Methven and Mt Hutt

Finished our first day of skiing today, and are we sore!
It's surprising how many little muscles you never knew existed around your knees.

I took to the board and Danica ski's.
It was great fun, early start, snow chains, lots of snow and lots of people.

We are heading back tomorrow to do another day, then it's back to Christchurch (again!) and then finally back home to our own bed, and work unfortunately ;)


Hopefully we can get some pics uploaded when we get back - yes it's a poor effort, but a spanner got thrown into the works when the laptop died on us. Ahh well, I can vouch for the quality, the D60 has done a lot of leg work on this trip.

Dunedin, cause I am full already

Dunedin was a nice little seaside town. We finally got to eat the fabled NZ fish and chips, and it's not all they make it out to be.

First stop was to the Cadbury factory, and they don't had out as much free chocolate as they did back when I saw the Tasmanian branch.

Aside from that we drove alongside this lake at about 40kph for an hour to get up to the Otago Peninsula to see Albatross/Seal/Penguins, with only the seals making an appearance unfortunately.

After that we saw the only castle in NZ, which was nice albeit windy.


Now comes the drive back to Christchurch, drop the Fun Bus off (oh what a great time we have had), then pop back down the way we came to get to Methven (Mithvan for the locals) for some skiing/boarding.

Fox Glacier > Queenstown

Another long drive but also an abundance of awesome scenery. The GPS sent us down the scenic track which was pretty cool but it was also hella windy and a little unnerving on the final stretch where we went down this big mountainside with about 6 hairpin turns (like the ones you see in car ads (second gear all the way down - MW)). I think our pots and pans may have gotten a bit battered.

Queenstown was very much a tourist spot. All about who had the best and most expensive ski gear. The stores basically operate on a 'give us your wallet' scheme. In any case, we forked out the dinero to go bungee jumping (well, Mark jumped, I took a bungy swing ride instead). We had it pretty well timed so that Mark jumped then had enough time to get winched back up etc to see me do my drop, so yeah.

They also had this really cool luge track that we had a whole bunch of rides included in our bungee tickets for, so we spent a good part of the rest of the day getting a ski lift type thing up to the top of a hill and riding back down on these little luge pods, skidding out because the track was all icy from the snow. It was awesome :)

We have a heap of pictures to upload once we cull a few.

Tomorrow is the drive to Dunedin, Scottish historic region, or something like that. We are going on a tour of the Cadbury Factory then going to see giant albatross and penguins and a castle. Sounds reasonably Scottish to me.

Christchurch > Fox Glacier

Well, our second day in Christchurch was somewhat better. We managed to get a replacement HD for the macbook but have to run Ubuntu on it until we can get it home and reinstall OSX.

During the course of the day we made our way to the Gondola that takes you right up to one of the mountain peaks overlooking the town and got an awesome view of the valley, Alps and ocean. It was pretty freaking cold, and started raining, but then... It was snowing! It was pretty awesome. Then we went to see the penguins at the Antartic Centre. We just missed feeding time but there were still plenty of penguins out and about to take pictures of. So, yay!

It also snowed again overnight and a little more during our drive to Fox Glacier. The drive took us about 6 hours, and there was loads of beautiful scenery on the way. At one point we could see the ocean, farmland and the southern alps all in one. Crazy.

Today we did an all day hike out onto the Fox Glacier and it was just amazing. Nothing I can say about it really does it justice so hopefully when we get some internets working on the laptop we can upload some pictures and share it with you.

In any case, its time to retire to the fun bus. Our legs are like jelly and I think we are both in great need of a hot chocolate and some rest.

Tomorrow we drive to Queenstown - land of milk and bungee jumping.

New Zealand Ahoy!

Well, we've been in not so sunny NZ for under 24 hours and a few things have already gone wrong:

- Macbook died (probably the HD).
- My blue hair dye burst open during the flight (but was luckily contained within the toiletries bag) and I had to take a shower with the contents to clean it all off. Incidentally this particular holiday park has a nice blue stain to remember us by.
- It's raining and cold.
- I think I has lost my beanie. I can't find its.

Once we sort the laptop situation out (maybe) we can post some pictures.

Today we explore Christchurch and hopefully see some penguins *squee*.

It's been a hectic few days since we got back but I've finally found the time to sit down and think about how I can possibly sum up the past four weeks.

In a few words, it can be simply put as "the best marathon trip ever organised". I look back now on when I originally booked everything in, and I know that I didn't really make any definite plans on what I would do or what I wanted to see - I think doing most things on a spontaneous basis is what made it better. Instead of it being a "now what do we NEED to do today" it was more of a "what do we WANT to do today?".

I can't really say how it was per say. Anyone who has traveled overseas before can probably understand that the experience is your own and to try and share that with people back home is hard. All I will say is that the photo's don't do things justice. Multiply the "gee, that looks pretty" factor by a billion and then maybe, MAYBE, you'd be close to how it felt to see it all first hand.

That said, it was over all too soon. Already we're preparing to throw ourselves back into work (I have a performance on 5 April that I need to get ready for and Mark is back at work today) and adjust to normal life. The one thing I have found weird is talking entirely in English again. I had gotten used to using French and what little Japanese I know.

Inevitably I am already attempting to figure out when I can go again ;)

I hope you all enjoyed reading along with us. Its been fun, and its nice to have a record of our thoughts and travels. Already things are starting to fade in this goldfish memory of mine.

Tokyo Photos

Are here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/24532281@N04/sets/ - because there is too many to post in with whit notes below. There is three sets so far; the Shinkansen (super fast train), Kyoto Temples and Kyoto Rock Garden.
Also some of the shots are not pro work as I was getting a handle on the camera and what not, there is a few others as well that I need to resize and make smaller to they won't take forever to download to you!


We didn't get to go into the Imperial Palace in Kyoto as you need to apply for access.
And we didn't allow enough time to go see the Monkey Park and the bamboo forest, mainly because it takes 2 hours to get up to Kyoto, and we left Tokyo a tad too late.

The temples we saw were HUGE! They are all made of wood as well. You can't get into them so we just wandered around and took some pics and admired them. Here is one shot;



I liked the rock garden a lot, there was no grass there, it is all moss. There was a few cherry blossom's coming out as you can see, and there was some of what looked like conifers that had been trimmed to be just the main trunk with a little head of needles - very neat.
A sample shot;


And this is the Shinkansen - 2 and a bit hours to travel over 500kms, it was super fast;


Go check out the sets I posted above, they will be worth it I promise! :)


More stuff later.

We're home!

Landed yesterday morning, as Tokyo is only 2 hours behind it was a minor time/sleep lag to deal with.


It is great to be home, back in my bed, catching up with friends and what not.
I have done about 4 loads of washing since I got back and cleaned the suit case out. Also I tried a few of the scotches I bought, they are delightful!

On the flip side, my fridge died yesterday morning, and due to the service centre stuffing around they can't fix it till tomorrow :(


I am just going through some of the Tokyo pics we took with the new Nikon and will upload them soon.

On the final stretch

A little over 6 hours till we leave Tokyo, and another 15 odd till the official end to The Holiday.


We have a heap of stuff we need to catch up on so expect some post home-arrival updates with pictures and stories and what not.

But for now we must go and pack and make sure we are not over the 42kg weight limit - we did need to go get some little wheely cases to take on the plane with a few bits and pieces ;)

Midnight Snack Run: Tokyo edition!

There is something about walking around to the convenience store, buying noodles, cookies, nuggets and drinks and then coming back to the hotel room to consume it with an Asahi.
(It's 0130 here.)



So far we have wandered around Tokyo, specifically to Akihabara where all the electronics are (think Paddies markets for computers), and Harijuku where the alternative area of the city resides.
Both have been interesting and great to see, but nothing amazing - we had some high expectations which has kinda been the problem in most places that we have been (bar Paris).

Tomorrow we are going to head to Kyoto to check out the temples and whatever else we find. We also picked up a Nikon D60 DSLR yesterday which will get it's first workout on the day trip so expect some snazzy pics! :)

FYI my phone does not work in Japan!

If you need to call me then please call Danica.
For family matters call my Mum as she has Danica's number (only if it is urgent).

Otherwise just drop me an email.

OK, all the pictures from Paris have been sorted and uploaded. There are too many to put here, so I have uploaded them to my photobucket account for y'all.

Password is 'paris'.

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b353/nytevision/Paris/

Had a wonderful long weekend in Vaxjo, Sweden with Jason and Mikki and their little girl Ella. Did some nice relaxing bike riding, got to see some of the local sights, ate excellent food and generally chilled out and recovered from what has been a marathon holiday so far.

The flight to Tokyo was pretty good. Japan Airlines seem to have figured out that your economy class travelers deserve a little comfort too - and that perhaps implementing the use of ergonomics in the design of their airline chairs isnt such a bad move.

Another big timezone shift, but this means we are all the more closer to our own home timezone. Its 3.20am now and we are both awake and excited - waiting for the rest of the city to wake up so we can go out and explore it.

I give you Paris

Some piccies while we wait for the train in Copenhagen:

Eiffel Tower:





Notre Dame:



Mona Lisa



Napoleon Apartments at The Louvre

To expand on the previous nights dinner

As I wait here for Danica to go and buy some shoes ;)


The dinner the other night was had here at the Capitol, it is the only restaurant within a hotel to have two Michelin stars. You can see pretty much was was on the menu here.

All up it ended being about 5 courses.
A soup pre-appetiser.
The appetiser.
The main.
Desert.
Chocolates.

I took a leap and had Pigeon for my main as it was recommended by the waiter man and it was amazing! It looked rather rare but felt cooked, the texture was like a finer roo (if you have had it) and the taste was about as strong as roo as well.


Also of note, at least for me, was the inclusion of 59 whiskeys at the bar.
59!
(Of course that includes the lesser bourbon whiskeys, but still!)

They had bottles from Speyside, Lowlands, Highlands, Islay, Islands and everywhere in between. The most expensive was a bottle of Farclas 1959, a single serve (about 50ml here) was 89 pounds - or just shy of $200. I was sorely tempted to try it, but that crossed the path into insanity so I just tried the 'cheaper' stuff (ie under 20 pounds).


Needless to say I have a number of leads for my next bottle of premium scotch.

I have to be honest...

London is not thrilling me. Bar the hotel, the service here is terrible. Any store or cafe we have been in to around here has been horribly lacking in service.

I sort of get the feeling London is a lot like Sydney except everything is triple the price.

That complaint aside, we had a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant last night. There was a gent next to us who was dining by himself and whom we eventually struck up a conversation with about the food and what not (since he seemed to be a bit of a regular there). Lovely chap... He dropped by our table in the bar later in the night with a box of the chocolates they served us in the restaurant after dessert. I think he has been the only non hotel staff person to be nice to us here.

Saw the changing of the guard this morning. Not terribly exciting but nice to watch.

I havent taken many pictures here because quite honestly there hasnt been much thats caught my interest. After Paris, this all seems very drab.

Yes, we are still alive! Just barely...

Paris was non stop, but so SO lovely. The people were so polite and friendly, the hotel was great, food was great, sites were to die for. Nothing to complain about really, and all over far too soon.

We are in London now, and getting ready to head out for the day.

I have over 300 photos from Paris, so I wont be doing a big photo post ;) When I get a spare moment later tonight I will post a couple to keep y'all convinced I am actually overseas and not hiding under my bed.

Photos from the Statue of Liberty and one of our last days in New York, as promised.

Despite the cold, I think Mark has discovered a new hidden talent. He has quite the knack for getting in frame when you least expect it**.

Now some of you might recognise this sculpture:



It used to stand in the WTC forecourt, and is probably most remembered as the sculpture that is blown off it stand and rolled into a Starbucks in the movie Fight Club. Welly... When they were cleaning up after the whole mess they unearthed it, and it now stands at Battery Park as a permanent memorial to the people it saved who where miraculously sheltered inside its massive hollow brass innards. Its hard to see, but the whole top of the globe is ripped right open.

This is the Manhattan skyline as seen from Liberty Island. In the closer picture you can see the shadows of the buildings that used to be there but had to be demolished because of structural damage after the WTC collapsed. You cant see it in the photo, but the old Doiche Bank building is still standing - shrink wrapped in scaffolding and warning signs, waiting for someone to tear it down. Must be an insurance problem or something. I wondered if maybe all the belongings of people that had to evacuate so suddenly were still inside. After all, no one has been back in there since.





This is the only picture I could get of a church we saw on our Ho-Ho tour around Uptown NYC. Its been in the making for over 150 years and still has another 50 to go. It was so huge! I think the tour guide said something about it being the 3rd largest church in the world or something like that.



Ducks! Since y'all are probably sick of squirrels.



Central Park and things in Central Park (including me on a pile of mucky old snow - that was the ONLY snow we saw despite the weather):













Liberty Striding Forward:





** Most pictures staged

A few observations about NYC

It was cold, the coldest place I have been to, the other morning it was -11 with wind chill, the puddles from the previous days rain were frozen (which provided a difficulty for Danica at times!), we bought a bottle of drink, left it in a bag that we had with us, and at the end of the day it was still cold enough to just drink.
It was just all round freaking cold.
Luckily the next few places are all a lot warmer - comparatively.

So;

• Their streets and pavements are awful. If Sydneysiders get a major pothole they complain and it gets fixed. Here it is like the dirt roads of back home sprayed black to simulate tar and then put to use.
• If New Yorkers came to Sydney and tried to walk around like they do here, they would most likely be in the hospital within half an hour of leaving their hotels. People here just walk out, and the drivers are surprisingly tolerant. Pedestrians seem to have a lot more right of way here then they do in Sydney.
• The indicator lights of cars are integrated into the stop/parking lights. So you don't have a separate indicator, your brake light just blinks, which makes things hard to gauge. Mind you, they actual use of indicators seems to be a voluntary thing with the drivers.
• New Yorkers are very polite, in fact I think it is most Americans. They always say 'excuse me', hold the doors/lifts and so on. This is one stereotype that the movies got wrong - the whole arrogant, "get outa my way" thing.

That's about all I can think of for now. Maybe more after another flight (oh yay).

And here is another picture of a squirrel.

Because everyone loves squirrels.

Update while waiting for planes

We're currently waiting for our flight to Paris. We got here fairly early in case the lines were long and security tight but it wasnt as bad we had anticipated. My biggest gripe (with the security) is that they dont tell you what is going on. Its always just "Please stand over here Miss" or "Hold on a second" while the security guard walks off and leaves you sitting confined in your own special little area to go speak with someone in hushed tones. I don't like it.

Anyhow... Monday night - Saw Avenue Q at the John Globe Theatre. It was most excellent. Many thanks to Robert (aka Killer) for the recommendation. Basically it is a rather tongue in cheek take on Sesame Street with puppets and singing included but, as you would expect from a childrens show parody, is full of bad language, adult themes and sex.

Tuesday we went and did the tourist thing and saw the Statue of Liberty, floated past Ellis Island but didnt actually go see it, the former WTC site, and took a big bus ride around downtown on a hop-on-hop-off tour. The photos are on my camera though, so a picture update will come when we are in Paris.

Wednesday we did the bus thing around uptown, went to the Museum of Modern Art (which was dissapointing because their Dali was out on loan) and did a bit more wandering about on our own. Later that night we went to a restaurant called wd50 which was pretty tasty. Their menu is a weird science of tastes and textures. After that we stepped outside to see the eclipse, then went to the top of the Rockerfeller Centre for a beautiful night time view of the city.

This morning we went to the Museum of Sex, dropped off in a few more stores, then got our frozen butts to the airport.

All in all NYC has been very good to us. People have been friendly, the accommodation was great (after we moved hotels) and the sights and sounds were all worth traveling for. Saying that, its not unlike other cities. Its just a lot bigger than our own and hence the mysticism. The food hasnt been exceptional, but what meals we did have were fair to good in quality. wd50 was excellent.

So... See you in Paris!

It's cold

-6 to be accurate.

Update time!

OK. We have been super busy and tired thus explaining the lack of updates. So this will be a big one.

Friday - Explored and then met up with Tammy (HazMatts lady) at a Yakitori restaurant in St Marks Place called Oh-Taisho. We had to wait to get in (as seems to be the trend with restaurants around here) but it was worth it. The food was very yummy. Then we went to some Irish pub around the corner for a drink before battling it out for a cab home. It was freezing!

Saturday - Mostly we kicked about the hotel room as we were both feeling a little under the weather. Met up with Tammy again in the afternoon and then did some more wandering about and flirted with the idea of shopping and Central Park. It got a bit dark a bit quickly through and retreat was declared.

Sunday - 5th Ave and Madison Ave were set firmly in my sights and so it was declared we would spend a day walking around throwing cash at people. Got some new gloves and a new scarf from Burberry. Was a little disapointed with the stock in Chanel and LV. Tiffany's is massive here too. And crowded! I couldnt believe how busy it was.

In the evening we went to a theme restaurant called Jekyl and Hydes downtown. Basically it was a horror theme place, with every b grade prop you could ever hope for stuck to the walls, entertainment included. Naturally, our dear hero was picked for an interactive challenge during the evening involving a sphynx and his jealousy of Mark's goatee.

Pictures here:







And this was the steaming drain system outside:



Monday - More shopping! This time downtown in SoHo area. Much, much different to the Broadway area.

We also swung by the Rockerfeller Centre. Its quite pretty at night time. :)





We visited the Statue of Liberty today, but more on that later. Too tired!

History and such

Well, Kosovo declared independence today. And what a fuss was made over here in NYC! All day there have been crowds of people with flags and whistles running around, convoys of cars with people and flags hanging out every window while their horns blare. It was really cool (if not slightly confusing as we had no idea at the time why on earth this was all going on) to see.

Tomorrow is Presidents Day. So there are sales on all over. It is going to be awesome.

Pictures!

Figured we should post some pictures! Haven't taken many yet as we have been doing more walking than we have sightseeing (and perhaps more sleeping than walking).

Our hotel is right near Times Square on 42nd Street. Ze view from our room:





And this is the view on the corner:




We went for a bit of a wander and found this really cool tree sculpture thing in Madison Square Park:



And there were a bunch of squirrels running around. Too fast to catch pictures close up but we managed a quick snap of this one that sat still for all of 2 seconds:




There ya go!

Some place a little more like home

Well, we moved hotels this morning and are much, MUCH happier.

Also had our first "Are you an Aussie, we're Aussie too!" moment while checking out this morning. Its funny, I never thought I had that bad an accent but more than one person has already pointed it out. Finally. Cultural identity ;)

I forgot to add - on headphones and adapters

The crappy headphones you get on the plane can be hacked apart to make an adapter so you can use your better headphones.
(Note to self - buy headphone adapter)


But then on the fipside, why go to all that trouble to hack an existing standard like the 3.5mm stereo jack?
Bah!



While we were just sleeping we managed to reboook a hotel - we are now at the Times Square Hilton, which is HEAPS better and just a small increase on the price.



Now to sleep some more.

Hello New York!

Some initial observations;

• Babies + planes = bad
• Two long haul flights and multiple time zone confusion = much sleepiness
• It's really cold when you are 11.5km's up (-59 C cold)
• Steam really does come out of holes in the pavement in NY!
• And they have cops stationed outside Macca's, maybe they were just waiting to pickup dinner....
  

The flights were good, mostly. I got pulled aside to be explosives tested and Danica got bag searched, both before we even left Sydney. We specified vegetarian food so we were always the first to be fed and it was really nice as well.
No major delays with our flights, but a few less than ideal seat mates.

Our current hotel at the Paramount is, well, crap.
It's about 3 x 3. A dinky, hard little double bed. The fridge is locked.
But the killer is there is NO sound proofing. And we are about a block away from Times Square, so it is super noisy (and the steam heater is making noises too).
We are looking to find a new hotel tonight/tomorrow (NY time - it's now just 20:20).


Despite the rough start, it is Valentine's Day, and I couldn't have hoped for better company both today and on the trip :)


But now, to sleep....hopefully.

Not long to go now!

With 32 days before we depart on our marathon trip around a select area of the globe, I figured it was time to start posting here!

Curious as to what we are doing when? Well:

14 Feb - Depart Sydney
14 to 21 Feb - New York City
22 to 24 Feb - Paris
25 to 28 Feb - London
28 Feb to 2 Mar - Copenhagen
2 to 8 Mar - Tokyo
9 Mar - Arrive Sydney

Now all I have left to do is tackle the almost impossible task of selecting only two pairs of jeans to take out of the 10 pairs I own. Oh noes! ;)