Our last few days have been spent holed up in our room as Hong Kong has just been narrowly missed by a typhoon. Typhoon signal 8 was in force which tends to close down most businesses for the day such as the stock market and urges people to stay indoors.
Of course we had not prepared for this and had no food. So we psyched ourselves up to get out into the pouring and went out... it was actually fairly pleasent. The rain wasn't too bad and the wind was a huge relief after two weeks of above 30 degrees temperatures. It turned out that this was the tail end of the storm and we weren't quite as brave as we thought. Later we saw on TV that the worst part was in the night and there had actually been quite a lot of damage caused.
The storm has left us with lots of rain which will certainly mean that our last few days in Hong Kong will be spent in the pub next to our guesthouse watching the Olympics on the big screen... oh well, sounds fun.
Showing posts with label round the world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label round the world. Show all posts
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Big Buddha
Greetings all. Our holiday is nearing an end, we have less than one week until we fly back to the UK.
After my last post we had a break from sightseeing for a few days as Jordan felt really ill. After a couple of days we decided it might be a good idea to go to the hospital to get her checked out. This turned out to be a much easier than we expected. A lady from the guesthouse escorted us by taxi to the hospital. We registered quickly and were seen in less than 10 minutes. The doctor diagnosed the problem as an infection of the stomach or intestines and prescribed a cocktail of drugs. The total cost of this great service... 269HK$ (about 20 quid). She's fine now.
As Jordan was feeling better we headed off to a couple of the outlying islands over the last few days. The island of Lamma is about 2km south of Hong Kong island and has no roads or cars (although I did spot a couple of cars so I reakon this is all a scam). The island has a huge coal fired power station that overlooks one of the beaches. It's a very odd sight to behold as it is surrounded by lush green scenery and a small fishing villiage teeming with expats.
Today we visited Lantau island and caught a cable car up to the Buddhist Monastary close to the peak (around 900m up). This was a fairly... unnerving experience. In the words of Edward Hitler 'On a scale of one to ten I think it's bicycle clip time.' You'll have to look at the pictures and video on Flickr to see what I mean. At the monastary there is a rather large statue of Buddha and a very dissapointing vegetarian restaurant. You can tell these monks tend not to visit nearby Hong Kong island as their idea of vegetarian food is fairly pretty basic. We caught the cable car back down the mountain (even scarier than the way up) and headed back to the bright lights of Hong Kong.
After my last post we had a break from sightseeing for a few days as Jordan felt really ill. After a couple of days we decided it might be a good idea to go to the hospital to get her checked out. This turned out to be a much easier than we expected. A lady from the guesthouse escorted us by taxi to the hospital. We registered quickly and were seen in less than 10 minutes. The doctor diagnosed the problem as an infection of the stomach or intestines and prescribed a cocktail of drugs. The total cost of this great service... 269HK$ (about 20 quid). She's fine now.
As Jordan was feeling better we headed off to a couple of the outlying islands over the last few days. The island of Lamma is about 2km south of Hong Kong island and has no roads or cars (although I did spot a couple of cars so I reakon this is all a scam). The island has a huge coal fired power station that overlooks one of the beaches. It's a very odd sight to behold as it is surrounded by lush green scenery and a small fishing villiage teeming with expats.
Today we visited Lantau island and caught a cable car up to the Buddhist Monastary close to the peak (around 900m up). This was a fairly... unnerving experience. In the words of Edward Hitler 'On a scale of one to ten I think it's bicycle clip time.' You'll have to look at the pictures and video on Flickr to see what I mean. At the monastary there is a rather large statue of Buddha and a very dissapointing vegetarian restaurant. You can tell these monks tend not to visit nearby Hong Kong island as their idea of vegetarian food is fairly pretty basic. We caught the cable car back down the mountain (even scarier than the way up) and headed back to the bright lights of Hong Kong.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Smog
I haven't posted for a while so I decided I should probably say hello so that people don't think that we have been sold into prostitution by triads.
We arrived in Hong Kong on Friday and had to rush to our guesthouse because if we didn't get there by 10pm, they would let out our room. So we jumped onto the airport express and grabbed a taxi to our guesthouse in Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island.
Oh yeah... I completely forgot that I haven't mentioned the situation with our accommodation in Hong Kong. We were originally meant to stay in the notorious Chungking Mansions. 'It'll be an experience' we naively said as we placed our booking through Hostels.com. We have learnt a few things over the last 2 months. One of which is that we are pretty terrible backpackers. We dislike 'slumming it'. So when we checked out some recent reviews about the Hong Kong hostel we quickly decided it might not be the best idea to stay there. We managed to get into a guesthouse on Hong Kong Island for around the same price and we are much happier staying here than the more 'colourful' Kowloon.
As you can see from the picture, the smog here is awful. We have only had one day of blue skies and the rest have been like the picture. On a plus note we have found ourselves a nice local pub and a local restaurant where we can get two huge bowls on noodle soup with two milkshakes for 68HK$.
We arrived in Hong Kong on Friday and had to rush to our guesthouse because if we didn't get there by 10pm, they would let out our room. So we jumped onto the airport express and grabbed a taxi to our guesthouse in Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island.
Oh yeah... I completely forgot that I haven't mentioned the situation with our accommodation in Hong Kong. We were originally meant to stay in the notorious Chungking Mansions. 'It'll be an experience' we naively said as we placed our booking through Hostels.com. We have learnt a few things over the last 2 months. One of which is that we are pretty terrible backpackers. We dislike 'slumming it'. So when we checked out some recent reviews about the Hong Kong hostel we quickly decided it might not be the best idea to stay there. We managed to get into a guesthouse on Hong Kong Island for around the same price and we are much happier staying here than the more 'colourful' Kowloon.
As you can see from the picture, the smog here is awful. We have only had one day of blue skies and the rest have been like the picture. On a plus note we have found ourselves a nice local pub and a local restaurant where we can get two huge bowls on noodle soup with two milkshakes for 68HK$.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Stopover
I'm currently sitting in Taiwan airport waiting for our flight to Hong Kong. It's nice to know that we will only be sitting on the plane for an hour and a half. Before we went away Gill (Jordan's mum) said 'I wonder when it is that people stop being excited by air travel?' I think the answer to that could be 'after having to do three fairly long flights in 24 hours.'
Anyway, we had a pleasent, albeit breif, stay in Taiwan. We got in late and were met at the airport by Tom ( a friend of Jordan's mum). We decided to go for a quick drink in a bar before heading home with a rather large can of beer each. Today we just hung around Nan Kan which is a small town outside of Taipei. Sadly, we didn't have the time to get into Taipei to see the 101 (the current tallest building in the world). After a rather hair raising taxi ride, we managed to get to the airport with time to spare.
I will hopefully post something after we have been in Hong Kong for a few days but I have no idea what the situation will be at the guesthouse - we will have to venture out and find an internet cafe.
Only two weeks until we get home and in a way I am looking forward to being back and seeing everyone again. I'm sure you'll all scoff at me saying that all this travelling and sightseeing can be fairly tiring... although in my defense it is around 30-35 degrees round these parts.
Anyway, we had a pleasent, albeit breif, stay in Taiwan. We got in late and were met at the airport by Tom ( a friend of Jordan's mum). We decided to go for a quick drink in a bar before heading home with a rather large can of beer each. Today we just hung around Nan Kan which is a small town outside of Taipei. Sadly, we didn't have the time to get into Taipei to see the 101 (the current tallest building in the world). After a rather hair raising taxi ride, we managed to get to the airport with time to spare.
I will hopefully post something after we have been in Hong Kong for a few days but I have no idea what the situation will be at the guesthouse - we will have to venture out and find an internet cafe.
Only two weeks until we get home and in a way I am looking forward to being back and seeing everyone again. I'm sure you'll all scoff at me saying that all this travelling and sightseeing can be fairly tiring... although in my defense it is around 30-35 degrees round these parts.
Monday, July 21, 2008
More photos
I'm just posting quickly to say that I've uploaded a few more pictures from Japan to the set of Flickr.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Broken phone
I thought I should probably post again regarding what I wrote yesterday. I was mainly talking about in our price range... we have since found a few English or French restaurants but they are on the more expensive end of the spectrum.
I also thought I better post and say my phone has died. I'm not sure what finally did it but it has been on it's way out for a while. The little joy stick didn't go up and pictures kept coming up as scrambled. Oh well, it just means that as soon as I get a job I will have to invest in a 3G iPhone... it just wouldn't be proper not to.
Oh... and Jordan's phone doesn't work in Japan so at the moment we are uncontactable by phone.
I also thought I better post and say my phone has died. I'm not sure what finally did it but it has been on it's way out for a while. The little joy stick didn't go up and pictures kept coming up as scrambled. Oh well, it just means that as soon as I get a job I will have to invest in a 3G iPhone... it just wouldn't be proper not to.
Oh... and Jordan's phone doesn't work in Japan so at the moment we are uncontactable by phone.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Food, glorious food!
Well, I almost feel like Oliver Twist at the moment. Whilst I really do enjoy Japanese food and I used to happily eat a box of sushi for lunch most days at work and eat at Pompoko every week, when it is your only choice for breakfast, lunch and dinner you start getting a little tired of it.
Jordan and I have spent most of this evening fantasising about sausage and mash, pizza and various other forms of culinary delights.
I should explain. The Japanese really like Japanese food. They are content with eating rice bowls, noodles, yakitori, tempura and various other dishes. There just aren't the abundance of ethnic restaurants like there is in London, Brighton or even New Zealand and the US. Every restaurant listed in our Rough Guide is Japanese cuisine which has made it really difficult to find anything else as we cannot read the signs and I'm not even going to get into the Japanese address system.
This may be because, from our little experience, the Japanese are not very good at replicating other country's dishes. We ventured into an Italian restaurant as it was the only one in the area with an English menu. Jordan ended up with the most bizarre minestrone soup and our pizza tasted more like a savoury crepe.
We have decided that tomorrow we will make a concerted effort to find an English restaurant... maybe even a beloved Irish pub to see if we can actually find a completely vegetarian meal (one that Jordan won't have to spend the meal picking pieces of fish out of).
On a brighter note, we had an excellent night last night at the Kamiya bar where we had giant glasses of Asahi and I ate deep fried squid tentacle. We were also sequestered by several drunk Japanese businessmen who were so excited to see a pair of westerners in the bar that they hummed the British national anthem and tried to buy us beers several times. Of course this was all conducted in Japanese so we were very confused and just kept bowing, nodding and smiling.
And to finish, let me tell you I am currently drinking the weirdest tasting milk I have ever had.
Jordan and I have spent most of this evening fantasising about sausage and mash, pizza and various other forms of culinary delights.
I should explain. The Japanese really like Japanese food. They are content with eating rice bowls, noodles, yakitori, tempura and various other dishes. There just aren't the abundance of ethnic restaurants like there is in London, Brighton or even New Zealand and the US. Every restaurant listed in our Rough Guide is Japanese cuisine which has made it really difficult to find anything else as we cannot read the signs and I'm not even going to get into the Japanese address system.
This may be because, from our little experience, the Japanese are not very good at replicating other country's dishes. We ventured into an Italian restaurant as it was the only one in the area with an English menu. Jordan ended up with the most bizarre minestrone soup and our pizza tasted more like a savoury crepe.
We have decided that tomorrow we will make a concerted effort to find an English restaurant... maybe even a beloved Irish pub to see if we can actually find a completely vegetarian meal (one that Jordan won't have to spend the meal picking pieces of fish out of).
On a brighter note, we had an excellent night last night at the Kamiya bar where we had giant glasses of Asahi and I ate deep fried squid tentacle. We were also sequestered by several drunk Japanese businessmen who were so excited to see a pair of westerners in the bar that they hummed the British national anthem and tried to buy us beers several times. Of course this was all conducted in Japanese so we were very confused and just kept bowing, nodding and smiling.
And to finish, let me tell you I am currently drinking the weirdest tasting milk I have ever had.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Hot
We have been here in Tokyo now for a few days and time is really going quickly.
After my last entry, we went out to a restaurant in Roppongi Hills, a really flash, newly built area with designer shops. The place we found is a restaurant where they serve you a selection of things fried in breadcrumbs. Whilst this may not sound like the tastiest thing in the world, it was in fact quite nice. Jordan had a load of different vegetables but I had a much more exciting dinner. The pieces started out quite tame with beef and chicken but quickly moved to a slightly more bizarre affair. There was a whole fish and a prawn with his legs still on. The octopus tentacle was interesting... a bit like squid but with really chewy suckers.
The following day we headed over to Harajuku which is well known for it's clothes shops, some of which are designer boutiques but there are a few alleys that remind you more of Camden Town than Oxford Street. The streets were incredibly busy and it was difficult to get into any shops so we have made a note to come back and maybe pick up something.
We then ventured across town to our hostel which is in Asakusa. We managed to find a restaurant that had an English menu so we wondered in. We were a little confused to find a hot plate in the middle of our table which we quickly worked out was for us to cook our own food. It was all very confusing and again we didn't really know what had meat and what did not so we just had to hope for the best.
We spent some of the next day looking at the huge shrine in Asakusa and investigating the surrounding area. Today we went over to the zoo which was both fun and a little depressing - are polar bears ever not the saddest thing to see in a zoo? Also, Ling Ling the panda had died 4 months before so we couldn't see her.
We have the rest of our time in Tokyo planned out and even with a fairly hectic schedule we are going to have to miss some stuff out. I'm not sure what people are saying when we said two weeks would be too much.
After my last entry, we went out to a restaurant in Roppongi Hills, a really flash, newly built area with designer shops. The place we found is a restaurant where they serve you a selection of things fried in breadcrumbs. Whilst this may not sound like the tastiest thing in the world, it was in fact quite nice. Jordan had a load of different vegetables but I had a much more exciting dinner. The pieces started out quite tame with beef and chicken but quickly moved to a slightly more bizarre affair. There was a whole fish and a prawn with his legs still on. The octopus tentacle was interesting... a bit like squid but with really chewy suckers.
The following day we headed over to Harajuku which is well known for it's clothes shops, some of which are designer boutiques but there are a few alleys that remind you more of Camden Town than Oxford Street. The streets were incredibly busy and it was difficult to get into any shops so we have made a note to come back and maybe pick up something.
We then ventured across town to our hostel which is in Asakusa. We managed to find a restaurant that had an English menu so we wondered in. We were a little confused to find a hot plate in the middle of our table which we quickly worked out was for us to cook our own food. It was all very confusing and again we didn't really know what had meat and what did not so we just had to hope for the best.
We spent some of the next day looking at the huge shrine in Asakusa and investigating the surrounding area. Today we went over to the zoo which was both fun and a little depressing - are polar bears ever not the saddest thing to see in a zoo? Also, Ling Ling the panda had died 4 months before so we couldn't see her.
We have the rest of our time in Tokyo planned out and even with a fairly hectic schedule we are going to have to miss some stuff out. I'm not sure what people are saying when we said two weeks would be too much.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Japan
Greetings from the land of the rising sun.
We flew into Tokyo on Thursday night after visiting (briefly) four countries in twenty four hours. We are staying with Dave's friends who have lived in Tokyo since 2006.
We spent our first day exploring Shinjuku Gyoen, an amazing garden in a traditional Japanese style. We then wondered the streets of Shinjuju for about 30 minutes trying to find the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. This I thought was quite hilarious as it the tallest building in Tokyo by a fair margin. Once we found the thing, we went up to the (free - stupid Sky Tower) observation deck to get a better view of the city. Apparently on a clear day you can see out to Mt. Fuki but it wasn't a very clear day.
After trying to find a 7/11 shop with any lunchy things left and wondering into a closed restaurant causing much apologising and bowing we decided that Shinjuku is probably a little too busy around lunch time. For lunch we decided to take the train to nearby Harajuku where we could sit and eat in the park... although it did start raining straightaway.
We decided to brave going to a bar in the evening as we both were craving beer. The original plan was to get food too but the bar we found ourself in had a menu with very few pictures and was exclusively in Kanji (the symbols). We finally found somewhere to eat with nice easy english descriptions but it just happened to be an Italian restuarant... now the Japanese have an interesting take on Italian food. The pizza was bizarre but very tasty.
Today we got up and headed out to an animation museum out to the west of the city. The website had a fairly awful map and our Rough Guide didn't provide a great description of it's location so we stood looking bemused in front of a map at the station. This of course attracted much attention from concerned travellers. One man asked if we needed help and looked over the map to see if there was anything written in Japanese that would help. As this did not uncover any useful information and he did not know where the museum was himself he charged off to find someone who did know. After about five minutes he came back and said he could not find anything useful and the look of sorrow on his face that he could not help was quite moving. It's definitely different from England where no one would offer to help a tourist and certainly not to that extent.
Anyway, after much walking we found the musuem which was actually a lot smaller than we would have hoped and we got round it very quickly. I did get to play with a 5 foot tall Gundam robot though!
As I expected, so far Tokyo has been the most amazing place. I have wanted to visit this city since I was a child watching films like Akira when other kids were watching Disney. We have a great deal planned over the next two weeks so I'll hopefully add to what I've already uploaded on Flickr.
We flew into Tokyo on Thursday night after visiting (briefly) four countries in twenty four hours. We are staying with Dave's friends who have lived in Tokyo since 2006.
We spent our first day exploring Shinjuku Gyoen, an amazing garden in a traditional Japanese style. We then wondered the streets of Shinjuju for about 30 minutes trying to find the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. This I thought was quite hilarious as it the tallest building in Tokyo by a fair margin. Once we found the thing, we went up to the (free - stupid Sky Tower) observation deck to get a better view of the city. Apparently on a clear day you can see out to Mt. Fuki but it wasn't a very clear day.
After trying to find a 7/11 shop with any lunchy things left and wondering into a closed restaurant causing much apologising and bowing we decided that Shinjuku is probably a little too busy around lunch time. For lunch we decided to take the train to nearby Harajuku where we could sit and eat in the park... although it did start raining straightaway.
We decided to brave going to a bar in the evening as we both were craving beer. The original plan was to get food too but the bar we found ourself in had a menu with very few pictures and was exclusively in Kanji (the symbols). We finally found somewhere to eat with nice easy english descriptions but it just happened to be an Italian restuarant... now the Japanese have an interesting take on Italian food. The pizza was bizarre but very tasty.
Today we got up and headed out to an animation museum out to the west of the city. The website had a fairly awful map and our Rough Guide didn't provide a great description of it's location so we stood looking bemused in front of a map at the station. This of course attracted much attention from concerned travellers. One man asked if we needed help and looked over the map to see if there was anything written in Japanese that would help. As this did not uncover any useful information and he did not know where the museum was himself he charged off to find someone who did know. After about five minutes he came back and said he could not find anything useful and the look of sorrow on his face that he could not help was quite moving. It's definitely different from England where no one would offer to help a tourist and certainly not to that extent.
Anyway, after much walking we found the musuem which was actually a lot smaller than we would have hoped and we got round it very quickly. I did get to play with a 5 foot tall Gundam robot though!
As I expected, so far Tokyo has been the most amazing place. I have wanted to visit this city since I was a child watching films like Akira when other kids were watching Disney. We have a great deal planned over the next two weeks so I'll hopefully add to what I've already uploaded on Flickr.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Cold
Rather annoyingly we have spent the last few days with little to do in the lakeside town of Taupo. We arrived in the evening a few days ago and straightaway we knew that this was not going to go as planned. The weather has been distinctly colder than the other places we have visited in New Zealand to to it's elevation and position next to a large lake. This has hampered our ability to do anything remotely to do with the outside world. We planned on taking a boat ride out on the lake but all were cancelled due to the weather.
We leave for Auckland at 2:30 this afternoon and then fly to Tokyo on Wednesday at 11:30PM. We are both looking forward to being warm (possibly too warm) in Japan after two weeks of cold weather.
Apologies for the lack of photos on my Flickr stream. The internet cafes have been a little crap at having flash player and I'm not uploading each picture individually. I may just save them all until Tokyo and spent 3 seconds uploading them all in a high speed internet cafe.
We leave for Auckland at 2:30 this afternoon and then fly to Tokyo on Wednesday at 11:30PM. We are both looking forward to being warm (possibly too warm) in Japan after two weeks of cold weather.
Apologies for the lack of photos on my Flickr stream. The internet cafes have been a little crap at having flash player and I'm not uploading each picture individually. I may just save them all until Tokyo and spent 3 seconds uploading them all in a high speed internet cafe.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Rotorua
It's been a few days since I last posted anything and that is mainly due to the lack of notable events in Tauranga and the abundance of things to do in Rotorua.
I think we have accepted that we may have made a mistake by stopping off in Tauranga and Hamilton. They are really not very important towns and we have missed out on seeing some much more exciting places because of it. I think being in New Zealand has just increased the list of things I would like to see here. I believe another trip out here would be great with what we have learnt. I think a car and no prior plans on where to stay would have made for a much more exciting trip but when you haven't done a trip like this, you think everything has to be planned down to the finest detail.
Anyway! On to Rotorua! We have been very busy here as there is a real bustling tourist industry here and travellers without transport are catered for excellently. We spent our first day exploring before spending the afternoon in the Polynesian Spa getting massages and drinking wine... ridiculously decadent I know but the spa uses geothermally heated water so we convinced ourselves it was a cultural experience. After such a day, our original cheap idea of having beans on toast for dinner seemed a little of an anti climax so we followed Dave's (Jordan's step dad for you who don't know) advice on visiting a restaurant called Freos. The food was amazing and it nicely concluded one of the least backpacker days we have had on our very unbackpacker backpacker holiday.
The next days adventures allowed for a relaxed morning before being shuttled off to a place called Paradise Valley Springs - a trout farm that just happens to have a pride of lions. We managed to get round the farm, which consisted of some trout, pigs, sheep, goats, deers, an evil emu and the most hassling ducks we have ever met. One made the most depressing noise ever heard because we neglected to bring bread. The parks main attraction (other than the trout) is the pride of nine lions. At 2:30 every day they make a spectacle of feeding the lions chunks of horse meat. This was fun to watch if a little unnerving when two females fought quite ferociously over the meat which ended with one bleeding from the nose. The lions are surrounded by a simple fence with an electric fence behind that which gives us onlookers an incredibly close look at the animals - when I upload the photos you'll see what I mean.
In the evening we decided to go along to one of the Maori cultural performances. This consists of a walk around the Maori land and a show of traditional songs and dances. They also provided a dinner off various foods cooked under the ground and the last part of the night was a walk focused on seeing glow worms. The show was interesting but it felt weird when the chief started talking and cracked a few jokes - it jarred a little against the otherwise serious atmosphere.
This morning we ventured out to Hell's Gate which is a thermal reserve outside of Rotorua. We saw bubbling mud and sulphur lakes although there were no geysers.
Now we are just waiting around for our bus to Taupo where we hope to do a few more interesting things. Apparently you can do a tandem skydive for 150NZ$ (approx 60 pounds) which could be fun although it may be a little too brown trousers for me...
I think we have accepted that we may have made a mistake by stopping off in Tauranga and Hamilton. They are really not very important towns and we have missed out on seeing some much more exciting places because of it. I think being in New Zealand has just increased the list of things I would like to see here. I believe another trip out here would be great with what we have learnt. I think a car and no prior plans on where to stay would have made for a much more exciting trip but when you haven't done a trip like this, you think everything has to be planned down to the finest detail.
Anyway! On to Rotorua! We have been very busy here as there is a real bustling tourist industry here and travellers without transport are catered for excellently. We spent our first day exploring before spending the afternoon in the Polynesian Spa getting massages and drinking wine... ridiculously decadent I know but the spa uses geothermally heated water so we convinced ourselves it was a cultural experience. After such a day, our original cheap idea of having beans on toast for dinner seemed a little of an anti climax so we followed Dave's (Jordan's step dad for you who don't know) advice on visiting a restaurant called Freos. The food was amazing and it nicely concluded one of the least backpacker days we have had on our very unbackpacker backpacker holiday.
The next days adventures allowed for a relaxed morning before being shuttled off to a place called Paradise Valley Springs - a trout farm that just happens to have a pride of lions. We managed to get round the farm, which consisted of some trout, pigs, sheep, goats, deers, an evil emu and the most hassling ducks we have ever met. One made the most depressing noise ever heard because we neglected to bring bread. The parks main attraction (other than the trout) is the pride of nine lions. At 2:30 every day they make a spectacle of feeding the lions chunks of horse meat. This was fun to watch if a little unnerving when two females fought quite ferociously over the meat which ended with one bleeding from the nose. The lions are surrounded by a simple fence with an electric fence behind that which gives us onlookers an incredibly close look at the animals - when I upload the photos you'll see what I mean.
In the evening we decided to go along to one of the Maori cultural performances. This consists of a walk around the Maori land and a show of traditional songs and dances. They also provided a dinner off various foods cooked under the ground and the last part of the night was a walk focused on seeing glow worms. The show was interesting but it felt weird when the chief started talking and cracked a few jokes - it jarred a little against the otherwise serious atmosphere.
This morning we ventured out to Hell's Gate which is a thermal reserve outside of Rotorua. We saw bubbling mud and sulphur lakes although there were no geysers.
Now we are just waiting around for our bus to Taupo where we hope to do a few more interesting things. Apparently you can do a tandem skydive for 150NZ$ (approx 60 pounds) which could be fun although it may be a little too brown trousers for me...
Monday, June 30, 2008
Photos... finally
By the time I finish writing this, all of the pictures so far should be uploaded to my Flickr account. We had to get out of our hostel at 10am today and our bus isn't until 6 so we have had to kill a few hours. We found an internet cafe that has gaming facilities so the connection is really good.
That's all for now.
That's all for now.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Rain and the Irish
How many Irish pubs must a traveller walk in to before he meets someone who knows Niall?
The answer is quite a few. So we have been in New Zealand for a few days and we have basically spent our time in Irish pubs and getting wet. It has rained every day that we have been here so we have ducked into pubs when we can and they have all been Irish themed. I suppose it would be better if we actually liked Guiness but they are definitely a huge step up over the bars in America.
Although we have been stuck inside alot, we have managed to go up the Sky Tower in Auckland, go to the Auckland museum and go to the Zoo. We were allowed to go into the back of the Red Panda enclosure and feed them because it was too rainy for them to come out. We also fed a giraffe. It gave Jordan a huge lick on the hand... it obviously prefers a shorter lady (Jordan's joke).
We made it into Hamilton yesterday and we've just been hanging round as it's been so wet. We've bought some big jumpers for the time we have left in NZ as it's so cold. We look a bit silly but at least we are warm. The hostel we are staying in is really nice. There was a whole netball team staying last night so we were put into the owners house in a really nice room with a bed so much more comfortable then the ones we have been staying in.
I'm fast running out of time on the net so I'll finish here. I'm trying to upload a few pictures to flickr but it's going really slow (again). I don't think I'll even get to the Alcatraz ones...
The answer is quite a few. So we have been in New Zealand for a few days and we have basically spent our time in Irish pubs and getting wet. It has rained every day that we have been here so we have ducked into pubs when we can and they have all been Irish themed. I suppose it would be better if we actually liked Guiness but they are definitely a huge step up over the bars in America.
Although we have been stuck inside alot, we have managed to go up the Sky Tower in Auckland, go to the Auckland museum and go to the Zoo. We were allowed to go into the back of the Red Panda enclosure and feed them because it was too rainy for them to come out. We also fed a giraffe. It gave Jordan a huge lick on the hand... it obviously prefers a shorter lady (Jordan's joke).
We made it into Hamilton yesterday and we've just been hanging round as it's been so wet. We've bought some big jumpers for the time we have left in NZ as it's so cold. We look a bit silly but at least we are warm. The hostel we are staying in is really nice. There was a whole netball team staying last night so we were put into the owners house in a really nice room with a bed so much more comfortable then the ones we have been staying in.
I'm fast running out of time on the net so I'll finish here. I'm trying to upload a few pictures to flickr but it's going really slow (again). I don't think I'll even get to the Alcatraz ones...
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
America
I seemed to have lost Tuesday. It's quite a strange feeling but my week so far has consisted of a Monday and the first of Wednesday... Tuesday hasn't happened for me. It's a strange feeling.
We have arrived safely in New Zealand. We have booked into our hostel which seems pretty decent. The owner is friendly and was happy to chat about the city for a while... it turns out he has visited Milton Keynes before which I thought was funny if slightly odd.
As not much has happened here, I thought it would be a good opportunity to write about our last few days in America and our overall thoughts on the place. We spent our last night in the Venice beach area. The hostel was alright although we were in a 3 bed dorm so we had to share with one other person. It worked out okay but we felt a bit nerdy when we were in bed by eleven and we was off out drinking some more. Our excuse was that we had to check out in the morning and we had already had a fairly heavy night the night before at a bar called the Powerhouse in Hollywood. That was quite a fun night. We ended up talking to a rocker couple called Vic and Brook (how American can you get?) and drinking 3$ pints.
Venice beach was a really fun place during the day. It was very hot so we sat by the beach and I got in a few times. There was a real festival atmosphere with stalls selling all kinds of things and street performers along the promenade. We had some dinner in the evening and had a walk up the beach as the sun set. After popping back the hostel, we decided to run out to get some bottled water - our room was ridiculously hot. The place was a little scarier at night. There were gangs of people hanging out everywhere and the lively atmosphere of the day was long gone. We promptly bought water and retired to bed!
We spent our last day in L.A. just lounging on the beach and having a long lunch in an Italian restaurant just off the sea front.
It has been a strange but fun couple of weeks. Although it may have seemed like we have been moaning about a lot on this blog, we have had some really fun times and after some initial feelings of disappointment when in L.A. we have decided that we would definitely come back. I think L.A. is maybe hyped up a bit too much. Hollywood is touristy and a bit rough and Sunset Strip consists of very few bars that are really far away from each other.
San Francisco, on the other hand, was a great place. You can be a tourist and do all the touristy things or you can just hang out in bars and soak up the atmosphere. There are a lot more places to just sit in SF than L.A.
I really should sleep now as I didn't sleep on the plane (how do people do it?) but I am wide awake. I think I'm currently on about 26 hours but I could be screwing my maths with all the odd time zone business. We have much better access to the net here so I will hopefully update this blog a little more over the next few days. I may even chance hogging all the bandwidth and upload a few pictures to Flickr.
We have arrived safely in New Zealand. We have booked into our hostel which seems pretty decent. The owner is friendly and was happy to chat about the city for a while... it turns out he has visited Milton Keynes before which I thought was funny if slightly odd.
As not much has happened here, I thought it would be a good opportunity to write about our last few days in America and our overall thoughts on the place. We spent our last night in the Venice beach area. The hostel was alright although we were in a 3 bed dorm so we had to share with one other person. It worked out okay but we felt a bit nerdy when we were in bed by eleven and we was off out drinking some more. Our excuse was that we had to check out in the morning and we had already had a fairly heavy night the night before at a bar called the Powerhouse in Hollywood. That was quite a fun night. We ended up talking to a rocker couple called Vic and Brook (how American can you get?) and drinking 3$ pints.
Venice beach was a really fun place during the day. It was very hot so we sat by the beach and I got in a few times. There was a real festival atmosphere with stalls selling all kinds of things and street performers along the promenade. We had some dinner in the evening and had a walk up the beach as the sun set. After popping back the hostel, we decided to run out to get some bottled water - our room was ridiculously hot. The place was a little scarier at night. There were gangs of people hanging out everywhere and the lively atmosphere of the day was long gone. We promptly bought water and retired to bed!
We spent our last day in L.A. just lounging on the beach and having a long lunch in an Italian restaurant just off the sea front.
It has been a strange but fun couple of weeks. Although it may have seemed like we have been moaning about a lot on this blog, we have had some really fun times and after some initial feelings of disappointment when in L.A. we have decided that we would definitely come back. I think L.A. is maybe hyped up a bit too much. Hollywood is touristy and a bit rough and Sunset Strip consists of very few bars that are really far away from each other.
San Francisco, on the other hand, was a great place. You can be a tourist and do all the touristy things or you can just hang out in bars and soak up the atmosphere. There are a lot more places to just sit in SF than L.A.
I really should sleep now as I didn't sleep on the plane (how do people do it?) but I am wide awake. I think I'm currently on about 26 hours but I could be screwing my maths with all the odd time zone business. We have much better access to the net here so I will hopefully update this blog a little more over the next few days. I may even chance hogging all the bandwidth and upload a few pictures to Flickr.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Greyhound
We are currently back in L.A. after spending a very fun 6 days in San Francisco. We have agreed that San Francisco is far superior to Los Angeles for many reasons but I will get into that another time. This post is all about Greyhound buses.
So we decided to get the Greyhound from L.A. to San Francisco as we thought flying would be too expensive and our original plan of getting the Megabus fell through after it sold out months in advance. So we booked Greyhound without doing enough research... don't worry... we paid for that little slip up.
Our journey to SF was fairly uneventful... apart from the fact it took 9 hours and was an hour late in leaving Simon, our friend we were staying with, waiting at the less than safe Greyhound station. Whilst waiting he did witness someone getting their bag stolen so you get a good idea about the kind of people that hang around these stations. The L.A. one is situated in the beautiful surroundings of Skid Row where homeless insane wonder aimlessly... nice.
But it was on our return journey that the fun really started. We made our meal stop at 12:30 (which only gives you the option of eating at Burger King by the way) and things were going well. We were making good time. It got to 1:10 when were supposed to be leaving and the driver wasn't getting up from his table leaving many of the passengers a little annoyed. After about 15 minutes, he lets us know that the bumper is hanging off and we will not be able to proceed for an hour. This was quite annoying. After waiting for the mechanic to turn up and fix the bumper we set off. Now the air conditioning was not working and the bus was spluttering along even stalling a few times on the way out of the car park. This was quite worrying. We all got out and waited for the engine to cool down so we could get on our way. We did this and set off on the freeway.
We made it about a mile down the road before pulling into a truck stop. Here we sat for over two hours while we waited for a replacement bus. No shelter except for some trees, lots of flies and some not very desirable toilets were our landscape for these few hours. After the replacement bus was delayed yet again (the driver first said that it would be there at in an hour... then it was 5:30, then 7:30) the driver said we were going to get back on the bus with the top hatches open and we would deal with the heat - everyone was pleased although annoyed at the fact that we didn't do this two hours ago. We were back on the road... but for how long?
Not long is the answer to that. About an hour down the road we ground to a halt on the side of the freeway. In the arse end of nowhere if you pardon the expression - about 100 miles outside of L.A. and 30 miles away from the nearest town. Here we stayed for three and a half hours while we waited for another bus. In the desert heat with very little water and no food we stood for this time. The sun slowly set and we were in darkness although at least we were slightly less sweaty. At 11:00 the replacement bus showed up. We arrived in L.A. at 2:00AM (luckily we forced the driver to let us off at Hollywood rather than our planned stop of the Skid row one) and we booked into our motel at 2:30.
The thing that worried us most while we were stuck was the fact that we had no way of contacting our motel to say that we would be late. We didn't have the number and for the majority of the time our phones didn't work. Eventually we decided to phone our friend David in the UK (at 3AM UK time) and asked him to look up the number so we could let them know. It all worked out fine in the end and we got our room.
So today we are going to the Hollywood Greyhound office to lodge a complaint and demand a refund.
I am currently uploading some pictures from SF to Flickr but it is taking forever on this internet cafe connection. I may have to try again tomorrow to finish the set including the pictures from Alcatraz.
So we decided to get the Greyhound from L.A. to San Francisco as we thought flying would be too expensive and our original plan of getting the Megabus fell through after it sold out months in advance. So we booked Greyhound without doing enough research... don't worry... we paid for that little slip up.
Our journey to SF was fairly uneventful... apart from the fact it took 9 hours and was an hour late in leaving Simon, our friend we were staying with, waiting at the less than safe Greyhound station. Whilst waiting he did witness someone getting their bag stolen so you get a good idea about the kind of people that hang around these stations. The L.A. one is situated in the beautiful surroundings of Skid Row where homeless insane wonder aimlessly... nice.
But it was on our return journey that the fun really started. We made our meal stop at 12:30 (which only gives you the option of eating at Burger King by the way) and things were going well. We were making good time. It got to 1:10 when were supposed to be leaving and the driver wasn't getting up from his table leaving many of the passengers a little annoyed. After about 15 minutes, he lets us know that the bumper is hanging off and we will not be able to proceed for an hour. This was quite annoying. After waiting for the mechanic to turn up and fix the bumper we set off. Now the air conditioning was not working and the bus was spluttering along even stalling a few times on the way out of the car park. This was quite worrying. We all got out and waited for the engine to cool down so we could get on our way. We did this and set off on the freeway.
We made it about a mile down the road before pulling into a truck stop. Here we sat for over two hours while we waited for a replacement bus. No shelter except for some trees, lots of flies and some not very desirable toilets were our landscape for these few hours. After the replacement bus was delayed yet again (the driver first said that it would be there at in an hour... then it was 5:30, then 7:30) the driver said we were going to get back on the bus with the top hatches open and we would deal with the heat - everyone was pleased although annoyed at the fact that we didn't do this two hours ago. We were back on the road... but for how long?
Not long is the answer to that. About an hour down the road we ground to a halt on the side of the freeway. In the arse end of nowhere if you pardon the expression - about 100 miles outside of L.A. and 30 miles away from the nearest town. Here we stayed for three and a half hours while we waited for another bus. In the desert heat with very little water and no food we stood for this time. The sun slowly set and we were in darkness although at least we were slightly less sweaty. At 11:00 the replacement bus showed up. We arrived in L.A. at 2:00AM (luckily we forced the driver to let us off at Hollywood rather than our planned stop of the Skid row one) and we booked into our motel at 2:30.
The thing that worried us most while we were stuck was the fact that we had no way of contacting our motel to say that we would be late. We didn't have the number and for the majority of the time our phones didn't work. Eventually we decided to phone our friend David in the UK (at 3AM UK time) and asked him to look up the number so we could let them know. It all worked out fine in the end and we got our room.
So today we are going to the Hollywood Greyhound office to lodge a complaint and demand a refund.
I am currently uploading some pictures from SF to Flickr but it is taking forever on this internet cafe connection. I may have to try again tomorrow to finish the set including the pictures from Alcatraz.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Wind
Mark Twain once said 'the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco'. This I can personally vouch for. Out of the four days that we have spent in this city, only two have been what we would consider hot. Even on the warm days there have been moments of chilly wind.
We arrived quite late in the evening on Friday after a nine hour bus journey through the desert of California. We were met at the bus station by Simon, our friend who lives in San Fran, and dropped our stuff off at this loft apartment. We headed off to meet some of Simon's work mates who had stayed drinking at work. This is one of those moments that you really wished who worked for a silicon valley tech company. We walked in on a few people sitting on huge sofas in the middle of the office drinking what can only be described as the largest bottle of Barcadi you have ever seen. We sat drinking there before heading back to eat pizza at the flat.
The next day we went out to a street festival with two of Simon's friends that are visiting from Amsterdam, Jos and Vicky, and ended up holing up in Francis Ford Coppola's restaurant (yes, he owns it). We spent a few hours drinking and ,unbeknownst to me, getting very burnt. I noticed once we got home that I had a bright red forehead and nose. Luckily I didn't get any pealing as I covered myself in aftersun about ten times per day.
On Sunday we decided it would be fun to have a picnic in the park. We got on the Muni and headed over to Golden Gate Park with cheese, olives, bread and things to eat with wine. This ended up being a huge mistake as the temperature dropped dramatically and we ended up shivering through our little picnic. We decided to head over to a bar to heat up and ended up spending about 4 hours there.
Monday was fairly uneventful but today we walked over and booked our tickets to Alcatraz before walking up to Golden Gate Bridge. We got fairly close before decided it was time to start walking home. Now we are having a long relax and considering watching something shitty on the home cinema.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
San Francisco
Apologies for the lack of posting over the last couple of days. Although we have found a fairly nice internet cafe near to our motel in L.A., we have generally just been checking e-mails and looking up bus routes as it's 1.75$ for 15 minutes.
Anyway, the last few days have been quite eventful. We are currently in San Francisco staying with a friend in the centre of town. After posting this, we are going to go for a little explore.
But back to L.A. After the last post, we went out and found the Hollywood sign. We caught the subway a few stops down Hollywood Boulevard walked back. This took us about 2 hours as anyone who's been to LA will tell you, the streets are quite long. We realised this again the next day when we caught the bus over to Beverly Hills. It took us quite a while but soon we were wondering around all the ridiculously expensive shops on Rodeo Drive. We stopped for lunch (I had a chilli dog and Jordan a salad and fries) before heading over to Santa Monica. There we sat in a beach bar and had a pint... well as close to a pint as you can get - about 600ml. We then wondered around the pier and tried to get in the sea but it was a little bit too cold. Jordan got annoyed because she was then covered in sand as the sun cream we have been using is practically just grease. Due to our sandy state, we decided to do the long bus ride back to the motel to have a shower.
That night we decided to go out for dinner and walked down Hollywood Blvd looking for a restaurant. We passed some decent looking Italian places but were taken in by a swanky looking bar/restaurant that seemed to have some reasonably priced food. We decided to go in and were seated and brought menus. The waitor explained that it was a tapas style affair so the prices became a little less attractive. We then looked at the wine which was around the 50$ mark. At that point we were quite worried that we may have wondered accidentally into a really expensive restaurant. We ordered a couple of dishes each and a bottle of Chablis and worked out that we would probably end up spending about 80$ which isn't too bad but was a little more than we planned on spending. The waitor brought us out our food which consisted of some rather overdone flame grilled asparagus, mashed potato with truffle oil, miso soup and the largest mountain of calamari you've ever seen. After eating a bit of these we decided that there may be a reason that the place was empty apart from ourselves and another table. We picked at our food for a while before decided that we should just pay up, finish our wine and go. We paid the bill and sat in a more comfortable area drinking the rest of our wine. It was at this moment that we had a great idea. As the food had been so bad, we would not tip. The problem was that we had already put a tip in bill. We chose our moment carefully and quickly emptied the tip into Jordan's bag before making a hasty getaway. The tip money went to good use on beer and crisps to fill our empty bellies.
I'll leave the next day for another post as we really should go out exploring. I am currently uploading some pictures to Flickr so you can have a look at those while you wait with baited breath for the next post.
Anyway, the last few days have been quite eventful. We are currently in San Francisco staying with a friend in the centre of town. After posting this, we are going to go for a little explore.
But back to L.A. After the last post, we went out and found the Hollywood sign. We caught the subway a few stops down Hollywood Boulevard walked back. This took us about 2 hours as anyone who's been to LA will tell you, the streets are quite long. We realised this again the next day when we caught the bus over to Beverly Hills. It took us quite a while but soon we were wondering around all the ridiculously expensive shops on Rodeo Drive. We stopped for lunch (I had a chilli dog and Jordan a salad and fries) before heading over to Santa Monica. There we sat in a beach bar and had a pint... well as close to a pint as you can get - about 600ml. We then wondered around the pier and tried to get in the sea but it was a little bit too cold. Jordan got annoyed because she was then covered in sand as the sun cream we have been using is practically just grease. Due to our sandy state, we decided to do the long bus ride back to the motel to have a shower.
That night we decided to go out for dinner and walked down Hollywood Blvd looking for a restaurant. We passed some decent looking Italian places but were taken in by a swanky looking bar/restaurant that seemed to have some reasonably priced food. We decided to go in and were seated and brought menus. The waitor explained that it was a tapas style affair so the prices became a little less attractive. We then looked at the wine which was around the 50$ mark. At that point we were quite worried that we may have wondered accidentally into a really expensive restaurant. We ordered a couple of dishes each and a bottle of Chablis and worked out that we would probably end up spending about 80$ which isn't too bad but was a little more than we planned on spending. The waitor brought us out our food which consisted of some rather overdone flame grilled asparagus, mashed potato with truffle oil, miso soup and the largest mountain of calamari you've ever seen. After eating a bit of these we decided that there may be a reason that the place was empty apart from ourselves and another table. We picked at our food for a while before decided that we should just pay up, finish our wine and go. We paid the bill and sat in a more comfortable area drinking the rest of our wine. It was at this moment that we had a great idea. As the food had been so bad, we would not tip. The problem was that we had already put a tip in bill. We chose our moment carefully and quickly emptied the tip into Jordan's bag before making a hasty getaway. The tip money went to good use on beer and crisps to fill our empty bellies.
I'll leave the next day for another post as we really should go out exploring. I am currently uploading some pictures to Flickr so you can have a look at those while you wait with baited breath for the next post.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Hostel - Part III
Greetings from Hollywood!
We landed safely last night at 7pm local time... 3am in real time. We got driven to the hostel in a mad shuttle bus with a driver who put on his glasses to read his text messages (whilst driving along) but took them off to drive! We arrived in Hollywood at about 9:30 (5:30 UK time) and walked into the grotiest little place on earth. The guy behind reception was wearing a vest and we could smell him across the desk. They had no record of our booking and seemed very hard done by that we were asking for a room. So after paying almost double what we were told (as we didn't have a reservation) we walked into our dorm room.
Oh dear.
There were no blankets, dirty leopard print sheets and some crazy european boys. Jordan was clearly a little distressed at this point so we had a better look around. Our horror at the room was only compounded when we saw the bathrooms. Communal showers and minimal doors on the toilet cubicals didn't help the overall vibe of the place.
So we went for a walk.
After looking for a shop to buy some water we decided to look for better accommodation. We found a rather scary looking motel which didn't have anyone in the office so we carried on looking. It was then that we found our saviour. The 7 Star Hollywood Motel (I doubt it really has 7 stars). After inquiring about room rates and availability we made our decision. We would stay in the dirty Hollywood Hostel for one night and leave promptly in the morning. And this we did.
Now most of you will not believe this but we were up and getting ready at 6 o clock in the morning... no, really. We went out for breakfast at the International House of Pancakes and ate a very small amount of the huge portions given to us (photos coming soon). We went over to our motel and checked in before heading back to pick up our back packs from the hostel. After chucking our bags into our motel room and having some nice long showers we found ourselves in much better spirits and prepared for the day of exploring ahead.
We are now going to see if we can see the Hollywood sign through all of the smog and cloud.
Quote of the holiday so far - 'Is this the Walk of Fame? It's a bit shit isn't it?!' - Jordan.
We landed safely last night at 7pm local time... 3am in real time. We got driven to the hostel in a mad shuttle bus with a driver who put on his glasses to read his text messages (whilst driving along) but took them off to drive! We arrived in Hollywood at about 9:30 (5:30 UK time) and walked into the grotiest little place on earth. The guy behind reception was wearing a vest and we could smell him across the desk. They had no record of our booking and seemed very hard done by that we were asking for a room. So after paying almost double what we were told (as we didn't have a reservation) we walked into our dorm room.
Oh dear.
There were no blankets, dirty leopard print sheets and some crazy european boys. Jordan was clearly a little distressed at this point so we had a better look around. Our horror at the room was only compounded when we saw the bathrooms. Communal showers and minimal doors on the toilet cubicals didn't help the overall vibe of the place.
So we went for a walk.
After looking for a shop to buy some water we decided to look for better accommodation. We found a rather scary looking motel which didn't have anyone in the office so we carried on looking. It was then that we found our saviour. The 7 Star Hollywood Motel (I doubt it really has 7 stars). After inquiring about room rates and availability we made our decision. We would stay in the dirty Hollywood Hostel for one night and leave promptly in the morning. And this we did.
Now most of you will not believe this but we were up and getting ready at 6 o clock in the morning... no, really. We went out for breakfast at the International House of Pancakes and ate a very small amount of the huge portions given to us (photos coming soon). We went over to our motel and checked in before heading back to pick up our back packs from the hostel. After chucking our bags into our motel room and having some nice long showers we found ourselves in much better spirits and prepared for the day of exploring ahead.
We are now going to see if we can see the Hollywood sign through all of the smog and cloud.
Quote of the holiday so far - 'Is this the Walk of Fame? It's a bit shit isn't it?!' - Jordan.
Friday, June 6, 2008
T minus 3 days
I'm a bit scared.
My girlfriend and I start our two month holiday on Monday when we fly out to Los Angeles. Whilst I am very excited and this really is a trip of a life time, it's really bloody scary.
I've traveled on my own before. I managed to get to a festival in Germany with no grasp of German whatsoever but at least I was only a few hundred miles away. This time I will be half way across the planet.
I think we are pretty prepared. I'm currently printing off a few copies of all of our e-tickets. In fact, the e-tickets are probably not helping the situation. It used to be that if you were booking something you would have a ticket in your hand, or at least a letter telling you that you had booked your hotel. We have a few automated e-mails telling us that everything is A-OK.
That's all I wanted to say at the moment but be prepared for several more posts describing my apprehension over the next three days.
My girlfriend and I start our two month holiday on Monday when we fly out to Los Angeles. Whilst I am very excited and this really is a trip of a life time, it's really bloody scary.
I've traveled on my own before. I managed to get to a festival in Germany with no grasp of German whatsoever but at least I was only a few hundred miles away. This time I will be half way across the planet.
I think we are pretty prepared. I'm currently printing off a few copies of all of our e-tickets. In fact, the e-tickets are probably not helping the situation. It used to be that if you were booking something you would have a ticket in your hand, or at least a letter telling you that you had booked your hotel. We have a few automated e-mails telling us that everything is A-OK.
That's all I wanted to say at the moment but be prepared for several more posts describing my apprehension over the next three days.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Hong Kong - Tokyo
I booked our flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo this week. We ran into a bit of trouble with Tokyo as it seems that travel companies aren't really too fond of the little island of Japan.
Our original plan was to fly in with Air New Zealand and then get a one way ticket to Hong Kong as Air New Zealand doesn't fly out of Tokyo. This, however, turned out to cost around £700 each.
Instead we had to change our flight so we went straight to Hong Kong and then look into getting a return to Tokyo. A return is considerably cheaper than a one way ticket. Although this did throw up a positive in the sense that we get to spend a night and half a day in Taipei.
So this is the last flight booked and once we book our Greyhound bus from L.A. to San Francisco we will have all of our travel booked. Huzzah.
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