I even got to go back to Australia for three weeks to fix up my visa. My sister had a baby last week, so now I am an aunty...umm...I think that is the major news.

This little update will just be quickly about a discovery I made today. While walking during my lunch hour in the area surrounding my office (Huai Hai XI Lu, Hongqiao Lu), I passed by a heritage building sign which told me I was on what used to be Amherst Avenue (now Xinhua Lu). For those who don't know, Amherst avenue is where JG Ballard grew up during WW2, and where much of the book Empire of the Sun is set. I was very excited, as I love the book, and after doing a quick google, I found out that his actual house was a restaurant that I pass by every day!!

Now I will have to go and eat there!

It was just as you would imagine it, and I will try and remember to bring my camera to work so I can take pictures...an old french style house, in wide gardens, set on a tree lined road. The only difference is that now the entrance is on Panyu Lu, not Xinhua Lu (Amherst Avenue).

Also, both my offices in Shanghai have been on Huai Hai Lu, which I have just found out was previously Avenue Joffre, which also features in the book.

Since coming to Shanghai I have reread the book, but will need to reread AGAIN, now that I know the exact area they are talking about - right next to my office! how funny.

I can't believe that little boy pedalled all the way from Amherst Avenue to the Bund on his bike every day to see if the war had begun - it is no short distance! about half an hour in a car.

I bought the sequal the other day - The Kindness of Women - and I didn't like it as much. It is a lot darker, depressing, which you would expect considering his childhood, but it doesn't have the overall 'uplifting' feeling that Empire of the Sun does, which made me love it. (this is why I am not a book critic, and why I have refused to join my friends book club here in Shanghai).

Xian - Beijing - Hangzhou

2008-05-12T03:13:00.001-07:00

This first picture is of the sunset in Hangzhou - v.v. beautiful. The second one is obviously of the Terracotta Warriors (or some of them anyway). and then the computer has had a fit, and not let me put up any other photo's.

Notes about this entry - as per usual, I spend a long time on the first bits, and get sick of it by the end and just rush it all...

For two weeks in March, Sue Ellen visited me in Shanghai, and for six days of this visit, we left Shanghai to do a bit of travel around China. This is a super monster post, but seeing as this is just my travel diary, I will write it how I like, thank you very much!

On a grey Holy Thursday, we flew out of Shanghai to Xian. Unbeknownst to me, the airline regulations had recently changed so that you can no longer take liquids on board, ruining my idea of taking my small suitcase on board and saving a lot of trouble. In fact, it caused extra trouble, as I was stopped at security and sent back to the check in to put my bag through….soooo annoying.

We flew on Shanghai airways which was really quite ok, I have flown them before. This time we actually got fed (not fantastic, but it did have something I could eat amongst it), and also the man next to me had a laptop and was watching some English movies, so I got inflight entertainment and everything (a romantic comedy and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

When we got to Xian, the nightmare of us getting ripped of by taxi drivers was about to begin…after Harbin it is what I expected…however, for some reason, my newly acquired confidence and Chinese skills actually got me taxi’s cheaper than what the trip advisors recommended! Hooray! So I recommend for all of you going to China, learn how to say your hotel name in Chinese, find out how much it should cost, and be irate and pretend to take photos of their licence if they are costing too much.

Then, after that good luck, we arrived at our hotel The Grand Mecure on Peoples Square (yes, Xian has a peoples square just like Shanghai.), we got upgraded to a suite!!!! It was so huge and lovely and had cable tv, and the weather outside was so extremely crap, that we just wanted to stay inside for the whole time.

I have never stayed in a hotel room before that is more than one room,a nd this one was like two bathrooms, a bedroom and a loungeroom. Only one bed, but who cares. It was huge.

The only down side of the hotel was the attempt at the in-room scam by the tour director. Sue and I wanted to go visit the terracotta warriors the next day. So, we asked the concierge, and he said he would send up the tour lady. Sure enough he did, and she sold us the tour, we paid the money, and she left. Now, I counted the money, Sue counted the money and the woman counted it.

Nevertheless, she was back in ten minutes saying we were 100RMB short. Now, usually I would be a sucker for this, and just fold completely, and hand it over. But I am a white (kind of) person in China, and I am so SICK of people trying to scam me, so I refused to pay, and she was nearly in tears, and I still refused, and then I said, well fine, give me all my money back and I just won’t go with you at all, and then the concierge intervened and apologised.

They think I am so dumb!!!!! But I am not! I am on to them all.

So then after that, Sue Ellen I went out for the rest of the day. We had some Chinese food (Sue Ellen had vinegar pork, masquerading as sweet and sour pork), and I had hard dry noodles. Gross. So I needed a double che after that as you understand. So we went to McDonalds, and I got my che, and we sat in this “fine dining”section of the McDonalds, on the tables that had tablecloths and vases. Very weird, I have not seen that in any other Mcdonalds anywhere. And I have been in quite a few!

Then we went to see the Drum and Bell Tower which is in the middle of the Old City. See, Xian is a huge city, but a big section of it is walled, and this is the Old style city (even though it is all just old stuff, that is where most of the hotels, etc are too). And so we found the bell Tower, and it was in the middle of this big roundabout! It was so weird, you couldn’t even get near it, because of the cars. The Drum Tower is a one minute walk from it, and to be truthful, I wasn’t overly impressed by either.

The Drum tower stands right next to the Muslim quarter, so we had a meander through there, and it was cool, even though it was raining. And then we went into the mosque, which was interesting, as it was not like a usual mosque, it was still all Chinese architecture.

The most hilarious bit though was when we were leaving the Muslim quarter, and I was bargaining for a tuk tuk to take us back to the hotel, and Sue Ellen got grabbed on the ass, THREE TIMES by the same man, in the two minutes I was talking to the Tuk Tuk driver, it wasn’t till we were in the tuk tuk and driving away that she was able to tell me.

So then we had the hilariously dangerous drive home in the tuk tuk through the mad streets of Xian, with crazy u turns in front of buses and everything.

Then that night, we stayed in the room ordered room service, appreciated the suite, and watched SVU.

The following day we set off in our own private van to the Terracotta warriors. First we saw the Neolithic village, which is just ridiculously old, and to my delight, was a village/society which was totally matriarchal. It even still had skeletons. And it showed how children were buried in big pots, and the pots were out the front of the house, and how men lived in separate villages, and people were buried in different ways depending on how they died. (Although I never really understood how archaeologists find all this out).

Then we went to the terracotta soldiers, which were amazing also. They were discovered by a farmer in 1979, and it covers a huge area of land, and they show you this Hitchcock-esque film beforehand, which is scary, and then ther are three different excavation pits they are working on. The guy who discovered it almost 30 years ago, sits there everyday signing autographs – you would have to be hating on it.

Then we went for a Chinese meal, and tour of silk factory, where some man spent a lot of time trying to sell us a silk doona. Sue didn’t understand what he was saying, and so was smiling at him, and so I had to put my foot down and say, NO of course we don’t want to buy a doona! Why would travellers want to buy a doona?!?! Use your thinking skills people!!!!

Then we went to the Wild Goose Pagoda, which is where Tripitaka kept all his scriptures. As you would know from Monkey Magic, he brought the Buddhist scriptures all the way from India to Xian (which used to be the old capital you see), and then spent a bazillion years translating them from Sanskrit to Chinese.

And then we went back to the hotel, without stopping at the city wall, as scamming tour drivers told us there was no parking…such a massive lie.

Then we went to the airport, and got on best flight ever with Hainan Air. Video screens in back of seats for a domestic flight!!! Only two seats across. It was heaven.

Then, happily, when we got to Beijing, I got a taxi for only 80 RMB, to the hotel, when the hotel said it should be about 130RMB. See, you can’t trust anyone

Next morning, taxi tried to scam us by driving this long convoluted way to the Forbidden City, but I had the map in my bloody hand, so I started saying in Chinese “too long! Too long! Too expensive! “(limited Chinese skills here), and then get out my camera and pretend to take photo of his id, so then he gave it to me for half that price, so ahahahaha. So that is my tip for taxi drivers in China – try and get an idea of how far you are going, and what route it should be, or alternatively, get the hotel to tell you so when you get in the car you can tell them how much you expect it to be,! And then if they are troublesome, pretend to take a photo of them or write down their ID number. Aha!!! No more scamming me!

The Forbidden City is huge, and impressive in its size, but it was so full of people, that it was a horrible experience. Also, the day was truly horrible pollution wise, and it was all under construction in preparation for the Olympics, so it wasn’t the best experience. After this we went to Tiananmen square (and just stood around, didn’t know what to do there), and then walked up to this park with a hill, and a pagoda on top of the hill, to try and get scenic photo of Forbidden City, but the pollution was just so bad there was no view at all

Then we got a taxi (no scam), to the other side of the city in search of a Hard Rock Café. Sue and I like to eat in Hard Rock Café’s around the world, whenever we travel together, and have been to those in Barcelona, London, Oslo, and although there was none in Shanghai, there is one in Beijing. However, after we got all the way there we discovered it was closed and had to go all the way back to the City.

Then we went to this bar/restaurant area around this lake, and it was polluted and ugly, but we had a nice lunch (sue ellen drank hot coke with ginger in it) and the people next to us had grubs. Seriously.

Then we walked around the lake, and I bought one of those sticks with the candied little fruits on it…like a lot of little toffee apples on one stick.

Then we went into the city for some shopping (we had like 5 cabs this day, with only the first being troublesome – so there are some good taxi drivers), but the shopping street was crap, and horrible, and the weather was like a nuclear winter. But there was this fantastic night food market street thing, where sue got candied strawberries on a stick, and we walked around, and it was getting all over here and this nice man gave her some of those wet towellette things, and we saw all interesting things to eat, though we didn’t eat them. Our tour guide the next day recommended that we don’t go there, but tit was great I thought. The sad things we saw were a stickful of roasted little tiny seahorses (so sad, but cute, but sad, even though I love meat on a stick I couldn’t eat this) and also starfishes…

Then we caught a cab home and watched the movie Wallace and gromit and the Were rabbit, and it was surprisingly good!

So my impressions of that day of Beijing were – dirty ugly polluted, boring, nuclear winter. Luckily for us, the next day was a lot better, the skies were blue, and the air was relatively clean. This day we went to the Great Wall, at Mutianyu. This is a bit of wall that isn’t too popular, and therefore, not very crowded. We got a chairlift up to the wall and walked around on it for a couple of hours. To the horror of authentic travellers and backpackers everywhere, we actually went on a tour this day. Just because it was easiest, and we didn’t have much time to try and figure anything else out – the tour just dropped us off at the wall though, and we got to meander around on our own.

The whole tour was full of oldies, which Sue (who works with oldies), commented on like David Attenborough. Here is what I learned - Oldies will repeat over and over the same question, for the whole day –they will repeat it immediately after others have just asked, after they themselves have asked, later in the day, just all the time. Oldies will also have conversations among themselves, where they do not listen to each other, but continue talking as if they were talking to each other. Waiting till the other pauses, filling in the silences, etc. etc. American oldies are super inappropriate and kind of racist, in an ignorant and not intentionally mean way.

In any case, the wall was absolutely amazing. It is built along the mountains, at the highest point of the mountains, which must have been an absolute biatch to build. But it is so amazing, curving away into the distance in both directions, and it was pretty well preserved (or rebuilt I suppose). On either side of the wall was just wilderness.

That evening, Sue Ellen and I wanted to have some Peking Duck somewhere, and although we were not trying to be fancy, we ended up going to the Beijing Ritz. It wasn’t super expensive, about 20 GBP each, which is pricey for China, but not for Peking duck at the Ritz in general, so we think that was ok.

We ordered half a duck, and the poor waitress stood next to our table wrapping all the pancakes up for us – which took her a while. We also had some traditional Beijing dumplings. Let me just note that I am a terrible expat – I do NOT like Chinese food. I love Australian Chinese food, but I hate real authentic Chinese food (except Cantonese). In fact, sometimes I forget I hate it, and crave the Australian style so much, that I go and get some and it is horrrrrrible.

The following day we caught the plane from Beijing to Hangzhou, on what is the worst flight of my life, and I believe it gave me my first instance of sickness in China, possibly a mild case of Bird Flu. We flew Hainan air, which only days before had been so pleasant. In this case I was stuck between Sue and some strange man. This man was part of a tour group which (I know I am being offensive here), seemed to be from some sticksville village. The main problem I had here was the constant spitting into the airsickness bag. And for anyone that has been to China knows, the spitting is not subtle, and comes right from their bloody feet up or something. Also, the smell was not good, not good at all, although lucky Sue had her migra stick.

Then we arrived in Hangzhou, and driving from the Airport, it was like we were in a fairytale crossed with Dr Seuss book. The houses were hilarious – all colourful and shiny, triple storied, with purple roofs, and goldie/yellowy awnings, pagoda’s in the yard,…but of course, the surroundings weren’t all nice, it was the usual China grey sky and freeways. But they have made a real effort with the houses.

Finally we arrived near the lake. You see, Hangzhou is famed as being the most beautiful place in China, it is one of the most popular destinations for Chinese people, and Marco Polo described it as heaven on earth.

Now the actual city is the same grey, dirty polluted city like other cities in China, but the lake is different. It is beautiful, because they maintain it as a tourist destination. The surroundings are clean, there are those cute Chinese arch bridges, blossoming trees, weeping willows, etc. etc. and we saw a beautiful, beautiful sunset over the shimmering lake. There is also a Xintiandi style area where we had our dinner and some icecream.

The next day was not as nice. The weather had turned nuclear-winter-esque, as it is wont to do in China…and so the second day we just spent the whole day wanting to leave. But our train wasn’t till the evening, so we had lunch in a fancy hotel and went to do some shopping, because just wandering around was depressing, and intimidating, as we were constantly being stared at by men! I don’t know what we were doing differently that day, but at no time in China have I ever been stared at so much!

And then we got the super fast train back to Shanghai, and there was a big debacle over where we could sit, as our seats weren’t together, and even though the train wasn’t full, we weren’t allowed to sit in other peoples seats. Finally, the steward came and kicked some poor woman out of the carriage so we could sit together…which is unfortunate for her, but good for us, and what a stupid system.

And so that was my trip with Sue. My next trip, I went to Xiamen, for a search Engine conference…and I could blog on that, but as we were working much of the time, I don’t think I will bother. Suffice it to say, that it is just another city, albeit on an island, and the closest part of ‘mainland’ China to Taiwan. (not sure why this is noteworthy).

Harbin

2008-01-23T02:13:00.000-08:00

Last year, during the most un-summery summer of my life (in London of course), I vowed that I would go home to Australia, and that by December/January I would be sitting on the beach and moseying around in no more than thongs and a flimsy dress.

As you know, life unfolds in different ways than we planned, and I have found myself in Shanghai. Quite cold, almost colder than in London actually, as it has snowed a few times in the last week.

however, unsatisfied with temperatures of the low single digit variety, I thought I would try and go negative, negative double figures, down to minus 29 in the city of Harbin.

In January and February of each year, Harbin holds a snow and ice festival. During this festival huge, artistic, beautiful sculptures are made out of snow and ice. The pictures on the internet were awe inspiring, and I booked a trip for Aidan and I to go up there.

Since moving to China, I have been scammed in many different ways. The most frequent is to be charged a higher 'westerners' price for things. Another way is for people to pretend to be freindly with you, and then scam you in some uniquely horrible way. I thought I had become quite jaded by now, but you will be surprised then to find out how I booked my airfares to Harbin.

While looking on travel sites for advice on Harbin (using Tripadvisor, Virtualtourist, and Lonely Planet Thorn Tree), I came frequently across a poster called Ellyse. She is a young woman who makes multiple posts on all different destinations in China, with lots of useful advice. After private messaging her on VT, we then began emailing each other.

Ellyse is a Singaporean student studying in Shanghai and who spends a lot of her free time giving free advice to travellers. She also buys tickets for them, books hotels, and even acts as tour guide. At first I was very suspect but after a myriad of emails, she booked some airfares to Harbin for me, we met up for dinner and I handed over the cash to pay for them, with nothing to be given in return, except the hope that on the 18th of January, Spring Airlines would let me on their flight to Harbin.

You might wonder why I didn't use an online travel agent like I did for Huangshan. Well, these tickets through Ellyse were a lot cheaper, because they are on a cheapo carrier, Ryan Air equivalent, which you can't just book on the internet unless you read mandarin. It is called Spring Airlines - we obviously didn't crash and die. However, we did have to sit through hours of a flight attendant yabbering on in mandarin trying to sell all these bits of crap, e.g. plastic plane and god knows what else. Obviously they try to make up for their low ticket prices in this way.

The point is not that I had a great flight, or that Ellyse's service was overly useful. The point is, I handed cash over to a stranger I met on the internet, with nothing guaranteeing I would get anything in return for it. But it was true. This girl is helping people out of the kindness of her heart. And if there is a scam attached, I am as yet unaware of it. (prices on the internet were the same as the prices she was charging I later found out, so she isn't even skimming off the top). In the future I will use Ctrip or Elong (like expedia), however, this girl has pulled me back from my distrust of all helpful chinese people. (ok, she is not strictly chinese, but anyway).

So, after the 2.5 hour advertisement filled flight from Shanghai to Harbin, we arrive in Harbin airport, and walk into the freezer outside. Seriously, I coughed so much at first, as it was very hard to breathe.

I was wearing: two pairs of thermal pants, one pair of normal socks, one pair of wool socks that go right to the top of your leg, one pair of hiking socks, boots, singlet, two t-shirts, thermal shirt, two jumpers, coat, scarf, two beanies, and super crap ineffective gloves. Admittedly my body wasn't too cold, but my face, hands and feet were freezing. Even with all those socks and boots! My face got warmer when I wrapped my scarf around it, but the disgusting thing is that you breath hot air out your mouth, it hits the cold air, condenses, and the scarf around your mouth gets so wet and disgustingly gross. But if you don't have it there, your face hurts a lot.

Our first night, we walked up and down Zhong Yang Dajie, which is the main street. Since Harbin is so far north, it has a massive russian influence, and the main street is all cute and cobble stoned, and the architecture is all russian and dome-like (in the main street anyway). In the middle of the road are ice statues.

We were starving when we got there, so quickly had some KFC chips to tide us over while we walked arund and decided what we woudl really eat (and no, the KFC chips were not the good ones you get in Oz). After half an hour of walking in the freezing cold and being not able to find any restaurant menus, I am sad to say that our KFC entree was followed by a Mei Don Lou (McDonalds) main course....I know that is so terrible!!! but we were freeeeezing!!!

That night, against all childhood advice from my mother, I ripped off my million layers and put my freezing hands and feet directly onto the oil heater in my hotel room. Luckily I have no chill blains. (sp?).

The next morning we wanted to head off to the ice and snow festival. So, rather than risk being scammed by a taxi driver (as we already had been in Harbin, but I refuse to talk of this), I thought it looked easy enough on the map to walk to the place. It was on the other side of the river, but I could see there was a bridge over it according to the map.

so we left our hotel and went down to the riverside - Stalin Park - and walked up towards the bridge. However, this was a rail bridge, and we couldn't walk across it. But, we looked down, and there were many people crossing the river. It was frozen over. when I say many people, I mean like, a dozen, but they weren't drowning, so I thought that was ok. And obviously it was, by the fact that I am here to write about it. But there were some big cracks which scared me, and sheer bits where it wasn't white, but clear, and you could see down into the water. hmmmmm scary. But we walked across it, and then got lost in the slum like area on the other side for a little while (I cannot believe that people don't just die in this weather when they live in poor conditions like this), and finally made it to snow and Ice world.

However, by this time we were obviously frozen to the core (remember it was a maximum of minus15, and a minimum of minus 29). The statues were amazingly impressive. However, my hadns were too cold to take pictures, and the batteries died if you left the camera out of your pocket too long. So we didn't spend more than an hour there I think. we then got a ride back to our hotel for a couple of pounds, from a man with a van. A dodgy van, with tape holding the door on, but still. It was better than walking across that frozen river.

I feel like I should describe the statues more. So much work goes into them, and they are the most amazing things, but I cannot describe them well enough, as I am no poet, and you can tell even from this sentence that my English isn't up to much. One of them was this massive scaled sculpture of some kind of goddess lying down, and then mountains and buildigns and temples around her, and she was just the size of some huge Jumbo Jet!! (admittedly my judgement of size and distance is no good though. I often see photos of myself and others, and am shocked that I am so short). Anyway, this thing was huge. I can't post any more photos on this blog for some stupid reason, so if you want to see photo's, email me. and I will send them to you.

So anyway, those statues during the day were all white, and made out of snow. During the evening, there is another thing to look at, the ice lantern festival. these are statues made of clear ice and which are lit up with neon lights inside them (the chinese love that neon). This luckily was just across the road from our hotel in Zhaolin Park. It cost 60RMB each for us to enter, and then you get to walk around these cool temples made of ice, over bridges made of ice, there is a sculpture competition with competitors from all over the world (USA won first place), and even some ice slides (No thank you crack my head open).

For my trip in Harbin, I bought lots of thermal type clothes to keep me warm, which I worried was a waste of money, but I have found out it isn't, as it is snowing at least a bit every day in Shanghai now, and I am freezing! much colder than London, I think because of the humidity, which makes you damp and cold to your bones. Unfortunately this humidity is also what makes the heat crap in summer.

(on a side note, in Shanghai, people are constantly spitting on the ground, it makes me want to vomit. In Harbin, it is about a zillion times worse, it is constantly going on, and there are frozen little globules of spit all over the ground. Oh, I feel so ill even thinking about it).

Huangshan

2008-01-03T02:58:00.000-08:00

On the weekend before Christmas, Aidan and I travelled to Huangshan for a holiday, only for three nights, and when I say before christmas, I mean RIGHT before christmas, we got back at 12:05 on christmas morning.

This is because I booked the whole thing only a week before and so got really stupid flight times. We flew out on the Friday at 10:pm, and our return flight was at 11:0pm on the Monday Christmas Eve. This could have all been a nightmare, if it was in say, Europe, using Easy Jet, or, worse, Ryan Air. However, Shanghai Air is now my favourite short haul carrier. not only were tickets super cheap to buy only a week before (on Ctrip, Chinas equivalent to Lastminute.com, and so much better), but the flights were awesome too. No delays at all. People get on, the plane goes. No waiting for idiots in duty free or baggage handlers on strike like London.

Now I will just harp on a bit more about them - you swipe your passport, you get a ticket. You get on the plane. the plane goes. no lines. No nothing. Despite the fact that China has a billion people and so this should be a bit more hectic. It was fantastic. but the best bit was, that on the way back, the plane left at 11:05, 35 minutes early!!! and we got into Shanghai 35 minutes early! This is something I have never experienced on any other airline in my life.

Alright, now onto the actual trip.

Huangshan is located in Anhui province, and is only 1 hour flight from Shanghai. According to the CSR woman I met through work, it is the poorest province in China. however, it also has Huangshan, which is better known in the west as Yellow Mountin. This area is a crowd of peaks, 72 of which are named. they have really good names like "Monkey looking out at the Sea", "Beginning to Believe Peak" and "Lotus Brightness Apex". I wanted to go there because they are those mountains that you always think of when you think of China scenery. Green pine trees, craggy rock faces, ravines, all covered in mist. They are one of the most popular tourist destinations for chinese people, and during summer it would be crazy busy, so we went in winter when we could better appreciate the quietness and also because I really did want to see them when they were all misty.

We flew into Huangshan city, which is about 70km from the Huangshan mountains. The city is also called Tunxi, and we stayed there on the Friday night, and were up early the next morning to get to the mountains. Now, seeing as this place is a major tourist destination, and we were staying at a Holiday Inn Express, I had thought that there would be some English spoken. There wasn't. In fact, the whole weekend we didn't come across english speakers, except two other tourists. Now, seeing as I can't speak anything other than English, i am not expecting people to be able to speak English just for me, but it did make it a bit harder. Especially after all these people on the Lonely planet thorn tree, trip advisor, virtual tourist, etc. said it was easy to get around. Maybe they speak chinese. Or maybe it is easier in peak season.

Due to the language barrier, we ended up getting on a mini bus (which was actually a Tarago owned by locals, to drive locals to work at Huangshan). And it was old and dirty, and they were all smoking in it, and it was so grotty we couldn't see out the window. Eventually, we got to Tankou, which is at the foot of the mountains, and the minibus just kept circling the town, and then stopped for 15 minutes while the driver had something to eat, and eventually it was too much for aidan and he went off his brain, and no one cared, but eventually,...much later...we were dropped off just down the street from there, and got a taxi up to the cable car. I don't know what that whole trip was about, but at 2 GBP each for 70km I suppose it was ok.

Then we went up the cable car to the top of the mountain. It was sooo misty, that we couldn't see anything. So we weren't scared at all. It was a bit like that Crash Bandicoot level where you can only see two feet in front of him or something. On our return journey the next day we woudl see how truly incredible the scenery is from that Cable car, and how bloody far high up we were!!! very.

Up the top of the mountains, there are extremely well maintained trails (and lots and lots of steps) connecting all the peaks, the look outs, and the couple of hotels. aidan and I only had day packs, so it was super easy for us to walk around for a while until we found our hotel. it was beautiful and eerie, because there was so much mist. But at the same time, we cuoldn't really see all that much because of the mist. That evening however, the mist cleared, and we got to see out in the moonlight, which was absolutely beautiful, but impossible to capture on camera.

The next morning we rose at crack o dawn to go and see the sunrise, as recommended by all travel books. However, despite our efforts, and getting at the front of the lookout, the mist was so thick we could't see anything. By now I had seen enough mist and was getting quite disgruntled, so we went back to the room and had a nap. Then the Gods smiled, and as we woke up, the mist was clearing, adn so our second day was spent taking a million photo's of the awe inspiring views. amazing. like something from national geographic.

It was a lot of walking. Lots of stairs. By the morning, my legs were so sore. But you can't look tired or exhausted on the mountain because there are cosntantly men walking up all the stairs (no chairlift for them), carrying so much crap! like all the building materials, and hotel supplies, water and food and beer, and everything! they carry it all hanging across their back, and so it would just be so horrible to walk past them whinging or puffing when all I am carryign is a muesli bar and my camera!

After the stupid mini bus on the way to Huangshan, we decided to get a cab on the way back. So after going down the awesome chairlift, we caught a cab back to Huangshan, which cost less than 10GBP anyway. Then that night we walked around Tunxi old street, which is over a km long, and would have been beautiful if it wasn't full of stupid tourist crap shops. I don't know who is buying all this crap, but there was over one km of shops selling tea and statues and chinese calligraphy pictures. talk about market saturation.

The next day (after a night of being kept awake by chinese party in our hotel corridor), we hired a car for the day to take us around theancient villages of the area. Two of these we visited are UNESCO world heritage listed, they are called Xidi (sheedee) and Hongcun(Hoongtswun). They are about 40km from Tunxi, and we hired a car for the whole day to take us around, which cost less than 20GBP. Both of the villages you have to pay a couple of pounds to get in.
Hongcun was the more amazing of the two. The main feature of this village is water. It is centred around two ponds, both of which have the most reflective water ever, which means that the buildings and landscape are all reflected perfectly in them. Which looks amazing. Also, this village has a water system whereby water runs past every single house in the village, for use of everyoen. while this is clever it also hgrossed meout because, it meant that while some people are cleaning a dead chicken in there, some are cleaning their clothes, or vegetables, or fish, and it all just flows on. The water was really fast flowing though, so maybe it was ok. I am not sure.

The stupid thing is, these two towns are UNESCO heritage listed, so I am not sure how, but someone must be paying to have these towns looked after and kept clean. So, especially in Hongcun, you can really see where the edge of the town is, because beyond this point, there is rubbish EVERYWHERE. It is quite disgusting. Although Shanghai is quite clean, it is only because there are people employed to pick up rubbish. In China it seems that people are quite happy to throw rubbish on the ground anywhere. right outside their shop, out car windows, wherever. even though there are bins everywhere!

At least this keeps people employed I suppose.

So in conclusion, I would say that it is definitely worth going to Huangshan area at this time of year, with the only caveat being the lack of language skills by the locals. Also, three days is a really good amount of time to see the area.

Quick - Post now on China!!!

2007-11-08T00:26:00.001-08:00

Ok, so this is the first time since I have been here that Blogger has been available. So I have to post quickly on everything that has happened, so please excuse the bullet points...well actually, I can start with one I wrote originally that didn't get to post, and then continue on....so, from 10 days ago....

We flew into Shanghai at 9am Sunday morning. Customs and the airport were no problem at all, and we quickly found our way to the Maglev train to travel into the city. The Maglev train is (I think at this point) the fastest train on earth. It gets up to speeds of 430km/h and goes from the airport to just outside the city of Shanghai . It only takes about 8 minutes or so, but really cuts out a lot of driving in the taxi, plus is fun. Then, we just got a taxi into the city from the Maglev stop. Not sure why super fast train is on such a short track.... While we were on the Maglev, out the window I saw farmer men out in the fields and in boats on the streams, in little pointy hats! like from a movie or something! (you know the pointy hats I mean). Then we got into Shanghai city, which is crazy. There are all these overpass roads, and this one crazy twirling one, which comes down to ground level after you cross the river by going in massive spirals. We were in a taxi, and though the driving wasn’t too excessively crazy, I was concerned as there were no seatbelts for us, even though the driver was wearing one! For our first month in Shanghai we are staying in a serviced apartment in the Hong Kong Plaza. They are pretty fancy by my standards, and are in a double sky scraper which has lots of shops down the bottom, including an electrical goods super shop which is Aidans dream. There are lots of big windows along one side of the apartment, and they face out onto the city, and from our bedroom we have a view of the Pearl tower. We also look out over a really nice park too. Once we settled in, we took a quick walk around to get some food. At the bottom of the plaza, is this thing called Mega bite. Which was so cool. It is like this food hall, where you get a debit card and put money on it, and then go around and get whatever you like. And most things have little plastic models made for them so they are easy to pick out. I had this meal which had a huge plate of rice with bbq pork and duck, a side of greens, a bowl of won ton soup, and this weird dessert, which I didn’t try, but aidan said it tasted like watered down scrambled eggs…bleugh. This whole meal cost only like £2, or less than $5 Australian!!! (This is up there with my other favourite cheapest purchase – paracetemol in London – only costs 16p for a whole packet of 16 tablets!!!) Three minutes walk up the road is the Shanghai Times Square building, which is where our office is located for this initial period (until we find a ‘trendier’ location to have a more permanent office). At the bottom of this building is a very fancy shopping centre, where I don’t think I can afford anything. However, there is a western supermarket in the bottom and a western bookshop. But the western supermarket has mostly American, English, German and Japanese food, and the English bookshop is way expensive. On my walk I found a Chinese bookshop which sold English language books as well, and it was less than 10 Aussie dollars per book,s o I know where I will be going now! We have also been for a walk along Nanjing Lu, which is this super busy shopping street, very touristy I think, with all the fluoro lights that you associate with Shanghai/Hong Kong. Despite it being the touristy area though, we only saw maybe two other western looking people. I assumed that Shanghai would be full of western expats, but there are either not many or they are hiding. We have walked in the French Concession too, and didn't see many there either, same as on the Bund I have started working for Aidan's company, and it is pretty interesting, setting up a new company in China, in an industry that as yet hasn't taken off over here.

I have been clothes shopping way too much, and have put an embargo on further purchases until Christmas.

Even though our work is in this super fancy building with shops like Gucci, etc, just two blocks away are the flower/bird/insect markets, which are amazingly interesting/scary. They also sell turtles by the millions...and anyone that comes to visit me, I will have to take you there.

People hang their washing up everywhere and anywhere, including by tying their lines to traffic lights and road signs.

We have an apartment on Beijing Rd which we will be moving into on the 24th of November, itis in a really nice complex called Ladoll - I will be living beyond my means. It has a dish steriliser (?) but no oven. But then, none of the apartments we saw had ovens...

People so far are really nice, but I thought that english would be more widely spoken (don't know why I thought that)...but starting lessons in December, so very excited about that.

The Shanghai skyline at night is some of the most amazing I have ever seeen.

The weather is quite nice, not too cool and blue skies. The smog isn't as bad as I imagined, and have had no trouble with asthma so far.

The McDonalds tastes exactly the same, but, like London, I still can't get good Aussie KFC-style chips

We eat at Happy Chef type places every night, which are super cheap, but communication is very difficult, and sometimes we do not get what we expected...even if we point specifically...one dinner, at what i thought was quite a nice restaurant, all we got was a whole chicken: half hot, half cold and some nuts. too embarrassed to go back there.

There is this place called Xintiandi (Shin-tien-dee), walking distance from our apartment, which I swear is like a Chinese fox studios! so that is also on the Tracy tour for visitors.

There are these wierd things going on in Peoples Square Park on the weekends, with hundreds of people crowding around and making deals over pieces of paper with chinese writing all over it. I don't know what they are buying/selling...Aidan tells me it is people....but I will get to the bottom of it, because maybe I want some!

I love getting the taxi's which are so convenient, and only cost like 11RMB - or less than one pound or $1.50 aussie.

ummmm...so much to say, but I can't right now, as I am busy, but these are the main points and I will edit this and write it nicely later

(if Blogger is available later)....

Italy

2007-10-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

In September 2007, Aidan and I spent ten nights on a highly anticipated trip to Italy. We had a good time, but the high expectations we had were not really met.

For some strange reason, of all the places i have gone that should have been full of tourists, Paris, New york, the Greek Islands,...Italy was by far the most touristy, and it definitely detracted from the appeal of the place. The least touristy part by far was Ischia, where the only tourists were German, who were markedly less obvious and and much quieter than the American tourists that we found in Rome and the Amalfi coast. Our trip was at the end of September, so I can only imagine what it was like in the height of summer.

So one of the major problems was the amount of tourists...a problem to which we were obviously contributing though.... The other thing about Italy we were a bit disappointed in was the food. After savouring many beautiful meals from our friend Andrea, the Italian chef, we imagined Italy to be Andrea's cooking all meals every day. Not so, it was greatly disappointing, and as horrible as it sounds, I am pretty sure the food in Wollongong and Canberra is just as good! We had some good meals in Italy, but nothing blew my mind...

Anyway, we spent the first two nights in Rome, then four nights in Sorrento, three nights in Ischia, and a final night in Rome again, before flying home.

Rome was lovely and hot when we arrived! my favourite kind of weather! We saw all the typical sites, including the Vatican Museum, where I surprised myself by staying in line for 40 minutes to be let in. I didn't think I had it in me. I wonder a bit how certain pieces of art become so famous compared to others. E.g. the Mona Lisa is a bit of a mystery, and in the Vatican I was surprised that the part of Genesis on the roof in the Sistine Chapel with the finger of God was so famous above everything else in there. Because while it was awesome, there was so much awesome stuff in that museum altogether.

I liked the square out the front of St Peters Basilica, which is surrounded by three lots of columns/pillars, and if you stand in two certain places in the square, all the columns become eclipsed...like, you can only see the front row, because they are perfectly in line. Anyway, I thought that was cool.

I also was looking forward a lot to the Trevi Fountain, and it was amazingly beautiful, but also packed. And what is with these gypsies selling those noise-makers everywhere in Italy? It is supposed to be romantic! Looking at the Trevi Fountain, I wonder why these days amazingly intricate landmarks like these are no longer created. Everything is chic, and smooth lines, and super giant or super small, but not just being made for beauty like that was.

After Rome we headed for Sorrento, which was disappointing and so I won't say too much about it! The highlight was hiring a scooter on the Amalfi coast, and riding that amazing coastline, although not the bit where Aidan ran the scooter into the side of teh cliff (better than off the other side I suppose). Obviously there were no major injuries! The towns along the coast were pretty from afar, to look at them spill down the mountain side, but inside they were crowded and a bit grotty. The beaches were almost non-existent, and while the water looked nice and clear, I didn't want to lie on thepebbles/dirt/broken bits of concrete that passed for sand, and I most certainly didn't want to have to pay for the privelege! the prettiest town there is Ravella, which is set high up in the hills, and is less busy, and overlooks the ocean and terraces of agriculture.

The next place we went was the most beautiful. Ischia, an island off Naples which is generally snubbed in favour of Capri (all those tourists? no thanks!), is quiet, and favoured by German tourists (I got to use my german, hooray!). It is famous for its numerous hot springs all around the island. We spent a whole day at these things called the Poseidan spa's. this was a sprawling resort kind of thing which was all pools, and landscaped gardens and beach front property! The pools were thermal and ranged from 15-40 degree's celcius. I don't think I went in one under 30! My dream.

The other good thing about Ischia is that it was probably the best accommodation I have ever had anywhere. It was beautifully decorated and centrally located in a cute little village called Forio (I think that was it...). It was a B&B, and the lady was so lovely, and her house was so beautiful. She served us our breakfast outdoors in a beautiful setting and spoke to me in a broken combination of german and English.

While I anticipated trouble from pick pockets while in Italy, or the amputation of my ring finger, we had no trouble at all. Like my experience in Paris and the watched pot that never boils, it seems the more you look out for gypsies, the less you will see. It seems that my Tiffany ring has the effect of looking so misplaced on me that it looks like Accessorize costume jewellery that I might have picked up for £7.99 on Oxford Street.

Anyway, this is the end of my European travels for a little while, next stop Asia...I move to Shanghai next Saturday, 27th October 2007!

T

Portugal

2007-09-08T01:08:00.000-07:00

It was recently the bank holiday weekend, and, like last year, I forgot that I should stay in London for the Notting Hill Carnival! I am so upset that I missed it for my second year running, and when am I going to be in London for it ever again? So stupid. Instead, I did something else very British…I went to the Algarve. This is an area on the south coast of Portugal, where lots of British tourists, and tourists from all over Europe, go for their holidays.

It was just a three day beach break for us, we didn't want anything too strenuous, just relaxing.
However, after three months of Crappo weather in London, which they call a summer, we left London on the nicest morning I have seen here, warm and blue skied. We arrived in Portugal to freezing rain. Fury. Luckily, the weather cleared up that afternoon, but it was a very bad couple of hours for me psychologically

I was a tiny bit worried about the area we were going to, the Algarve, as I had heard from some that it was very very cringe-worthy. The area we stayed was just like a British gold coast, or like if they picked up any English seaside town and put it on a decent beach with nice weather. Which is fine, but, without sounding mean, I don't like British food (or modern culture) at the best of times, and I was quite looking forward to some Vascos/Oporto/Nando's style Portuguese food…however, while there were Chinese restaurants, Indian, a Haagen Dazs restaurant and even an O'Neills, the Portuguese food was nowhere to be found. We finally settled on a restaurant that served mostly western things (Steak Dianne? Hamburger?), but pointed at this other table that looked like they were Portuguese people, and they were having this thing that looked like soupy Paella, with prawns and clams and fish all through it. Turns out that on the menu it was just called 'monk fish', which made me think there was a translation problem, and I didn't want anything called monkfish (which made me think of the Simpson's three eyed fish), but after pointing at the other table a couple more times, we thought they must know what we meant…and yes, it was the yummy soupy Paella.

That first day, the British tourist overload day, was in the Marina. Now, apart from being a lot more expensive obviously, I am beginning to suspect that 'Marina', is just the aquatic version of 'caravan park'…because apart from the bling on these people, they really looked like they were from the trailer park…oooh, is that horribly classist and mean?! I have done my time in caravan parks on holidays, I am not being a snob! I am just saying…Oh yeah, the other thing that the marina seemed to be full of was pubs with large red Englishmen watching soccer games…had to get away from the Marina...

Anyway, we should have known that the Marina would have been the refuge of the tourists, so the next day, we thought we would try something else, and walked down the beach for a while, past the shanty town/caravans, and ended up in the Quarteira, which had fish markets, no sun beds on the beach, and lots of Portuguese restaurants to choose from. We ate a couple of times at this one restaurant that was right over the sand, and which served the most amazing garlic and lemon prawns I have ever had. They were all in their shells still, so I made quite the mess, so much so that the waiter came to me with more napkins three times. I had them for entrée, and loved them so much I was going to have them for dessert too, but for some surprising reason could not fit in prawns+huge steak+potatoes and then more prawns for dessert. Very disappointed in myself.

Before I got there, I was also quite worried about my hotel. I had booked what I thought was a nice four star hotel, for our special weekend away, but then I read some online reviews and they were all terrible! However, it turns out that while it wasn't the Four Seasons, it had a pleasant 70's Dallas style feel about it, with massive rooms, two double beds, a balcony with table and chairs, huge breakfast buffet including chocolate cake, on the beach, beautiful gardens and pool…really I don't know what the complaints were about, they should really have been complaining about other things I think!

So anyway, would highly recommend Portugal, for weather, beach and food…however, would try and avoid the British tourist favourites. They don't like to leave England behind when they are on holiday, but if you, like me, desperately do, then find out where they like to go, and avoid avoid avoid (the bonus with this, is it will probably also be a lot cheaper).

Next trip....Italy....hooraaaaaayyy...

San Sebastian

2007-08-18T03:46:00.001-07:00

On the first weekend of August, Sue-Ellen and I went on a four day break to San Sebastian in Spain. I highly recommend this place, and it goes straight to my top five destinations.
Sue and I meant to go last year, but didn't due to debacles with numerous nay-sayers, so it was good to see that after we made the effort, it was definitely worth it. For those of you who would like to go there, I will give you very easy instructions, because I really think you should all go…
Get a flight to Bilbao. Get a bus from Bilbao airport to Termibus (the main bus station), this will cost only 1.25 Euros. Then get one of the hourly buses to San Sebastian, for about 8 Euros. From my front door in Ridge Hill, to our hostel in San Sebastian, only 7.5 hours. Which includes sitting around in the airport, and all transfers. I think that is fantastic. Let me just say that sue-Ellen and I handled this so well, that we are well on our way to filling out our Amazing Race application forms. (Although I worry that we aren't competitive enough, and are quite lazy, we are convinced that it would be fine, as we have natural skills and luck, which could have us sitting in café's drinking hot chocolate, napping mid day, and still scamming our way to the front. It has been proven before, in Oslo, in San Sebastian. We really are amazing.)
The flights weren't even their usual nightmare, even though we thought they might be, as there was a team of English, rough looking sportsmen in front of us all wearing matching sports jerseys, with T.O.W. printed on the back. Now, before reading on, try and think what sport this might be…Tug-Of-War. Seriously. And they were on their way to some kind of international competition…?
Our hostel was fantastic. With views looking over the beach, big bright windows, tv, three seater couch, big double bed (accident, hostel owner thought we were lesbians), super clean bathrooms and kitchen, and not noisy or anything from the other occupants. In fact, we saw other people in there only twice. The location was also fantastic. Away from the touristy 'old town' and 'swimming' beaches, and instead downtown near the surf beaches. Also conveniently located near a delicious bakery from where we bought our breakfast. It is called Surf Zurriola, if anyone ever wants to stay there, and is around £20 per person per night.
As well as thinking we were lesbians, the hostel owner also thought we were lying when we said we were Australian. As he said, we were 'too dark'. He kept going on about it, so I told him I was Chinese, but Sue-Ellen clung stubbornly to her story, even when he questionned her persistently. (meanwhile, to continue racist theme, small boys yelled out Konichiwa to me on the street! ).
After getting changed into our swimmers, we were straight off to the beach…actually I think that is a lie. I was starving, so it was straight to Tapas down the road, then to the beach. It took us a little minute to understand the etiquette of the tapas, but we were well adjusted after only one meal. We just pick whatever we like, take, it, and somehow, the bartenders remember, and tot it all up at the end. Tortilla, smoked salmon thingy's, meatballs, clams, skewers, prawn things, croquettes…somehow, they manage to make every single thing delicious…except for on Sue's plate, this thing that she described as a 'fish tart'…which really doesn't sound nice…also, they are very good at ice cream making, I of course restrict myself to chocolate, while Sue-Ellen became addicted to pina colada icecream..

Then after tapas, straight to the beach, to lie down, and accumulate a tan which has had NO help all summer, thanks to stupid crap British 'summer'. Lots of topless women, so I thought I would go topless too…kidding! Also, one or two totally naked men. Brown and leathery all over.
Then after the beach, you go home and have a siesta, go out for tapas again in the evening…and then repeat every day! With shopping for a little minute in between. Also, as with all holidays, it is tradition to watch lots of CNN news whenever you are in your room, and we supplemented this with eating lots of cheese and crackers...then fell asleep in sauna like room, which made us wake up feeling quite ill...

On one of the nights, we went out for super expensive cocktails in this fancy hotel called the Maria Cristina, and I got to wear my Alannah Hill dress for the very first time. Unaccustomed to wearing feminina dresses, I felt like a bit of a freakshow for a little while, but it only took half a cocktail, and I was quite comfortable...

On the last day it poured down with rain, making it not too horrific to head off home…which is kind of nice. The return trip was even more of an amazing race effort. Sue-Ellen spotting typical English couple in the airport, deduced they were annoying airport staff to determine which desk would be the check in counter, before they even announced it. so we lined up behind them obviously. One highlight, was that as per usual on a 'grab your own seats flight', people children mill around the front of the queue, not even bothering to line up, because they assume they will get on first with their kids. AHAHAHA fantastic spanish airport personnel were not having a bar of it, and so all the people with kids who hadn't deigned to line up had to go RIGHT TO THE END ahahahaha. Is that evil of me? Well Sue and I got much happiness from that.
Highlight of return trip, was only the game we made up in which we tried to not let anyone sit next to us on the plane (Easy-Jet, get your own seats). I adorned several persona, including raucous 'Girls Aloud'; sickly, coughing puffer-user; sufferer of some disgusting foot disease (excellent in the wake of new foot- and-mouth scandal), and for those parents who might consider placing their child with us, affectionate lesbian.

You know what this is!!!

2007-05-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ignore how wrinkly my hands look.... and imagine it all sparkly, for some reason, the sparkliness doesn't translate through photo's.

New York

2007-04-21T04:52:00.000-07:00

Over the Easter Break, Aidan and I went on a five night trip to New York City . We were very excited, as neither of us had been before, and we anticipated great shopping, food, and lots of famous sights.

All present and accounted for, but what we didn’t expect was freezing cold weather, icy winds and snow on Easter Sunday. Never mind, it just has taught me that next time I go, I will go when it is warmer (I advise you to do the same, unless you want to be stuck inside in the shops all the time!).

On the first day, we arrived in from London at about midday, and then thought we would get a bite to eat, followed by some shopping. Now, I hate cosmetic departments at the best of times (they may as well be screaming out to you that you are all ugly and not good enough and no one will ever love you etc.), but I was outright offended at the amount of makeup some woman forced on me. (I did not volunteer, she forced me into the chair, and when I said I didn’t wear much makeup, she said she would just show me ‘this one thing’). Half an hour later she was writing out a list a mile long of all the stuff she had slapped on me…the only reason I stuck around so long was because she was like a caricature of an American woman…highly entertaining. (I tried to explain to her repeatedly that I had just come on a crack-of-dawn flight from London and that I wasn't normally so hideous looking, but apparently this is no excuse).

The other ‘American caricature’ type highlight of that day was our lunch. I just wanted a ham and cheese sandwich, and I seriously probably got a whole pigs leg. Such massive portions. I am not going to say that is why they are so fat. Because from my experience, Americans don’t seem too much fatter than Australians or English people, but you can’t tell from cities, you always have to go out to suburbia or further, before you get to see the real…ok, I am going to stop now before I get in trouble. But all throughout our trip, the portions were huge, and everything came with a choice of multiple ‘sides’. I quite like the ‘macaroni and cheese’, which comes as a side everywhere, but it seems like it could kill you without too much effort. Delicious though.

To continue on the theme of food, we also checked out the new food hall in Central train station. It showcases a couple of local restaurants by having ‘kiosk’ stalls there. So there is a great variety of food to choose from, not too dear, and not deathly busy. Highly recommended. I got something from some kind of 'Southern' resaurant, called Cousin Jimmy's or something. And I got a side of macaroni cheese. The meal was delicious, but so massive that I took the left overs back to the hotel room for breakfast.

The worst food I had was when I was trying to be cool and told Aidan we should go to this Peruvian restaurant. On the menu, I ordered “Prawns, calamari, Octopus and fish in lemon”…which sounds like a delicious mixed grill or something, right? No. So so wrong. First it was cold. Yuck. Cold wet seafood can make your brain believe you just might be eating cold raw seafood. and not in a nice sushi/sashimi colourful presentation way, but in a wet grey lumped together way. Nightmare of nightmares, it wasn’t a grill at all…it was a SALAD – my arch nemesis of all foods. Not only was it cold seafood in salad form, but it was excessively garnished with two of my most hated flavours – chilli and coriander. Really, it was the nightmare of my life. Bizarrely, Aidan, who is way fussier than me, loved it. I gave it to him, and on the way back to the hotel grabbed some BBQ chicken with macaroni and cheese ‘side’, and sat watching Idol eating it. Surely that is partaking in American culture.

But that was the only bad experience of food, the rest of the food was beautiful, and we went to some quite nice and funky restaurants. However, I must say, that everyone told me food was cheap there, but once you add tax and tips, well it is like a horrible little surprise at the end of every meal.

As it was so cold, we didn’t spend as much time outside as I would have liked, but we did explore Central Park on the one nice warm morning we had, and we walked a lot rather than take the subway (the Tube is so much better, and less scary). I did not get in any Taxi/cabs. We spent a lot of time in shops, but I didn’t buy any clothes or shoes, although Aidan bought quite a bit.

We went on a boat ride around Manhattan (circle line cruises – highly recommended by me, super informative, and the man on the loudspeaker tells people to sit down if they get up and stand in your view), the top of the Rockefeller Centre (so we could have a view of the city AND the Empire state building), Ground Zero (not too much to see there, but what they are planning looks amazing), and all the department stores and shops you hear about (Macy’s, Saks, Bloomingdales). I tried to go and get those Sex and the City cupcakes, but there was a big fat line, and even I don’t need cake that much. (well, I probably do, but I don't need THAT specific cake that much).

As we went at Easter, we were around for the famous ‘Easter Parade’ on Fifth Avenue . Where they cordon off a couple of blocks along that street, and people wander around wearing Easter hats they have made. It was something I have heard of forever, thanks to George and his musicals, and so I was very excited. There weren’t that many people partaking, but those that did put a massive amount of effort into the things. There was also some singing and dancing type things going on, but not very Easter-y (break dancing and calypso music…I like it, but it isn’t Easter related).

Then, as you probably all know by now…as we walked past Tiffany’s Aidan told me that he wanted to buy me some jewellery, because he never has. I told him that he knows I don’t wear jewellery, but we went in and wandered around, and found ourselves on the second floor with all the rings, and so we got engaged and looked at Engagement rings. (not really that spur of the moment, we had talked about it before).

So there you go. That is some pretty big news I suppose. However, after trying on all different types of rings, picking one, counselling ourselves over two days on whether or not it was worth the price, we finally put our bank cards down on the counter to buy my ring…and found out that Tiffany’s doesn’t accept debit cards, only credit cards…boo! So no ring yet. The same ring in the UK Tiffany's is much more expensive, and no way would we get that one. More than a third of the price more! And we coudl get it made elsewhere, but then for the rest of my life I would be looking at it thinking 'This is such a nice copy of the ring I really wanted'. Now, I know everyone thinks I am very spoiled, but I'm not, despite the next sentence: Aidan has flown back to NYC this weekend to get me the Tiffany's ring. I am not spoilt! He had to convince me to let him go, and I am paying for half the ring. It is ridiculously expensive, but can you put a price on something like this? Think would regret forever if I scrimped on this one piece of jewellery I am ever going to wear. Ok, enough self-justification.

The return flight home was easily my best flight ever. We flew out of Newark Airport at around 9pm, and flew past Manhattan island, which was the most amazing panorama view, better than on the boat cruise, or from the top of the Rockefeller Centre. Amazing, dark sky and bright sparkling city. I had the window seat…hooray! Then, I promptly passed out, waking only when we began out descent over London at 9am the next morning, and out the window that time was early morning London, clear skies, and I had a great view of the Thames winding its way through the city (if you have ever seen a horrid show called Eastenders, you might know what the view was like). That flight was easily the best ever.

Next vacation may be a while away due to lack of funds, due to extravagant ring purchase...but thats ok. Don't want to escape London in the summer anyway...it is fantastic already. Everyone smiles more, you can stay out later because it is light and warm, and I have a big backyard and bbq!!! Last weekend was spent lying in the sun with drinks and snacks watching McLeods on my mini-dvd player (excellent purchase).

rambling now. so this is the end.

Photos

2007-04-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to my photo's on the internet. If it doesn't work, maybe see if you can cut and paste into the address bar.

They are just a few photo's...

http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=TracyMusung&CID=1938120&E=Y&ILD=3223573

Australia

2007-03-18T04:45:00.000-07:00

Although they say that when you are tired of London you are tired of life, I must admit that in January this year, I was tired of London . I was sick of the grey, and the cold, and the never wanting to do anything but stay inside and sleep. I couldn’t be bothered doing anything new or different, but at the same time hated the rut I was in. So it was timely that George bought me a return flight home for three weeks in February.

I flew home on Virgin Atlantic – excellent in-flight entertainment, horrifically uncomfortable chairs, and not too crash hot food. However, I was so excited, that I didn’t even care (unlike on the return home flight when I definitely did care, and thought I was near death from lack of good food and air). When I arrived, Kirsty, Betty, Amanda and Graham were all waiting with smiles, hugs and balloons (including a monkey balloon with big ears and stick arms which looked suspiciously like me…I later found out that that is exactly why they bought it).

and then I got driven down to Wollongong, and after being in London for so long...being driven anywhere was a luxury. Being driven all that way, and not having to pay a minimum of £25 was bliss. Even better was later on when I started driving myself, in the fantastic Echo. I thought it would be difficult to be driving again, but it was a piece of cake (due in no small part I am sure to the magnificent engineers of the Toyota Echo, best car in the universe, and superiorly named in Australia, compared to in the UK where it was always called a Yaris...bad, bad name).

While I was in Wollongong I spent a lot of time with all my friends and family, went shopping in Sydney (and bought an Alannah Hill dress for which I will have no use in the foreseeable future unless I star in a London show of A Midsummer Nights Dream), visited my grandma, spent a lot of time in George’s shop catching up with old work-mates and favourite customers, slept in, had afternoon siestas, ate lamingtons and KFC chips, went to the beach, watched McLeods daughters endlessly, bought shoes, ate FRESH fruit and LAMINGTONS!!! yum yum! (since I got back I have attempted to make lamingtons. They came out as delicious, but hard little rocks. Maybe this was because I covered them in melted chocolate, rather than chocolate icing. I will be trying again at some point....

I even had time to fit in a trip to Canberra. I got down there on a Friday afternoon, loaded down with cakes. Bredoir let me into the building and I wandered around the third floor giving away cake to mostly strangers. No one knew who I was, yet they all accepted food from me, which shows, that we don't really learn from childhood that we shouldn't accept sweets from strangers. I also met my replacements in the FaCS AAU...um, I don't think there is too much to say about that without getting into trouble from the politeness police. Thank you everyone that came out for tea with me on that Friday, re-enacting my farewell dinner of over two years ago (similar to that farewell, I also got to sight my 'nemesis' which is always good for a laugh). Thanks to Tina Lee and Phoebs (and Josh) for letting me stay at your flats, thanks Arun for driving all the way down, and thanks to Robin for the lovely Finance anniversary mug.

While I am on thanks...thanks to Kirsty for coming all the way down from Brisbane and Christina for driving me to the airport, and every other man and his dog (especially Betty George Amanda and Graham), for making my time at home so special.

I dreaded coming back to London , rain and work. But when I got here, the weather had brightened up, the days had started getting longer, and everyone was in a better mood. That immediately made me feel better. Then the weather snapped, and it started snowing, and now it is like I had never left at all...but I am trying to be positive!!!

The work situation is getting to be quite interesting (“will I stay or will I go”-type-drama’s) and my housemates are all back from winter trips, so it feels fun again. I think I can battle it out for a bit longer over here.

Since being back I have even been getting out at the weekend, exploring london, or like yesterday, I went to Cambridge for the first time.

Also, I have a five night mini-break in New York planned for the Easter Weekend! hooray!!! So I guess that will be my next post!!!

I can't be bothered proof-reading this, hope it is ok.

2007-01-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

Ridge Hill

2007-01-25T13:33:00.000-08:00

It has been pointed out to me from many sides that I have not posted for quite a while. This is only because I have not been on any trips in quite a while, and therefore, have not much to say.

However, in an attempt to please my mass of fans, I will now post on my new house. Which isn’t really new anymore, I moved in October, but have restrained myself in posting about it until I got absolutely desperate for news.

Ok, so, in October, I moved from south east London , (Bermondsey), to North West London, (Golders Green). I moved for a few reasons, one of which was an inability to get along with one of my housemates, but mainly I wanted to move in with Aidan, and I liked his housemates and the area his house is in. So I have gone from sharing a three bedroom flat with two irish boys, to living in a nine person house sharing with kiwi’s and aussies. There are three couples, a pair of brothers, and a threesome of friends, so it is all very friendly and family like. It is not at all a party house like some other houses I know, and, most importantly, I am not the only girl. There are five girls to four boys – hooray.

I can see your amazement now…nine people!?!? But the house is quite big, our bedroom is very big and we spend a lot of time in it, there are three bathrooms…basically, there is plenty room, and it is nice to have a house of friendly, but quiet, people. (That is the other good thing, in Bermondsey, my bedroom faced a very noisy road. In Golders Green it faces a very quiet backyard!).

One other reason I moved, was because I thought south east London was dodgy, and that north west looked safer. Bermondsey is a council estate type area, but it is getting nicer as people buy out the council flats, because it is very near the city. Golders Green is a wealthier, family-oriented, Jewish area. So I thought it would be nice and quieter and safer. Hmmm, well, I am not going to dwell too much on that…

I have also had a couple of visitors over the past few months. Emma stayed with me for a week, and now Sel is with me for two weeks. It is excellent, and feels like I never left Canberra . There is a lot of pudding eating and Gilmore Girl watching going on. I also went to see the Dirty Dancing stage show with Emma, and the Nutcracker Ballet. Sel and I went out to the countryside last weekend, but that is the last time I will do that until summer. We were glad to get home, and have reverted to lying on my bed all day watching Gilmore Girls. This is what winter is for.

Then, for Christmas, we spent it with Aidan’s sister and her lover, and it was wonderful company, food and presents (wonderful, WONDERFUL food). New Years was a non-event though, as I was in bed and asleep before midnight. If you think I was a home body in Australia , imagine what I am like in a freezing cold country where it gets dark at 4pm and I have no car. That’s right.

So now I am waiting for my next holiday, which is to go home for three weeks in February. I am looking forward to seeing everyone very much, eating proper fresh food, and maybe getting a little bit of a tan.

See you all soon.

Paris Take 2

2006-11-02T13:42:00.000-08:00

Although I had already been to Paris on a romantic mini break this time last year with Bredoir, it did not preclude me from going on another just this past weekend. Can there be such a thing as ‘too many romantic mini-breaks to Paris ’?

This time, it was another bargainous trip, as it was all organised and paid for by the lovely Aidan as my birthday present. Potentially, the best birthday present ever (not future-inclusive, so as to preclude from the possibility of it all being ‘down hill from here’).

We set off early on Saturday morning down to Waterloo to get the Euro Star. The only morning in recent history where it wasn’t an effort to get out of bed! It was fantastic to be going somewhere foreign without going to the airport AND only carrying a handbag! (Aidan just had a day pack). The Eurostar is the best thing ever, and I suspect I shall have to use it much more in the future. You only need to be there 20 minutes before your train leaves, you don’t have to line for hours anywhere (all self check in), you get assigned seats (unlike stupid cheapo airlines over here who for some reason think it is prohibitively expensive to write 17C on your ticket), and the station isn’t out in the middle of whoop whoop like all airports (similarly for the station when you get to Paris). Really, Eurostar is the way of the future!

When we arrived, we went straight to a shopping area recommended by a girl from my work, and basically I bought the first pair of shoes I saw. They are the best shoes ever, and already I have had lots of compliments on them (solicited). I assumed that was the start of a mad shopping frenzy, however, I didn’t buy anything else the rest of the weekend.

Of course though there was lots of food buying, mostly patisserie goods. London , and England in general, severely lack good patisseries and bakeries. In fact, there aren’t even many bad bakeries, there are just not many bakeries at all. If anyone wants a business opportunity (Michels) I think there is a market. I mean, English people are junk food gobbling hogs just like the rest of the world, so I don’t know why they wouldn’t want more cake. And pies. They look like they would be good pie-eaters. However, you might need to deep-fry them first.

I also found a fantastic chocolate bar in Paris called ‘Ovamaltine’… like ‘saxamaphone’….it is a block of chocolate riddled with Ovaltine (you know, like Milo), and it is super reminiscent of the old Milo bars (which were, incidentally, far, far, far superior to current Milo bars). Unfortunately, Aidan shares my love of Milo-bar type goods, so the two family blocks of Ovamaltine we bought are nearly gone, and I don’t know how on earth I am going to get any more. He is lovely though, and lets me be greedy and doesn’t eat too much of it himself.

So on the Saturday it was just a lot of walking around in the Latin Quarter and Marais areas (including the Luxembourg Gardens which were beautiful), and then in the evening we went up to our hotel in Montmartre and wandered around there a lot, and had some tea. That area would be nice, and I know it is just all touristy, but I’m sorry, the proliferation of sex shops and sex shows disturbs me…or maybe that is because I am a sensitive little flower. I did get offered free entry to the sex show though! Didn’t go in…thought would ruin the idea of ‘romantic mini-break’…also don’t know what I would do in such a situation,…isn’t it a natural instinct to avert your eyes, but then will they be offended if you do that? And really, it would be a waste of money (if you were paying)…oh it was all too confusing. So instead, we walked up to the Sacre Couer, and sat on a wall and looked out over Paris with the big, white, Sacre Couer all lit up and beautiful. Think is my favourite part of Paris .

Then on the Sunday, all the shops are closed, (backwards! Backwards! Tasmania !), so we went and walked around the area near the Louvre, and then out to the Catacombs. The Catacombs are these excavated tunnels under the city where they have stored these zillions of peoples bones (because it was thought during the plague that they were making people sick, so they dug them up out of the cemetery and shoved them down these tunnels which were limestone quarries). But then, they didn’t just pile them up, they stored them in all these designs and stuff, and made kind of ‘art work’ out of them. I have never imagined that one cemetery could have had so many bones. (I tried to find on the internet how many bones, but couldn’t find a number, so I will put a conservative estimate in at a zillion. There are some cool pictures if you go to http://www.quovadimus.org/paris/cat/thumb.html so you can see what I am talking about… I don’t even know if that link will work on my blog).

So yeah, very very good weekend.

In other news, I have moved out of Bermondsey (close to city, expensive, full of derro’s) and moved in with Aidan in Golders Green (quieter, far less derros, much cheaper, but a bit farther out). We have not yet killed each other, and it is going really well so far. I am now living in a massive share house, true Aussie-in-London style….9 people! My last house was only 3 people. Luckily Aidan and I have a huge, quiet room, and our own bathroom. And if you couldn’t have guessed from the fact that I wanted to live there, it isn’t a party house. They are all really nice people actually (although most of them are Kiwi’s).

Barcelona

2006-10-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

Despite my hatred of airports and flying, I just had to do one last trip, before I hung up my backpack…so I had three nights in Barcelona with Olivia and Sue-Ellen! Plans for sun baking were soon dropped, as the weather was drizzly, but it still ended up being a fab weekend.

It was the weekend of the Merca festival, which celebrates the beginning of Autumn. So the city was full of markets, street theatre, music, food and wine tasting, and street parades. It was a fantastic party atmosphere, despite the weather… (which cleared up on Sunday, giving me a few hours of sun baking). The party was still going at 3:30am Monday morning as we drove to the airport. (Not me partying, the city. I was in bed by nine of course).

Now lets discuss my newly found hatred of British Airways. Cut-price airlines all the way for me now. BA delayed me on the way to Barcelona , and on the way back, FORCING me to have Monday off work to relax after my harrowing flight…or at least to go for a late breakfast with Sue and Liv and then eat Brownies and ice cream all afternoon…stupid airline. Easy Jet wouldn’t care if there were engineering problems, they would throw some Clag glue on it and we would be off! BA has to get ‘engineers’ in…as if engineers are good for anything, except wasting my time!

However, back to the positive. As we were wandering around Barcelona on Friday afternoon we saw a big poster advertising a George Michael concert for the very next day. We searched for tickets all over, until eventually we bought some on the day out of some random cash machine. Bit daunting to have my credit card put into a Spanish-only ‘ATM’ and have Sue and Liv experimentally pressing all the random buttons they could find in an effort to bring up George Michael tickets…but I don’t seem to have any scary charges on my card. (That’s right, in Barcelona you can buy tickets to sporting and music events in the cash machines!?)

The concert was in a massive stadium up the top of the hill near the palace in Barcelona , and we had the most excellent seats. Andre the giant was sitting in front of me for a little second, but he was in the wrong seat, so moved before the concert even started. The stage was awesome…a single screen that ran down the back wall and across the floor and down the front, with George dancing all over it. The highlights of the concert being George singing ‘Faith’ in a totally coked up frenzy, and the giant blow up George Bush with a British bulldog performing…well, you know…on him.

The other highlight of Barcelona was the tapas. We went to a restaurant for tapas and paella, which was excellent, but we also went to a tapas bar, where you just point out all the things you want. Yum Cha and Tapas have the right idea…sometimes you want a taste of lots of different things. That is why Sue and I think there should be dessert tapas! Yum yum. With tiny tarts, profiteroles, little waffles, strawberries, brownies, scoops of icecream…mmmm, isn’t that a great idea! More food should come in the tapas/yum cha style. Not All-you-can-eat though, it would be paying individually like yum cha. All you can eat is a terrible idea I think, because most people do NOT know when to stop eating and really we all eat a lot more than we even need (I should know, being one of the worst offenders). Why are meals at restaurants so huge? Why are all the meals at take away places able to be upsized to XXXXL super humongous size with a five gallon coke? I don’t know…we’re all big fat piggies, we are.

In continuation of that theme, the other good food in Barcelona was, not Spanish, but BBQ chicken and chips, like how we have back home. In England it is all deep fried, oily and feral, but the chicken and chips in Barcelona reminded me of Red Rooster, which I really miss.

AND of course, because Sue-Ellen was there, we obviously went for lunch at the Hard Rock Café…Sue is the only person that takes me to Hard Rock Café’s.

End of food discussions.

We were a bit worried about our accommodation, as we booked into a one star hotel…but I am not even sure what those stars mean, because the hotel was fine! It was clean, breakfast included, and our own bathroom, AND airconditioning. Sure there were prostitutes out the front, but it was only a couple of minutes off La Rambla, so you can’t complain.

We also went to see the fantastic fountain out the front of the palace, which is truly the most impressive fountain I have ever seen. It is huge and does all these water and light displays, so the best time to see it is at night. The other cool thing was obviously the Gaudi architecture around Barcelona . In particular, La Famiglia church or chapel or whatever it is.

I also went to the first ever Camper store (you know, Camper shoes), to try and find some boots. Because the only boots I have that aren’t kids boots, are Camper ones, since I am afflicted with the ‘stick in a bucket’ syndrome of skinny, skinny legs. Unfortunately, the first ever Camper store does not seem to have evolved since its beginnings and was terribly lame. However, in the airport I bought some excellent Camper boots. Now I wish had bought them in every colour I could find…because they don’t sell that style in London . Sad times.

Hmmm, what else have I been up to? Well, my family came and visited for 9 days, and I took time off work to do some touristy things with them and see some shows and eat vegan food….bleugh. sorry mand. We celebrated Amanda’s 30th birthday while she was here, and I think it was incredibly lucky/excellent that I didn’t have to miss out on that milestone. We saw the Woman in Black, which is a spooky play, and We Will Rock You, which is a musical based on Queen songs, which I didn’t think I would like but actually it was quite good. It was sad to see them go, but it didn’t make me as homesick as it could possibly have had. It would be nice to be able to go round to mum and Manda’s house like I used to, to chat and watch telly, eat and cook together, but hopefully there is a lot more of that to be done in the future, and not doing it now will not mean I can never do it again.

Then last weekend I went to a gig at Brixton Academy , which is a really cool theatre. The gig was Jurassic 5, which I think is too cool for me, because I could not understand a word they were saying. It was strange that the whole place was packed out with white people, considering it was a) in Brixton and b) a hip hop gig…those white-collar, white people with their hip hop music! I don’t know…

Scotland

2006-09-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone, my latest adventure has been driving around Scotland for ten days with Aidan. We both had a fantastic time, despite the horrors of the first day. Although he hasn’t driven a manual since his driving test, Aidan thought it would be a cool idea to hire a manual (?). When we went to pick up the car however he stalled it about fifteen times in a row…dodgy considering we weren’t even out of the rental car lot. This was followed by him practice driving around the back streets of Finchley for a while, during which I jumped out of the car and got a bus home. Stressful, stressful ….although it was a bad start to a holiday, we ended up having a lovely time.

General impressions were that I didn’t particularly like Scottish towns, while loving their scenery and wilderness. This isn’t to say Glasgow and Edinburgh weren’t good. Edinburgh was amazing and we didn’t really go into the centre of Glasgow (petrified by the Government funded billboards on the outskirts of the city proclaiming ‘anyone can become addicted to heroin’ and memories of Trainspotting).

The vibe in Edinburgh was really excellent, because it was the time of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We have decided that we will definitely go back next year for the festival, and stay a bit longer, as we only saw two shows. (We missed out on tickets for a show entitled ‘I'm worried that I'm starting to hate almost everyone in the world’ …which seemed just right for Aidan and I, and we were understandably disappointed). The shows we did see were ‘Bill Hicks – slight return’, which was a guy doing stand up in an impersonation of Bill Hicks, kind of offensive, and totally hilarious. And a play called ‘The Black Jew Dialogues’, which gave an insight into the current issues with being black or jewish in America. It was quite an eye-opener, as I think in Australia we have very different racial issues. I saw an odd poster in the street for some kind of ‘theatre’ called ‘Tits and Blood’, but despite my intrigue, it had finished the night before.

We also did a ghost tour of the city, which wasn’t as scary as I had been told, because I think I have been desensitised by too many scary movies (footnote: creepiest movie part ever – the end of the Ring with the coming out of the telly thing. Most disturbing movie part ever – Saw 2 where they throw her in that pit of syringes!! Aagghh!) Now, back to my actual story, they walked us around the city, and then into the vaults under the cities main bridge (they filled in the arches under the bridge to make more room for the exploding population of Edinburgh a couple of hundred years ago, but they were leaky and cold and crap, so they moved everyone out again, blocked them off, and they were only opened again recently). Then they took us to some graveyard in the pitch black, and into some old run down vault (you know those family tomb things), which I swear to god I would not have gone near if it was daylight and I could actually see! Suspect they had to clear out the junkies before they took us in there, and god knows what I was stepping on – most terrifying moment of the night. They had some good gory stories though. Mostly about torture that the Government had imposed on people (think the end of Braveheart, pulling out your guts and showing you, etc). There was one good story about some Duke, whose son was insane so they locked him in the attic, and one day he got loose, and he went down to the kitchen, where he found a boy turning a pig on a spit over the fire. He took the pig off, put the boy on, cooked him, and ate him! This is supposedly a true story. But why would he not just eat the pig? Hmm, probably something to do with the ‘being insane’ thing.

Lastly on Edinburgh, I want to do a plug for the best meal I ate in Scotland. The food was amazing, and the service was the best I have had in the UK, seriously. It was at a pub/restaurant called The Villager, on Melbourne Street which runs off the Royal Mile. (Best thing about Scottish restaurants – no smoking, unlike in England!). If anyone that reads this ever goes there, you really should look in on this place. It was excellent.

After Edinburgh it was out into the highlands for the rest of our trip, starting with Oban. We stayed in a B&B about 15 minutes drive out of Oban…thank God. Oban is a bit of a Bateman’s Bay…Rowans Funland tacky if you know what I mean. The main attraction is that it is a port town, and this is how you get out to the southern islands of the west coast. We took a boat tour to take us out among the islands to see some Wildlife and the whirlpools. Whirlpools were a disappointment, as Aidan had hyped me up to expect a huge swirling vortex, which we would have to be careful not to let the boat get dragged in to….in reality, it was just this area of ocean with really glassy water interspersed with tiny little ‘whirlpools’…it was ok, but I wouldn’t recommend it. As for the wildlife, they were mostly hiding…saw some seals, some deer and an eagle…oh and other birds, but if they aren’t puffins (and they weren’t) then I don’t really care much for birds. There were two people running the boat cruise. One, a new grad marine biologist girl was interesting to me, simply because I always wondered where those marine biologists actually get jobs. And the man, about forty years old, was seriously, Ian McFadden. From the comedy company? He used to play an explorer? Well it wasn’t really him, but he acted/talked exactly like him.

The B&B at Oban was probably my least favourite, as I found the lady that ran it very school-marmish, and you could sense marital tension between her and her husband. Also the house wasn’t ye olde like the others, it was almost like one of those kit homes, very flimsy feeling. But it was in a great location on the coast, five minute walk to a little castle, so it wasn’t all bad. Felt mean when the next day we rushed off with me saying ‘quick Aidan, quick, before she talks to us!’…and then she rushed out to our car to give us a copy of a Calendar that she had done the photography for….I am so mean…Otherwise, all the people running the B&B’s were nice, they were all ladies except for one. I really recommend B&B’s because they are relatively cheap compared to hotels, and they are nicer/cleaner/quieter than hostels. But like I said, it is nicer to stay out of the Scottish towns if at all possible…they are a bit dreary and depressing…whereas if you stay out of town you can stay cheaply in a B&B that might overlook a loch, or be at the edge of a moor, or at the foot of a beautiful mountain!

Next stop was the Isle of Skye via Glen Coe. The scenery driving through Glen Coe and around that area was the most beautiful in Scotland, I certainly don’t have the talent to describe it, we will see if my photo’s will turn out any good. Story of Glen Coe: so, the English were annoyed at this Scottish clan for some reason (forgetting to sign some treaty on time or something), so they sent some soldiers to go and stay with them, all friendly and nice, and for two weeks these Scottish clan people looked after them and had no idea what was going on and then one morning, the English soldiers just turned on their hosts and slaughtered them! Bastards! There were a lot of stories of English bastardry on our drive around Scotland. Although, another one, about the clearances, I thought it was the English people that did the clearances (i.e. where they cleared all the highlanders out of the highlands), but you know what? It wasn’t! it was some of the heads of the Scottish Clans!

We stayed in a lovely B&B on the Isle of Skye on a mountain overlooking a beautiful loch. On Skye I would recommend the Fairy Pools walk. It takes you for a walk through a moor at the foot of these towering mountains, to these clear water ponds and pools among waterfalls. Skye was also the place where I could get up close enough to a highland cow to take a photo (although very uncomfortable, as I think there were people in a nearby van having sex with the door open that wanted me to go away).

Then we drove up to Ullapool which is another port town that has ferries that take you out to the more northern west islands like Isle of Lewis. Here they had what was touted by Radio 4 as the ‘Best takeaway in Britain’. It was a fish and chip shop, and the only one I have seen in Britain so far that does not have the food pre-cooked and sitting in heated little coffins at the counter. They fried it all fresh, and it was probably the best I have had over here – though that doesn’t say much. The fish and chips at the top shop at Farmborough Hts (circa any of the multitude of owners) could beat the crap fish and chips they serve up in Britain.

Next we drove up the far north coast and around to Mey, where we stayed the night and had a fantastic home cooked meal at our B&B. It was just up the road from the Castle of Mey (which is apparently where the Queen Mother used to chill out), and so we walked up there and had a gander. We could also see over to the Orkneys from our B&B, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to go over there and check them out. We had great weather that day, and went past some white sand beaches, so I have got some summer-beach looking photos that are quite incongruent with the idea of a Scottish holiday.

The next day we drove down to Kingussie, which is in the heart of ‘Monarch of the Glen’ country. We went to try and take a photo of the Monarch of the Glen castle, but we couldn’t because it was the one day of the trip where it poured down with rain. If it was fine weather, I would have walked around to the castle, because even though it is privately owned, there are no trespass laws in Scotland, so you can walk wherever the hell you like! Lucky for them it was raining. On that day we also went to Loch Ness (disappointingly one of the more unappealing lochs – boring, grey, choppy, no monster) and Culloden. Culloden being the battlefield where Scotland finally lost properly to the British and like 1500 Scottish people were slaughtered (they had no shoes!) and only 50 English died (they had big f*ck off artillery stuff!).

We also went to a highland games on the edge of Loch Ness, which was an experience. It is kind of like a school fete/athletics carnival rolled into one, plus, I assume, a lot of liability insurance, since big men were throwing big dangerous heavy things around everywhere. It was no St Mary’s International Night, but the locals were loving it.

On our final night, we stayed outside of Glasgow down near Lanark, on a farm. This was very close to the Falls of Clyde, which is a waterfall on the River Clyde, so we did a nice little walk along there. The walk starts at a place called New Lanark, which is obviously much older than the normal Lanark, so was a bit confusing. Apparently it was called New Lanark, because this was the place that Robert Owens introduced radical new labour practices during the dark days of the Industrial Revolution (like not putting children down the mines!).

This was also near where Aidan’s uncle lives (in Busby), so we went and had lunch with him, and he showed us some photo’s of Aidan as a youngster. In one photo he looked about 16, but when I looked at the back of the photo, it was only 3 years ago! London has certainly aged him! He says it is because that photo was taken before he started full time work…

Well, my next trip will be to Barcelona in a couple of weeks, for a long weekend with Sue-Ellen and Olivia, but after that I might wind the travels back a bit. I think I take my trips a bit too much for granted, and don’t get as excited about going when I go all the time, so I might lay off for a while, and then can get worked up for my next trip. Also, another contributing factor is that I have now developed an absolute hatred for Airports. I hate the waiting, I hate the queues, I hate the crap shops, I hate being felt up at security, I hate cheap airlines that don’t allocate you a seat so you have to push and shove otherwise you get shoved in between two people who are such a size they should get the three seats to themselves, I hate those people that use a ‘trolley’ to put their tiny little bag on, I hate the horrible food that is 845 times normal price, I hate that the airports are all outside the city so it is a trek to even get to the airport in the first place and even worse is all this when you are coming home, because there is not much to be excited about at the other end!

Okay….so that is my airport rant….

Greece

2006-07-01T11:55:00.000-07:00

Now, although I am not at work, I am ready to blog (work having been unseasonably busy since my return!).

Two weeks in Greece, overall itinerary was four nights in Athens, two in Mykonos, two in Paros, two in Ios and four in Santorini. Travel partner was Shauna from my work, but unfortunately, also a motley crew of contiki-style people as well. Busabout turned out to be less like a Eurail pass (as I had thought), and more like a Contiki pash-and-booze-a-palooza. Best part of that is, that although I had a good time, fabulous weather, beautiful islands...i did not resent coming home too much, as I was coming back to my own room and some peace and quiet. (In flat news, my canadian flatmate is moving out and an irish man moving in, so now will be just me and two irish men...hmmm....I feel a pilot for a sitcom coming on).

We flew into Athens with very low expectations. Everyone had said that Athens was completely lame and dirty. However, I found this to not be at all the case. First of all, the airport was lovely. They even have a museum in the airport showing all the bits and pieces dug up when they were building the airport (vases, plates, etc). The trains into the city were really clean and easy to use as well. Having been to Istanbul recently, I found Athens was no dirtier than Istanbul...actually quite a bit cleaner.

Our hotel was also fabulous. The man at the desk was the most helpful hotel man the world has ever seen, AND it had free internet. We were pretty much in the central tourist district, a fifteen minutes walk from the acropolis, among lots of restaurants and across the road from some kind of porno cinema. It is very impressive walking through Athens, as you can see the Acropolis up on the hill from nearly everywhere.

First night in Athens we went out to try the local cuisine, which haunted me all through the night and made me appreciate the chair that was situated next to the toilet in the bathroom. Quite comfortable to be able to sit on a chair next to the toilet, back against a cool tile wall, able to vomit whenever you like...well as comfortable as you can be after throwing up for hours anyway.Better than sitting on the floor! Ok, think have flogged the vomiting story to death...Despite the first meal in Greece turning my stomach, I decided not to avoid the local cuisine thereafter, and really did not have another problem. In fact, loved Souvlaki, which is of course meat on a stick...mmmm. convenient. In double che news, double che in greece was odd as it had no sauce, no onion, and no pickle!

So in Athens we visited the Archaelogical museum, the Acropolis, the Agora's (ruins of marketplaces), temple of Zeus, and we caught a bus down to the temple of Poseiden at Sounion, which is kind of just like all the ruins in Athens, but by the ocean...which is nice. The most impressive thing I found about all these ruins, is that the marble that they are all made of was mined on Paros in the Greek Islands, which is at least 7 hours away on a modern ferry! so 2700 years ago, someone found this marble on the islands, mined it, and shipped bazillions of tonnes of it all the way to Athens to build not only the acropolis, but lots of other temples around the place, and even many of the gutters in Athens are made of marble!

From Athens we caught a five and a half hour ferry out to Mykonos, where we stayed at the Contiki resort. Hilariously, for those who know my feelings on loud americans, the majority of the resort was at the time booked out to students from Miami university. To my uneducated mind it was reminiscent of all those shows you see about 'Spring Break'. Their confidence and volume were amazing. Another funny thing was that our tour guide for the Busabout thing I was on was a young american called Cody...as soon as he introduced himself I could not stop smiling. Natalie, a girl I befriended on the trip, pointed out to him that in the book 'Freakonomics' she was reading, Cody was the number one name that uneducated parents choose to name their child. (I did not look into this statistic, but assume that the survey was only taken of americans, because if it was an international survey, and Cody was the most common name chosen by undeducated people internationally...well maybe I shouldn't go there in case I get hunted down and killed for Anti-american sentiments...)

In Mykonos we explored the little town, which was everything you would expect the greek islands to be about...whitewashed buildings with colorful doors and shutters, cobblestone streets, restaurants on the water, white dome roofed churches and windmills. There were also these couple of pink pelicans walking around the town. They aren't scared of people and just walk up and down the streets, into shops, get chased out of shops. Apparently the original pelican was a gift to Mykonos from that Jackie Onassis.

Back at the resort, we lazed around on the beach a lot on sun loungers and under umbrellas, taking advantage of the fact that they were free, as on every other beach we went to they cost quite a bit. Then I went on this thing, which was like a big rubber donut, that they tie to the back of a speed boat and take you out on the ocean for fifteen minutes or so....very fun.

After Mykonos we went to Paros (where all that marble came from). Paros was a lot quieter, the towns are still as picturesque though. The accommodation was hideous, so if possible, if you go to Paros do NOT stay at a place called the Coral Roms in Naoussa. Naoussa itself is quite nice though. In paros we climbed this MOUNTAIN to St Anthonys Monastery, which was beautiful, but I nearly died (repeat occurence on volcano walk which I will talk about later). We visited the traditional village of Lefkes, which is built away from the coast and up in the hills to hide from pirates...which is odd, because throughout the greek islands, all the other towns seem to be built on the coast.

The third island we visited was Ios, where we stayed at the 'Far Out' resort. I highly highly highly recommend this accommodation to anyone going to Ios.But stay in the hotel, not the camping grounds, as the bungalows in the camping grounds are stiflingly hot and full of insects, so Shauna and I upgraded to the hotel, which was only 17 Euros a night each anyway, airconditioned, and beautiful. There isnt much to say about Ios, other than that it is the party island of the area and it is super cheap. It is very debaucherous, and not really my scene, but I had fun anyway, and got a little bit tipsy on my first night there.

My favourite island of the four was Santorini. Actually, the island is not called Santorini. the island we stayed on is called Thira, and the group of islands is Santorini. All the islands used to be part of a volcano (I suppose they still are actually). After some big earthquake, a lot of the sides of the volcano collapsed, and the ocean ran into the volcano, and there were just bits and pieces of the volcanos rim left above sea level. and those are the islands. They are all situated in a circle shape, so you can see how big the volcano would have been (9 by 6 miles apparently). In the middle of the circle are some new islands, which are made of lava that is being pushed up from the centre of the volcano. (I don't think I explained all that properly).

Santorini is beautiful. High, jagged cliffs, with villages perched on top, white washed buildings set against the dark cliffsides, and beautiful sunsets. The first night we went out for dinner on the Caldera, which is the very edge of the inside rim of the volcano...I sat and ate my squid (ordered calamari, it came out as a whole entire squid), facing the ocean and the other islands, high above sea level, watching an amazing sunset. Would have been romantic had I been with anyone good (you know what I mean). After dinner we went to a pub to watch the Australia Croatia game, and since we got through to the next round, I may have gotten a little bit tipsy...

This was to haunt me the next day as I clambered around the lava volcano island thing, in searing heat with a hangover. The ground was all black, barren, dusty and hot, it was a steep walk, there was no shade, it was a nightmare. Old, fat ladies were walking past me with no problems though...

After that we caught a boat around to another side of the volcano and dove off the boat into beautiful clear blue waters to swim into shore where there were some hot springs. As I dove off the boat into the water (movie-style) I felt a million times better, very refreshed, and was able to enjoy the warm springs and soft clay/mud which is apparently supposed to be very good for your skin.

Santorini is also famous for its three different types of beaches. Black sand, red sand and white sand. We didn't see the white sand, as with limited time we assumed these would be the same as all the other beaches we had seen, but we went to the black and red.

The red sand beach was my favourite of all the beaches on all the islands. It isn't really sand, it is red pebbles, but they are quite comfortable on the feet, and the water is amazingly clear. It is set against a background of these sheer cliffs which are black and red rock...very impressive. Must somehow post photos.

The black sand beach was much less impressive. It is what I would imagine Port Kembla beach to look like if Port Kembla beach wasn't actually nice, and if it had coal instead of sand. The water wasn't as clear either. The only good feature of it was that it was a lot easier to get to than the red sand beach, which you had to clamber around a point to get to (although, that only adds to its charms in my opinion).

I have returned from Greece with quite a good tan I think, not one speck of sunburn, and a really cool necklace thatI have taken a photo of which I will also have to post. If you are going to the Greek Islands though, try to make it early or late summer, as it was almost uncomfortably hot already at this time of year (or am I just becoming too British...?).

For Nicholas

2006-06-22T03:28:00.000-07:00

It appears that Nicholas is of the opinion that my blogging skills are just not up to scratch. So to prove him wrong I am posting from the resort computers on IOS!!!! (Greek Island).

I will do a proper post on my trip when I get back and can write it in my own time, but I will just let you know that I am having a great time and have so far been to Athens, Mykonos, Paros and Ios.

Ios is the biggest party Island of them all, and it is the home of my first drunken night in probably about six months! I stayed out till 5am if you can believe it and would have partied longer but was dragged back to the resort. It turns out that there is a cocktail called Sex on the Beach that tastes a lot like juice and costs only 3 Euros!!! Good times indeed.

Anyway, I cannot post anymore as I am still on holidays and would rather be out on the beach!!!!

Will post more when I have time....like when I am back at work.

Traks.

Norway

2006-05-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

The past weekend was the Bank holiday weekend in the UK, so to maximise this time off, Sue-Ellen and I decided to go to Norway! Never has a weekend been so jam packed – although, we still oddly had time for day time naps and long spells in coffee shops (where they sold hot chocolate in bowls, which, while very difficult to carry, was obviously my dream).

We stayed in Oslo for three nights, but on the Sunday we spent 24 hours travelling across the country to Bergen, in what can only be described as a ‘beautiful ordeal’. We desperately wanted to see Fjords you see, but there are no decent fjords near Oslo – For example, the ‘Oslo Fjord’, was somewhat reminiscent of Lake Illawarra! So we bought tickets on a tour called ‘Norway in a nutshell’, which promised lots of beautiful scenery, although at a somewhat gruelling schedule, including an overnight return train trip.

The overnight return train trip is basically at the crux of the ‘ordeal’. Ideally, we would have had a sleeper carriage. These were all booked out. The tour lady told us not to worry though, because the train had reclining chairs, blankets, pillows, eyemasks,…very comfortable apparently.

The first thing we noticed, as we took our seats at 11pm, was that our seats, being at the back, and hence up against a wall, could not recline. Secondly, as we were at the back of the carriage, we were at the doors, which squeaked interminably loudly when anyone exited (squeak describes the sound, but not the volume, of this noise. What sound would a mouse make if it was the size of a hippo? Yes, a hippo sized mouse squeak is a good description). You would think that wouldn’t happen often during the hours of 11pm-6am, as most people would sleep. No. It seems that more people than I would have imagined suffer from INCONTINENCE and need to use the bathroom frequently. One word. Poise.

Also, I had the crankiest and ugliest man in the world in front of me, who made faces at me, imitated my laugh and was basically a bit of a bastard. Case in point – he did not put his chair in the upright position the whole journey, not even when he was getting off the train, he left it down in my lap the whole time!

Anyway, during the night, Sue-Ellen and I could obviously not sleep comfortably and were hysterical from tiredness, so we were laughing a lot. An old Norwegian couple in the seats similar to us across the aisle, were also hysterical and the four of us were laughing uproariously and communicating solely with hand/leg signals and facial expressions. They were so lovely, they even shared some of their odd Norwegian food with us (some rice cake type thing covered in some kind of cheese/peanut butter/apricot flavoured wax type something or other which I subtly shoved in between the chairs, and Sue Ellen hid in her shoe – still it was so lovely of them to share). I loved the man in particular, because he did a pretend kick in the air to get some ‘leg room’ and nearly kicked cranky man in front of me in the head. Hooray!

So yes, we were hysterical, and quickly reverted to our highschool years – how better to deal with this situation, than to write a song! Thus the creation of ‘Non-Reclining Chair’, sung to the tune of Bon Jovi’s ‘Living on a Prayer’. Once we had developed that song, we still had some creative juices flowing, so started another one called ‘The Pain Train’, sung to the tune of ‘The Peace Train’, but we think we must have passed out, so that is still in development.

Anyway, best stop whingeing about the worst part of the trip, and explain what we actually saw.
We left Oslo very early in the morning to catch the Bergensbanen mountain train line across the Hardangervidda National park, which was over 4000 feet above sea level, and had frozen rivers/lakes, snow fields as far as the eye can see, just really spectacular winter type scenes. Then we took the Flam Railway through the Flam valley, where the highlights are these amazing waterfalls that run the melting snow down into the fjords.

Side note: it was a ye olde train that stopped randomly to let people off to take photo’s. Sue and I got off, in the middle of nowhere, and the train almost straight away started to pull away. We were running after the train, with a man hanging out the door trying to lift us on. I don’t know why I was running, as I was not going to be jumping on to a moving train – apart from the ridiculousness of it, I was too short. So Sue-Ellen scrambled on, and I just ran alongside, and then it slowed down and stopped and I got on. I don’t know what I was going to do if it didn’t stop, as Sue and my bag were on the train, and I was seriously in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE.

Anyway, then when we got down to Flam, we got on a ferry and went on a Fjord cruise on the Aurlandsfjord and the Naeroyfjord – which is world heritage listed (but then, doesn’t everything seem to be these days?). still, it was everything we could have hoped for as far as stunning scenery goes, and although I cannot seem to post stupid photo’s on this stupid blog, I will email them around sometime soon. Describing it really means nothing…especially with my limited writing skills.

After the boat trip we went up what is apparently the steepest (and windiest - not windy, winding) road in northern Europe, called the Stalheimskleiven canyon road, to get a good view down the canyon at the fjord. Sue and I were bizarrely in the front seat (another aside: the whole journey was a battle to get good seats against insane pushy tourists, who, unlike the brits, do not know how to queue orderly), and the front seat gave us a birds eye view of the driver using ONLY HIS PINKY FINGER to drive a busload of tourists up this nightmarishly perilous road. Again, will send top photos of view down the canyon.

Then from Voss we got another train ride, also picturesque, to Bergen, which is a coastal town on the other side of Norway from Oslo (though still in the South). Here we refuelled with a double Che and then got back on the ‘Pain Train’ at 11 to go back to Oslo. Needless to say, we arrived back in Oslo the next morning, went and wolfed down our complimentary breakfast (was not hungry, but was included in hotel price!), then went to the room and passed out for like five hours.

When we woke up, Days of our Lives was on in English (excellent – as this is not on in the UK), and also some British search for a supermodel type show (which, as another aside, I must say was a gallery of the most unattractive girls I have ever seen, who on top of being unattractive were moll-like in personality. I am not sure these days what constitutes a ‘model’ but it seems to me that attractiveness is no longer a criteria! Seriously, Sue and I have agreed that with leg extensions we could be the next top model!)

So after gathering ourselves from the previous day (and nights) ordeal, we set out around Oslo again, mainly spending time in Frogner Park, which is a huge park filled with quite rude looking statues, and ended up treating ourselves to a lavish seafood dinner at the harbour. (Was thinking this morning how I am constantly ‘treating’ myself. When I am on holiday I spend up big, because I am on ‘holiday’, but when I am at home/work, I spend up big because ‘well, I should spoil myself because I am stuck here at home/work’. My whole life is driven forward by my self-rewards! Which usually only involve food, so maybe that is not too bad…ooh, another digression. Is this turning into a Lucas/Nicholas style blog? Am I losing my succinctness? Did I ever have it to begin with? Was succinctness even a word to begin with?)

Very succinct points to end with:
1. Two famous things in Oslo I will quickly note – it is the home of the Nobel Peace prize and also Munch’s ‘The Scream’…you know that painting?
Also, Norway seems a bit preoccupied with trolls, and although Sue and I were not sure where that originated...well, I shouldn’t really put it up on a blog, but if you email me, I will let you know where we think (with evidence!) it came from.
2. Also, in another quirky aside, how small is Europe? I ran into this girl that was on my Turkey tour on the fjord! Two girls from my Wales trip were in Turkey, a girl from the Turkey tour I saw in Norway...so I should see someone from Norway in Greece next!
3. The palace in Oslo, where the royal family actually stays, has super beautiful gardens, which the public have access to. You can go right up to the palace and everything (though obviously not inside). There are guards, but nothing major, very trusting. There was this cute little ye olde looking house next to the palace and there were soldiers in there milling around all dressed up…was very Pride and Prejudice.

The end.

Turkey

2006-05-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I am a terrible blogger. This is why I never kept a diary, the novelty runs out quick-smart, I look back at what I wrote and think 'Oh my god what a psycho', and then have to burn it/flush it down the toilet...

Ok, so I just spent two weeks in Turkey, with Aidan and Shauna. On a tour for the first ten days, and on our own for the last four - earlier assertions regarding tours hold, although this one had much lovelier accommodation, like in proper hotels. Bizarrely, this boy from my uni was on our tour. Paul Bailey was in a few of my chem classes at uni and lived with Tom on campus. I ran into him earlier this year on Australia day, and then he was on my tour for ten days through Turkey! what a small, small world.

Hmmm, now, how best to put down succinctly all my experiences...

well...
First we arrived in Istanbul. For those that don't know, Istanbul spans two continents, and so has an Asian side and a European side, which makes it quite unique. It is a super old city, which has been ruled by changing empires and so has heaps of interesting places to explore.

The most famous thing in the city I think is the Blue Mosque, which, when lit up at night, looks amazing, like something from Disney's Aladdin - unfortunately, due to my lame arse photography skills, I was not able to capture this image to post on my blog. My favourite part of Istanbul was the Basilica Cistern, which was basically where the water was kept under the city. It was built in the 6th century AD, and just the fact that they could make something so huge, practical, and beautiful, underneath the city, so long ago, just boggles my mind. It isn't as well known as some of the other sites, so, just in case any of you go there, I highly recommend you remember to visit it.

We went on a dusk cruise down the Bosphorus river, visited the Topkapi palace (which has bits of John the Baptist covered in gold), and the Aya Sofya (a christian church turned mosque with a picture of Jesus looking like Nicholas Cage). We also went to the Grand Bazaar which is this huge market place in the old part of the city, but I was too cynical and annoyed by the irritating stall keepers to buy anything there...even though I think I could pass as Turkish, I know they were trying to rip me off!!!! We had already been gypped (if that is how it is spelt) too many times by the restaurants in Istanbul!!! I ended up getting double che's quite a lot, at least McDonalds has constant, advertised prices! no separate prices for tourists!!! (Just as an aside, has anyone read that book 'Fast Food Nation'? It is supposed to turn you against fast food chains, and thus off their food, but EVERY single time I open it I feel like a cheeseburger and so have to put the book down and go out and find one. Has this happened to anyone else?)

I drank a lot of fresh OJ while in Turkey. They sell it everywhere, squeeze it in front of you and it is really cheap and SO sweet. The other drink I loved, was the apple tea. They also serve this everywhere, in tiny little glasses. Finally I like tea! Although, just quietly, it isn't really tea, I think it is just hot apple juice. Nevertheless, I bought a huge box, brought it back to London, and now can pretend I am English.

After Istanbul we headed to Gallipoli and spent the day before Anzac day eve looking at the museum there and walking around Anzac Cove (where Simpson of Simpson and the donkey is buried and where the Anzacs landed). Did you know Simpson was like 22 when he was killed in battle? I always assumed Simpson was old...something about the donkey maybe...

We got there nice and early on Anzac day eve which meant we got a totally good spot right down the front of the grassed area. Although I was worried that it would be a big boozy party atmosphere, it wasn't at all. It was all kiwi's and aussies, but no alcohol was allowed on the peninsula, and everyone was being really respectful and mature I thought...AND I actually got to lie down in a super comfortable sleeping bag and got a lot of sleep.

Andrew Denton was there and did a lot of presenting-type stuff throughout the night, and it was all quite moving. I didn't put too much thought into what it would be like before I went, but it was fantastic. The Government obviously put a hell of a lot of work (and money) into it - Some of the dollars Arun let slip through before he left, no doubt. The stories were awe-inspiring, and it is a patriotic experience which I imagine I will remember forever. I think everyone shed tears during the last post or the laying of the wreaths.

After the ceremonies, Anzac Day began to go downhill. and although it might be disrespectful to complain about the bad day I had at Gallipoli...I just can't help it! I am a big fat whinger!!!
So anyway, after the ceremonies, we had to sit on the side of the road for hours on end, waiting for our bus to come back and pick us up. There were 600 buses that day. Also, we had to wait for all dignitaries to leave before any buses were allowed up. There were too many dignitaries and they were all slow. I got very sunburned on my face and we didn't get to our hotel until 1am that night (/morning).

Since we got to bed after 1, they let us have a sleep in and not leave until 8am - add to reasons to hate group tours. That day we set off to Ephesus which is one of the ancient cities in Turkey. Unlike Troy (which is basically a collection of old rocks), it has been well preserved and you can imagine what it must have looked like as a fully functioning city. I can’t remember when the city was established other than in Roman times and it had around 400,000 to 500,000 inhabitants at the height of its existence. That day I also saw one of the ancient wonders of the world - Ephesus houses the remains of the temple of Artemis (otherwise known as Diana) which is historically significant for a reason I cannot recall. The remains consist of one column, so it was kind of lame.

That day we also headed to Pamukkale which is home to these amazing calcified cliffs- my favourite place in Turkey. The water running out of this mountain has calcified the mountain face and has turned it white. In my photo's it looks like ice and snow. There are all these little pools with the most amazingly warm and clear water that you can have a paddle in and the bottom of it is all soft smooth clay.

The next day we went to a hammam. A hammam is a traditional Turkish bath house. You get into your togs, and then are ushered into the first steam room, which was way hotter than a normal sauna. You also can’t see because of the steam, so you freak out and think you are never going to get out and that you only have 15 seconds to live, and you stumble around blindly bumping into sweaty ferals in their togs. After ten minutes in there they make you go and jump in a cold pool after which you go back into the steam room for another 5 minutes or so. Similar to high school P.E., I refused to get in the pool - who cares if it jeopardised my hammam experience. It was freezing. Anyway, after the second steam you go into a bigger room where you lie on a hot slab of marble while you wait for your turn to be scrubbed down by this dude with a hard core exfoliating scrubber thing. You then have a shower and wash off all the dead skin and then you go for the massage. You lie face down on a rectangular slab of marble and they rub what looks like a pillow case full of bubbles all over you . You then get a massage from head to foot, which I just could not relax during...can't get into being naked and being rubbed. ANYWAY then you go and have another shower to get the suds off and you then sit in the bucket room. The bucket room is a little room where you sit on a little stool and fill bowls with warm water and throw them all over yourself. This then of course graduates to you throwing them all over everyone else which is good fun as well. Especially if you turn the hot water off and just fill your buckets with icy cold water.

The last bit of the trip was Cappadocia. This is an area where the people literally carved entire communities and houses into the mountains and other wierd rock formations. Although I wasn't listening at the time, this was apparently mainly for protection as everyone was trying to invade Turkey and convert the people to various religions for a long period of time. People lived in the mountains until the late 50s when the government moved them out as they were concerned about safety and stability.

Also in Cappadocia, as well as the carved in rock cities, they had this massive underground city. A city built under the ground that goes down 9 levels. We got down to level 6 and then got lost so our guide thought it best that we went back up…she was actually freaking out a bit as she was claustrophobic. I didn't mind getting out, it all looked the same to me. And I worry that these things are going to collapse...tasmania miner style.

Anyway, there you go Nicholas, monster post...now wait 437 days until my next one...

Easter weekend in Wales

2006-04-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well I have not posted in a long, long time, but that is only because I have not been doing anything exciting, and the goings on of my every day life are less than entertaining. Oh, except I went to Brighton the other weekend...that was ok, not fantastic.

However, this weekend I got out of London and went to Wales for the long Easter weekend...irritatingly called the 'Bank Holiday' weekend, so that I was like "oooh, there is another long weekend after the Easter long weekend!!!"...wrong.

Anyway, I went with my friend Shauna, on a 'Haggis' bus tour, which is a part of the conglomerate that runs Contiki...well, let me just say that I don't think I am the hostel kind of girl. I don't mean to be a princes...but sharing a room with snoring idiot males that I don't know, and therefore cannot assault, was no fun at all. Also, I have issues with the wearing thongs in the shower thing, although I am sure I would have more serious issues with tinea.

On the first day, we were in South Wales, which I really do not recommend at all. The scenery wasn't very nice, kind of barren and bleak. In the North however, the scenery was beautiful, especially on the coast and in the Snowdonia national park.

We went to Caerphilly castle on the first day. Apparently Caerphilly has the highest rate of teenage mums in the UK...and they were all smoking fags out the front of the pubs with their prams. Ah, picturesque south wales. We also went to Tintern Abbey and the Brecon Beacons national park, but neither were fantastic.

Second day improved, with more castles and a night in a coastal town called Caernarfon (pronounced like our Australian Canarvon gorge), with dinner on a floating restaurant at sunset.

The final day had the best stuff, a drive through Snowdonia, and a walk up a hill (read: massive mountain) to the ruins of castle Dinas Bran in Llangollen (pronounced nothing like it is spelt...the double L sounds a lot like trying to hock up spit).

We also went to this stupid town, which has nothing in it, except it's name is really long and ridiculous...they made it long and ridiculous on purpose as a marketing ploy to draw people to their town...and it has obviously worked as probably every tour bus goes there! ridiculous. But here is the name for you anyway... Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. I got out and took a photo of the sign, but refused to spend any money. on principle.

I didn't really spend much money anyway. Wales has not much to offer for the consumer. I spent money on food and that is all, and there wasn't even much 'Welsh' food to be had. I think the only welsh thing I had were these things called Welsh cakes which are a cross between a pikelet and a scone, with sultana's in them. In typical Tracy style I have bought way too many, and am now sick of them.

They also have a lot of lamb coming from Wales. Since it was spring, there were a zillion little baby lambs all over the place. (Wales has 11 million sheep apparently, and only 2.9 million people). So there were heaps of cute lambs to look at (the sheep look bizarre because they all have their tails on). But I have eaten British lamb, and it is crap and fatty and pumped full of, what I hope, is water. It is a shame that all those cute little lambs are going to die come November, to produce something so crap.

Now I only have a three day week, and I will be back on holidays, this time to Turkey. Hooray!

(photos to come)

George does London

2006-02-23T11:13:00.000-08:00

Thats right, Big George has just spent a good two weeks ripping it up in London. Possibly the only person in this city to not have a winter coat, he bravely improvised with layers of jumpers covered with a yellow raincoat...road worker style.

I have had more culture in those two weeks with George than I will probably have for the rest of the year. My favourite was seeing the Marriage of Figaro (opera) at the Opera House at Covent Garden. Other things we saw were the Mikado at the coliseum (a Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta), Guys and Dolls (West End show), Giselle (ballet at the opera house) and Resurrection Blues (Arthur Miller play with Neve Cambell). We also went down to Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral.

We ate out or cooked proper meals every night, which was hard going for my Bix-eating stomach, and George even came and saw where I worked. (I'm sorry George that they wouldn't let you in to use the bathroom, but it is a secure building. And no, I still don't know if they would have let you if you were Tony Blair).

Very very busy couple of weeks. Now it is relax and save time for the next month or so, and then in April I will go on a couple of trips. One is a coach tour of Wales, and the other is two weeks in Turkey.

The new Canberra...

2006-01-23T10:37:00.000-08:00

...or the new Smith Street, or the new Fairloch Avenue...just like my other moves I have managed to set up a new life for myself. I have a nice flat, new job, some lovely friends, and even maybe a nice guy (if such a thing exists, may just be a figment of my frozen brains imagination). The whole thing has given me more confidence - that I can do whatever and go wherever, and I will be ok.

So I am living in Bermondsey, in a very clean, very warm, pretty safe flat, with an irish guy and a Canadian girl, both of whom have gone out of their way to try and help me get over my homesickness and introduce me to their friends. The flat is across the road from a big park, ten minutes from a supermarket and shopping centre (reminiscent of Dapto mall, but still), and ten minutes from the Tube. The tube line goes straight into the city, so it is very convenient. There are also really nice places within walking distance, such as Tower Bridge, which is very picturesque, especially at night.

I have gotten myself a job in the policy directorate of the Crown Prosecution Service, which is a good way to continue my public service career I think. It is convenient to my flat also, only two Tube stops, and then I walk ten minutes to my office (which includes a nice walk across the Thames). The office is right down the street from St James Cathedral and I can walk to Covent Garden/Leicester Square etc, etc.

It's a very quiet office, full of English Lawyers...and I am not very quiet, so I got told off on my second day. (Not just me, me and the other noisy Australian that I have befriended, Shauna). However, when I went to the Directors office, and she said 'So, I hear you are getting into trouble already?', she said she thinks the office needs livening up, that I should ignore the complainers and that I shouldn't be quiet at all!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAA. So, although it isn't the fun, lively environment I got used to at Finance, I think Shauna and I can make fun for ourselves...(helped by the chocolate fudge cake they sell next door to which I think I am now addicted...is cake another word for crack? Because in the beginning it took me a whole afternoon to eat a piece, it was so rich, but now one piece is just not enough at all, and today when they had no cake left, I swear I was shaking...)

What else have I been up to? Last weekend I went out door ice skating with Shauna and Nicholas. I did not fall down once, therefore did not have to experience my nightmare of falling over and having my fingers run over and cut off by someones ice skates. There were a lot of other people falling over though, and threatening to pull me down, but if that had happened I would have ripped off my skates and cut them up.

I have also recently been to the Tate modern, the Natural history museum, and got taken to the stage show of the Producers in the West End...which was lovely.

Now I am working and saving so that I can go on some travels... and then I will be able to write some more posts.

Good times.

Captions Welcome

2005-12-30T02:51:00.000-08:00

The long awaited photo...

Christmas

2005-12-28T03:23:00.000-08:00

So, I don't even know if anyone reads this thing. I mean, it would make okay reading for those bored at work, but if anyone is investing any other of their spare time into reading it, I would feel bad, cause they aren't going to get that time back! But, even if no one is reading it, I think I will continue to blog when there is something to write about, because if nothing else, it will provide some kind of diary, and I don't want to forget the good times I have had here.

Most recent good time being Christmas. I was really dreading it. And as I received Christmas cards, packages and photo's from home, I cried and wished I hadn't picked such a gaylord time of year to come over (no family at christmas, jobs hard to come by, missing the beach, etc. etc.)

But I had a great Christmas anyway. I spent it with six people I had never met before, and one person I had known for like a month, but it was still all good. I spent the morning on the phone with my family and friends, opened presents from home, and then went for a walk on Hamstead Heath. It wasn't a traditional white christmas, it was blue skied and beautiful though. On the way back, we stopped for hot chocolates, cause there were heaps of shops open because the area around Aidans house has a big Jewish population...hooray!!And then we had a huge Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, courtesy of Aidans million Kiwi housemates.

So yeah, for all the people at home that I whinged and moaned to about being on my own at christmas, with a cheeseburger, and a card written by me, to me...it did not turn out that way, and I had a lovely time.

AND, to all those nay-sayers who told me it wouldn't snow in London...it snowed yesterday, three times!!! Spent a picturesque afternoon in a warm pub, next to the window (and heater) looking out at the snow falling. Sat there for hours eating the beef jerky Betty sent over to me (good one Betty), Christmas chocolates and chips in gravy. Also, got asked for ID at the pub when I went to order the chips...nice one.
OK, this is just rambling now, so I might cease and desist.

More stories soon, as Arun is arriving today!

Belgium Mini Break

2005-12-13T04:50:00.000-08:00

(Note the top photo is my attempt at being arty...yeah, didn't really get there)

Just spent a lovely, relaxing, four day weekend in Brussels, Belgium. Stayed in the style of hotel which would have George shaking his head in disappointment. I'm sorry George, but it was a deal on lastminute.com, and you just can't argue with those kind of prices! I swear a pension or hostel would not have cost much less.
The Eurostar dropped us off smack bang in the middle of Brussels, I love the convenience of that thing, and recommend it to everyone. I then proceeded to guide us quickly and efficiently to our hotel, due to fantastic navigational skills which were not evident in Paris, but are now moving to the top of my CV.

That first day was a bit odd, as we wandered around the area of our hotel for hours...disappointed, as it was the business district (more interesting than most, as had NATO and EU centre...but still kind of crap as was mostly offices), but we kept looking, as I could always sense a 'hub' just outside of our view... navigational skills had not at that point been honed to their current high levels.

Big suprise that the first thing I ate in Brussels was a Croque Monsieur. It was so excessively lame compared to the ones I had in Paris, yet this didn't stop me from ordering it again the next day in a different restaurant 'just in cases'...lame. Don't eat croque monsieur in Brussels. Eat it as much as possible in Paris though.

The best thing I ate in Brussels were the waffles...not as good as Tina's woddles, but close. They sell them everywhere in Brussels, especially in little stalls on the streets. However, I didn't eat one until I found a cafe to sit down and eat it in. Did not think I had the skills to walk along and eat waffles balancing icecream on top, etc. etc.

We also had a nice meal in a Lygon-street style area in the downtown centre. We had our hearts set on eating in a restaurant with a roaring fire (plenty on offer), but crumbled to stupid overly enthusiastic spruikers out the front of this other restaurant. Got a good deal though, three courses for 18 euro, plus some wierd vodka thing that I didn't drink.

The thing that I was most excited about in going to Brussels was the Christmas Markets. They sound picturesque, romantic, rarara,...however, they turned out to be refugee-packed-sinking-boat-style overcrowded stalls selling the same kind of crap sold in all markets everywhere, but with fairy lights strung around...does that sound bitter? I always get fooled by 'markets', I always imagine myself strolling leisurely through stalls selling funky, original, but super cheap items, being run into by a hugh grant lookalike who spills their drink on me and takes me back to their house to help me clean up, and then...anyway...that it is never the case. (Although, I will say that the Portobello markets in london have excellent stuff, they are just a severe rip off...and also packed to uncomfortable levels.)

We went on a ferris wheel ride which gave us a fantastic view of Brussels, and was quite festive, as it was playing cheesy christmas carols. Poor Aidan had to listen to my singing along with Mariah Careys' 'All I want for Christmas'...why does she have to sing so bloody high? We were going to go skating at the open air ice skating rink as well, but by the time we got round to it, it was drizzly and horrible weather, so I will have to do that in London.

Good Times.

Paris photo's

2005-12-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

...and no, I don't know how to flip that photo up the right way. Bredoir has heaps better photo's...maybe she will put them on some cool fandangled website, and I will just be able to insert a link here...hint hint Bredoir

Belated Hong Kong photo's

2005-12-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

you know, that bottom thing is a surf life saving club!

Trakka and Bredoir do Paris

2005-11-16T02:48:00.000-08:00

Best mini-break ever. I just spent four nights in Paris with Bredoir. Highlights being; free accommodation courtesy of the UN, boulangerie/pattisseries EVERYWHERE, tour guides on tap in the form of Bredoirs relatives AND Bredoir's company as well, of course.

Day one of the Paris extravaganza, I travelled on the Eurostar from Waterloo to Gare de Nord. Waterloo is like ten minutes from my house, and Gare de Nord is practically in the city, so Eurostar was a great way to go. I was, however, pretty disappointed with the view, as the scenery is not too pretty along that particular train line. That afternoon, after dropping my goods off at Bredoirs sisters place, Bredoir and I circled the neighbourhoods surrounding the Eiffel Tower and the Hotel des Invalides. Either we are terrible at reading maps, or ...well, I don't think there is an alternative, but those two sites took us a good four hours to see. Despite them, and Bredoirs sisters apartment, all being within walking distance of each other.

The long walk, however, did give us plentiful opportunities to play 'spot the gypsy'. After being forewarned that Paris was full of gypsies and pickpockets, I took a keen interest in playing the gypsy hunter! I identified the following groups of people as gypsies: people with prams, people in wheelchairs, people with crutches, people with donkies, people carrying babies and all old people. Anyone with any kind of prop really, so that they can distract you and steal your goods!!Bredina did not convince me that it was safe for her to be yelling out 'Gypsies' at them, she thought that was fine, as they 'couldn't speak english'.

The following day, Bredoir's sister Kiri took control and showed us around, so that we could see more than two sites in a day. We saw the Arc de Triomph, the Champs Elysee's, the Louvre, Notre Dame and a bit of a mini-riot out the front of the Courts/cop station. Bredoir and I got told off twice in Notre Dame for being too loud, to which Bredoir replied 'Who made you God?'...just kidding, but she really wanted to, and even took a forbidden, rebel picture within the church, and then had the nerve to bless herself on the way out after all her bad behaviour!!!

This was also the day I discovered Tartes fromboise, which is really just a raspberry tart, but I of course developed an obssession, and proceeded to want every single one I saw. I am now sick of them, and would be happy never to see another again. The other food we got an obsession for was a thing called Croque Monsieur, which is just a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, but you know, ' a rose by any other name...' rararara.

The Paris Metro was a hive of entertainment also. We encountered a strange old man, that came up to us and creepily joined in our laughter (which I think was actually about him), a hot girl winked at me, we saw a Zac from Desperate housewives lookalike TWICE and a woman from the west indies asked us for our email. My reply was totally lame; 'I don't have email' (because obviously I am a 98 year old indian and live, when not in Paris, in a remote south american jungle!) Whereas Bredoir had more brains, and gave a fake email Bredoir@hotmail.com. I envisage much fun in the future using fake email addresses...am waiting for an opportunity to use you'refat@hotmail.com

Saturday we went to Montmartre and Marais, but the temperature had suddenly plummeted and I couldn't feel my extremities, or my face. I was super keen to get back to the Metro, and was saying 'I am going to BOX somebody soon!' at the hawkers trying to sell us things. (Incidentally, all attempts at speaking french were knocked flat, as they would reply in English. One man, selling nutella in crepe's, thought Bredoir and I spoke Japanese, THAT is how good our french was).

Anyway, despite the cold (which caused me accidentally to buy a new coat), the walks were lovely and picturesque and full of famous sites. On the Marais walk, we came across the houses of Victor Hugo and Picasso, a lot of beautiful old Parisian houses, the Jewish quarter and the column that they erected to mark the spot where the Bastille used to stand...now a busy intersection.

On the Montmartre walk, we saw the Moulin Rouge, Van Gogh's home, Paris' only inner city vineyard, and of course the Sacre Couer. That night, Bredoirs lovely sister made us a beautiful big roast...best meal I have had in quite a while.

Sunday we went to Versaille, which took the whole day. It is not very far out of the city, but it is big and there are a few different buildings to look through. One of the highlights was when Bredoir had her headphones on (for the audio tour), and therefore did not realise she was yelling when she was saying 'I can't believe this bit is closed! and it is the best bloody bit'. Which was true, the Hall of Mirrors, one of the most beautiful rooms, was unfortunately closed for renovation. Her screaming within the rooms of the relatively quiet palace, was hilarious though, and really made up for it, I thought.

On our last night out in Paris, Bredoir and I decided to go out for a romantic dinner, just the two of us. The first restaurant I chose, only because the menu was in english, turned out to be a bit of a dud, in that it served crystallised duck, pavements of salmon, and other things we had no idea what they were. So we did the big walk out, and found another restaurant, one in which Bredoir could order escargot. I, naturally, refused to try, but was very impressed with Bredoirs bravery.

All in all, it was a trip full of great sites, great food, fantastic company and FREE accommodation. It will take something special to beat it for best mini break ever, and it was an awesome way to spend some time with someone from Canberra! I still can't believe she scammed time off during such a busy part of the Finance year, she's such a pro...KIDDING! ;)

Alright, hands up, who's coming on a mini break with me next!?

Crack Den my Arse!

2005-11-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

Yes, thats right, I am SUCH a lady, putting up a title like that. But you see, what a blog means, is that I can put up, unedited, anything I like, and it won't be rewritten, or tweaked, no suggestions will be made and no value will be added. Who would have thought that there could be so much joy in something being 'published' as all your own words? (Even if it is rubbish from beginning to end.)

Now, where was I? Oh right, crack den. Apparently, with my tight-arsed-ness approach to renting, I can only afford to live in a crackden, or MAYBE if I'm lucky, a crackhouse. Now I don't mind not living in a fancy-pants, luxury apartment, but I like basic hygiene levels. I realise now that I have been spoiled by over a year living with Tina Lee, and before that I hired a cleaner, before that I had a live-in lover/cleaner, and before THAT I lived with my mother. All these houses were kept very clean. I shouldn't have gotten used to that, cause NOW I am going to have to pay a lot of coin for similar hygiene levels. I am going to have to choose between two of the most important facets of my personality...am I going to be a princess or a tightarse? (wish I had voting buttons for that one! Maybe vote via comments).

Alright, enough sooking about that. Is of no consequence that I am unemployed and homeless...no consequence at all. will be fine. Character building, surely... right?

Maybe I should put something positive in here now...ok, lets see. Daniel has taken time off work to show me around London. We have been to the British Museum (for information overload), all through the city, Hyde Park and the palace, up to Camden town...lots of things. I even found the China town and many soy-chicken restaurants!!

On Tuesday I went to farewell Sue-Ellen down in Sutton. Unfortunately she has to go home to Australia for a few months...just as I got here dammit. But it was excellent to see her, and I cannot wait until she gets back.

Most exciting of all...I am going to Paris next Thursday to meet Bredoir!Hooray!

Hong Kong to London

2005-11-07T00:20:00.000-08:00

So I have arrived in London, and am currently sitting in Daniels Young Ones Style house using his very un-Young Ones like wireless internet thingammy.

I left HK at 11pm, it is now 8am…I was tired, but now I am just hypo…and unfortunately there was a KFC between his house and the train station...so as soon as I find an ATM…well, I’ll let you join the dots on that one.

The rest of my HK trip was great, went to the beach, up the peak, on the ferry, more shopping, Ocean Park and the bird markets (had temporarily forgotten about bird flu, till I saw the warning sign at the EXIT of the markets!!!...now have suspicious sniffle). My entire diet for the three days was soy chicken, prawn rice steam roll thingy’s, and ice cream. Not because I am poor or unimaginative, but because I love those things so much! I would plan to order something else, and then on ordering I would just spontaneously blurt out ‘soy chicken’. (Refer to my intentions of NOT ordering milkshakes with dinners at restaurants).

One word of advice on Hong Kong….try to avoid shopping area’s such as Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui, on a Sunday. Sunday is the day that all the Phillipino and Indonesian housekeepers/servants get off, and they swarm the streets to spend their hard earned money. Even the most patient and gentle of people, such as myself, may stoop to elbowing, shoving (kicking? I don’t think I kicked anyone) the masses that block your way.

I recommend Ocean Park though. I went there instead of Disney land, as I have been to LA Disneyland and didn’t think it could be all that different. DISTURBING OCCURRENCE – on seeing the lines for rides at this place, I didn’t go on any…not one ride – and they looked really good!!! I looked at the animals, and the exhibits, and went on the chairlift thing over the mountain, but no rides. I am only 25…but my actions were those of a seriously older, most likely infirm, old lady.

In domestic news, I was very upset to hear about my breach, and more importantly, that I had caused so much distress to a certain buzzer. Post it on our cabinet, and I will take care of it when I get back Bredoir. I Promise.

Hong Kong

2005-11-04T01:40:00.000-08:00

Ok, so, I arrived in Hong Kong late last night at about 11pm. The flight was really good, despite not being seated next to a young, hot, international cricket player. Instead, I was seated next to a lovely chinese lady, and THEN her screen didn't work, so she had to move, so I had the two seats all to myself. So I unpacked everything, and set it all up on the next seat....tissues, drinks, book, ipod, lip balm....but then, didn't even read or listen to ipod, because the inflight entertainment was so damn good! They had series of Little Britain, The Office, House, Nighty-Night (NOT a good show, but had to give it a go for Bredoir's sake), and heaps of movies. I watched Red Eye...which I highly recommend, and I also watched The Perfect Catch....very, very lame.

So, then I arrived in Hong Kong Airport, where they gave us health warnings about Avian Flu. Namely "If you handle live poultry, wash your hands afterwards". Got it.

Was very hot outside, despite it being 11pm. Struggled onto awesome airconditioned bus with Suitcase, rucksack and backpack...doubling my body weight. Dragged it to my pre-booked hostel, where I was welcomed with "Tracy! you made a reservation yes?" YES! "OK, we give your room away, and have no more room". LOVELY!

So she calls some random lady who comes and leads me away through causeway bay. She could not speak english, so I was slightly worried, could have been to a whore house or crack den...but I was too sleepy to think more on it...luckily was just to a similar hostel. Dodgy plus. Amanda, will not take photo of room, because I do NOT recommend you stay there when you come to Hong Kong.

So I slept really really late today, and then just started to walk around Causeway Bay. Very busy area, with a lot of Western food...KFC, Macca's, Starbucks, Deli France, even a Mrs Fields cookies!! I swear I will not eat at these places...well, I had a Haagen Daazs...but that doesn't count, cause it is kind of exotic. Have seen millions of places that sell soy chicken, so think I am set.

Shops are awesome, Christina, you would be in heaven. I may have accidentally bought some boots. However, they are awesome. they are soft and warm, and will be perfect for London. I don't know, they were kind of expensive, but you know, in these foreign currencies...who can tell? it is like Monopoly money...(should have known, that anything that has four figures in the price may be a bit much). The sales assistant unhelpfully translated the price to aussie dollars for me, but I pretended he was talking to someone else.

Now I am in Tsim Sha Tsui....I think that is how you spell it. I caught the train over here, cause I bought some pass that gives me as many free train trips as I like (again, not sure about the price, choosing to ignore it). So tonight I will study the map and tomorrow will go everywhere I can find.

Walking around is pretty interesting, but Amanda, you would die. There are a million pet shops, with all these puppies shoved into little tiny cages together...they are cute, but still, I realise, is cruel. And there are these things piled high everywhere, in glass cabinets that are as tall as me, and are out on the footpath. At first glance, I thought was some kind of vegetable, cause was dark green and small, but on closer inspection, one blinked at me!! They are gazillions of little crabs! little green crabs, piled up on top of each other! And don't even start me on the DUCKLINGS that are strung up in the restaurants. Amanda, maybe don't open your eyes if you come to Hong Kong.

I am feeling pretty safe, it is so busy all the time. But I am no longer using my backpack, as I was constantly whipping my head around whenever anyone bumped into me to make sure they weren't stealing from me...I looked like an absolute mental. So now I am using my handbag, and fancy myself to look quite the local.

Well, that is all for now. I always thought I wouldn't have anything to say on this blog, but look at that. I do.

I know you are all hanging out for the photo of Kim and I, but I haven't yet figured out how to put it up,...everyone just hold your horses. Or email Bredoir if you want a copy ;) I hear she has been showing EVERY MAN AND HIS DOG!!!

End of dithering.

2005-07-31T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have finally, finally bought my ticket to London. Flying Virgin Atlantic, leaving Sydney on 3 November, with three nights in Hong Kong. Many thanks to Arun and Tina Lee for their lovely help and support in ticket purchasing, though, as Arun never tires of saying, it really was a one person job.
Now it is official, and feels so much more real, but suprisingly, I haven't yet had a heart attack from the purchase. My one and only concern is that after resigning from my current job, I may subsequently be unemployed forever, but surely that won't happen...right? right?!?!?
Of course my other bit of sadness, is that I will be leaving the best flat and flatmate in the world, and a hell of a lot of people that I have had so much fun with and care about so much. But that is life I suppose, and since most of them work in the Public Service, I know I will never be short of emails....

Artists Impression

2005-07-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks Arun!

2005-07-07T20:32:00.000-07:00

Arun has set up my blog for me. Note I will have nothing interesting to say, but he wants me to make one to justify his own blogging during work hours.

I predict I will get bored of this and will soon forget my username/password/the fact this blog exists.