The Foo Files

Ísland hluti tvö

2010-04-25T11:43:00.001+01:00

15 March 2010

So, our final day in Iceland – time for a quick post or part two of the last post as the title suggests…I know you all speak Icelandic by now!

As you will all know, the volcanic ash cloud brought the mighty European airspace to a close, however this didn’t affect our travel plans, although we have had to put some of our travel on hold for various other reasons.

Anyway, back to the past. We headed off up to the Perlan and snapped some pictures of the magnificent vista at the top.

On the way up

As you can see, that church is more or less the biggest building in Reykjavik.

Outside the Perlan

A sculpture called ‘Dance’

Once inside, we had a poke around and picked up a few postcards. We saw a few items from the museum on display outside in an effort to entice us into the museum.

Warrior on horseback

Swarthy looking Viking

We also had a little lunch and I left Sha to fill in postcards to her nieces while I took a few more photos. I did mention magnificent vistas didn’t I?

We noticed that while a lot of the buildings were plainly painted, the rooves of many were quite colourful.

A very friendly cat

As we headed back down, we met a very friendly cat who wanted a scratch.

And that was it…oh, except from this lovely photo of Sha from the day before. Very cheeky! We are building up quite a collection of pictures of fire hydrants from around the world!

Next up – our trip to Scotland where we stay in Dunoon for five nights, followed by Glasgow for a few. More on that leg of our journey to come.

Iceland, Bjork is from here you know!

2010-04-13T21:27:00.003+01:00

12 –15 March 2010

So, following on from my last post, we arrived at Heathrow airport and at the wrong terminal. It took us about 10 minutes for the penny to drop and we realised we needed to go to Terminal 1. A short tube trip sorted that out, but nothing like a little extra stress to make life fun.

As we headed onto the plane, I was immediately hit by the easy listening music that was playing over the speakers. It was our first taste of Iceland and quite relaxing in an odd way. Sha and I were sat next to a slightly inebriated young woman who told us that Iceland was expecting a volcanic eruption and it could happen while we were there. As it was, it occurred a week after we left and lead to an evacuation of 500 people.

We arrived just after midnight, so it was too dark to see much of the landscape while landing or on the subsequent bus ride from Keflavik airport to Reykjavik. We got to our hotel and went out like lights, which incidentally we had noticed a lot of, including many Christmas lights…a little odd. It turns out that Icelanders simply like to light everything up as much as possible. We were later told that as a small country they like to make themselves look a bit bigger with all the lights.

In the morning, looking out the window, we were greeted by this site:

The above is known as ‘The Pearl’ (or Perlan in Icelandic) and is a rotating restaurant/cafe/museum and power station all at once. The round things at the base store hot water which is then pumped throughout the city.

Iceland has an abundance of geothermal energy and therefore is one of the most pollution free countries in the world. They also have the luxury of using hot water as central heating. The entire country is just under half the size of New Zealand, has a population of 320,000 with about a third of them living in the capital of Reykjavik. In many ways, Iceland's landscape reminds me of Rotorua and the central plateau of New Zealand but with a lot less trees (yes, I know the picture above has many trees, but that was a rarity).

We headed into the central area of Reykjavik on the Saturday morning, browsed various local crafty stores and took a bunch of photos. We also ate at Cafe Loki where we sampled some traditional Icelandic fare. I noticed a large number of pieces of street art and we took a walk along the fishing focussed water front.

Icelandic Church

The above church is actually one of the tallest (if not the tallest) building in Reykjavik.

Baldur's Gate (one for the gamers)

Icelandic Cuisine 1

Icelandic Cuisine 2

In the first photo of food above, we have smoked lamb, dried fish with butter, putrefied shark, fish stew (plokkfiskur), and smoked trout. Most of the food is served on some very yummy rye bread.

In the second photo is meat soup (more of a consommé really) and on the left is lamb pate.

I quite enjoyed the different new tastes, whereas Sha wasn’t too keen. In particular, the fish stew which consisted primarily of fish and potato was particularly yummy. The putrefied shark was very salty and left a stinging sensation in the back of the throat – definitely an acquired taste and the reason you only get three small cubes.

After lunch, we continued to wander…

Spied some art

And a little more

Visited the waterfront

Found a lot of prams

Do not be mistaken – those prams are full of babies who are left outside cafes and shops while their parents are inside. Iceland really is the sort of place, where it seems to be safe enough to leave your little one outside while you get sloshed!

We popped in on an Icelandic chocolate store and picked up some different chocolately treats. The plain style chocolate bars weren’t that great, however some of the smaller chocolate bars were quite nice. We foisted some onto Dan and Sarah in Scotland when we visited them later.

Counted our money

5000 ISK (Icelandic Krona) is not a lot of money…it’s about $55 NZ.

We then headed back to hotel and got ready for the Northern Lights tour in the evening.

We were picked up and on a bus with about 80 people from all over the world were taken on a long journey out to the best places to see the Northern Lights. Unfortunately, the weather conditions were not the best and we didn’t see much, if anything. There was a streak of bright light behind a load of cloud cover, but it wasn’t visible to the naked eye. We were a bit disappointed, however the chap doing the voice over on the coach was fantastic and had a very dry humour that kept most people happy. Afterwards it was back to the hotel and time for a snooze.

Sunday morning, we were picked up for the Golden Circle tour. This was another guided coach trip where we were taken to see the Nesjavellir geo-thermal power station, Gullfoss waterfall, Strokkur geyser and finally to Þingvellir National Park.

First up – the geo-thermal power station

A couple of trolls that were found inside

Icelanders love their trolls, fairies and elves…

Gullfoss Waterfall

Strokkur Geyser

Þingvellir National Park

The third photo shows the effects of the national park being situated on top of two tectonic plates that are slowly drifting apart.

And that was about it for the day. The following day we headed up to the Pearl for a walk about and to enjoy the amazing views. I’ll do a quick post about that tomorrow!

The Adventure Begins...Kidlington

2010-03-31T16:10:00.003+01:00

10 - 12 March, 2010

So, we are about to head off on our big European adventure, but before we depart British shores, we were staying in Kidlington (just beyond Oxford) for a couple of days. Sha has been working here since early Jan, and I have come up for the last couple of days before we start our travel by heading off to Iceland.

Sha has been staying at Lavender Cottage - a lovely bed and breakfast (who do an absolutely fantastic cooked brekkie) - combined with a beautiful room and tranquil atmosphere. It's the sort of place that you might see in an issue of Home and Garden. Sha would like it known that she resisted the temptation of a cooked breakfast the whole six weeks she stayed here, but she did indulge on her final day. If anyone ever happens to be in Kidlington and is looking for a place to stay, I thoroughly recommend it.

We were a 20 minute bus ride from Oxford, and were a five minute walk from the local St. Mary the Virgin church and its accompanying graveyard. I'm not generally a morbid person, but I love wondering through a graveyard, soaking up the history and seeing what sort of innings people get. Am often surprised at how old people can make, despite not having the modern advances in technology.

While I was in Oxford, I had a gawk at Christ Church College (Lewis Carroll studied here):

and popped in on a rather unique cafe. The cafe had writing all over the walls, with one bit urging "Check out http://www.waldopancake.com/ or don't" - so, I just had to have a look. Weird. Especially when you click on the 'stories' tab. In the cafe there was also this:

and some of the other writing included "Organic lines - reminiscent of 90's car designs" with an arrow pointing to the windows and "Secret Nescafe Pipe" next to a random pipe in the cafe. Something about the quirkiness of the cafe really appealed to me. Hmmm, after further research, I think it was Puccino's which is a chain franchise. I think. Actually, there are a number of British food franchises which are pretty good, especially when compared to the American monoliths of Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC and Burger King. I have been very impressed with Pizza Express which puts Pizza Hut to shame. But I digress.

While visiting Christ Church College and a cafe may not sound like much (it wan't), I also visited a few bookstores trying to find something substantial I could sink my teeth into. No luck, but I still had the Dexter omnibus to keep me sated (the bestest Christmas pressie - thanks Sha!)

I also paid a visit to the St. Mary the Virgin church and graveyard, which was just up the road from Lavender Cottage. Below are a few of the more interesting shots.

St. Mary the Virgin church

Some older graves

Statue of girl with flowers

Many, many more tombstones

I went for a wander further down past the graveyard to find somewhere to sit and have some lunch, when the heavens opened up and I got hailed from upon high. This British winter really does seem to be hanging around!

After a few days in Kidlington, it was time to catch the bus from Oxford to Heathrow, disembark at the wrong terminal and then try and get to Iceland. Easy!

Euro Travel

2010-03-25T08:06:00.005Z

Okay, so I lied about the next post being about dinosaur bones. I will play catch up with the more interesting events of last year some time. Honest!

Anyway, I thought I would give a little outline of what we are doing at the moment. We are currently in Luton (amazing place that it is) and very shortly leave for Prague. We have been in Dunoon (Scotland) and then Glasgow and prior to that Iceland.

After Prague, we spend time in Belgium, then Dubrovnik, Greece, Spain, France and finally Italy before heading back to London for a week. We then make the journey back to NZ via the US, where we are thinking about spending a few days. Very much a whirlwind trip, but we will be able to see a fair bit of Europe which has so far eluded us.

Dirty brie

2010-03-08T14:46:00.003Z

17 Feb 2010

After two posts about food, I thought I would add a further one to complete the hat trick (thanks for the idea Peter).

Mmmm, a dirty Cornwallian St Endellion brie I purchased a few weeks ago. Delicious! So runny and gooey, it was the sort of brie that threatened to slide off the kitchen bench onto the floor. Said fromage had to be devoured pretty quickly to ensure that it didn't!

Next up: Some dinosaur bones

Visit to Harrods

2010-03-07T09:58:00.005Z

21st March 2009

Went to Harrods for a look around and were duly impressed. Can't really describe it - just go with a well loaded credit card. Or gold. Actually, they do have a gold exchange there as well.

You can find some good food deals in the food halls at reduced prices. We purchased some cheap poultry - a couple of poussin. Yes, we are evil carnivores, but doesn't it look delicious? It looks like a normal chicken, only smaller...and therefore tastier. Or something like that.

Oh, and below is a photo we took of the memorial to Diana and Dodi. I don't think photos of this memorial were allowed, but that didn't stop us (or the other hundred odd tourists doing the same thing).

Steak and Guinness Pie

2010-03-05T16:42:00.007Z

19 March 2009

Now, I'm not much of a cook, but I do enjoy cooking, especially making up things from scratch which inevitably end up a little bit, uh, crispy. But sometimes I surprise myself.

Here is a Steak and Guinness Pie I made, using a recipe I found somewhere (perhaps the local free tube paper) and influenced from St Patrick's Day which had been a few days earlier. We had tried to find somewhere to get a free Guinness with one of the vouchers that were being handed out everywhere, but it was only certain pubs, and they were absolutely packed. Not a bad idea though - vouchers for free beer! :-) St Patrick's Day really is a godsend of free publicity for Guinness!

Mmmmmmm

A slightly more attractive angle

Notice that I have cunningly written my name on the top, to allow for ease of identification if stolen. Who ate all the pies they cried?

It tasted okay, but I've had better (and worse!)

Slices of You

2010-02-23T12:19:00.006Z

Sunday 15 March 2009

As mentioned in my last blog post, after returning from Oxford, we had an engagement with seeing a load of sliced up bodies preserved in plastic. No, this wasn't an appointment with a serial killer, rather, it was a visit with a crazy German with a hat.

We visited the Body Worlds exhibition at the O2.

Body Worlds is an exhibition of real bodies which have been preserved, dissected and covered in plastic. A German chap called Gunther von Hagens has a calling for doing this and we found it to be a very unique experience. Great to be passionate about something! :-)

The first thing we saw when we went in was a whole bunch of embryos at different stages of development. The exhibition then moved on to bodies of people in different poses, with layers of skin peeled back and plasticised. It was a little unsettling for at least the first 5-10 minutes, but then you quickly get used to it. Just remember - these are real bodies, not models or constructs and it has had its fair share of controversy.

There were cross sections of many parts of the body, so you could see exactly how we are made and all the layers that lie beneath the skin. Beauty is only skin deep, and we all look the same underneath! There were also cross sections of parts of nearly all human organs, as well as tumours. Interesting to see the comparison of a smokers lungs with those of a non-smoker.

It wasn't just the human body - there were animals as well, including a horse, camel and giraffe. Truly odd standing next to the giraffe – they really are incredibly tall magnificent beasts.

As for a lot of exhibitions, we weren't allowed to take photos, but I have managed to find a few online which I have included below to give an idea of what we saw. This particular exhibition had the the them 'The Mirror of Time' and focused on the ageing process and how a lot of older people keep themselves young (80 and 90 year olds who are still very active).

Deep in thought

I wonder if the hat was Gunther's idea?

Give me some skin man!

Giddy Up!

Body in front, skeleton behind

Pregnant woman

And here are a couple of videos from youttube.

Body World Exposition: Part 1

Body World Exposition: Part 2

History Channel from Brazilian TV

Here's a couple of quick and funny videos with Jonathan Ross interviewing Gunther von Hagens and having a staring contest.

A fascinating and eye opening experience that left me feeling a little bit icky for a short while, but at the same time I was very glad that there are people who leave their bodies to be plasticised in this way for educational purposes. Personally, I'm not sure if I would want to be plasticised (there were forms available if you were keen!), but organ donation...that's something else altogether.

Oxford for Electric Six

2009-12-20T13:15:00.003Z

Saturday 14 March 2009

We took the train to Oxford, famous for being one of the two most well known university towns in the UK. Owing to a momentarily lapse of stupidity, I left our camera on the train and it was swiftly whisked away, despite numerous calls to lost property in Wales (as that was where the train was heading) it was never seen again, but at least there were no photos on it. Despite the loss of camera (we had a second one at home) I was able to snap a few photos with my mobile and all was not lost.

The reason for coming to Oxford was to see the American band Electric Six, who are simply brilliant with their witty and humorous music which is a mix of rock, disco and a dash of synthesiser thrown in for good measure. It was also a great opportunity to marvel at the architectural style of Oxford and generally just soak up the culture and history of the town.

Prior to seeing the band, we took a look around Oxford and took a bus tour with commentary, followed by a walking tour - the tour guide, Stuart, had a wonderful name...I mean, was a fantastic guide and allowed us access into a number of the university colleges, both inside and out, as well as one college's chapel.

Architecture spotting from the bus

One of the colleges

Inside the college

Nice ceiling...

Pretty as a picture

The chairs look a little hard though!

More pictures

He looks like John Lithgow...

One for the fans of the latest series of Dexter

Inside the chapel

In this particular chapel, only men were allowed (as it was a male college) and the wife of the dean was only allowed to attend a service in a walled off section of the chapel. Oh, how times have changed!

A flagstone in the chapel

I can't read Latin, but it appears to be something about glorious resurrection

We also were able to wander through some of the gardens along with the obligatory 'keep off the grass' signs.

Keep off that grass Sha!

In fact, we were asked at one particular college what the Queen and the college gardener there had in common. One plucky walker said "Uh, they both have corgis?" to which the tour guide burst out laughing. Apparently, it is because they are the only two people who were allowed on the grass in the courtyard. We learnt that the Queen owns all the swans in England and is the only one allowed to eat them! Visions of the Queen with a bloody swan hanging from her mouth, jumping up and down on the grass filled our heads.

Strike a pose

Archways are always interesting

An intriguing alleyway

Some good looking towers

Sun!

It was mid term break while we were here which meant that the majority of students were being picked up by their parents and were loading their cars up with everything they needed to keep themselves entertained over the couple of weeks they had off.

Student stealing a speaker

Looks like his Dad is in on the action as well!

Student stealing a bike

After our walking tour we caught up with a FileMaker guy, Ben and his partner Monica for a tasty fish and chips lunch at a local pub, the White Horse.

Since being over here, I have really started to gain an appreciation for cask ale - all the stories about British beer being flat and warm is simply not true. Sure, there are some cheap and nasty beers but there are a number of yummy cask ales too and they are far preferable to drinking lager, well at least in my humble opinion.

After lunch, we proceeded to have a wee wander around by ourselves to see what else we could spy.

More cool buildings

And another

A crest from one of the houses within a college

And another crest

Oxford Library

This library has a copy of EVERY book ever published in the UK

A tall steeple

After popping in on a little studenty pub down a couple of tight alleyways, we headed for our accommodation, checked in, ate a small dinner of nibbley bits from the supermarket as we were still feeling full from lunch and then headed back out to the gig. Oxford is (obviously) a very student focused town and there was no shortage of drinking in the street en-route to more exciting venues. I think there was a bit of fancy dress going on as well, due to it being mid term break.

After arriving at the gig, we were confronted by the support band, which were doing metal covers of disco songs. I can't recall the band's name, but they were very unique and a couple of them were wearing classic white disco suits. Strange to hear a hard metal version of Stayin' Alive! I love seeing a band that doesn't take itself too seriously and also enjoys what they do, and this was clearly in evidence.

Following on from the support act, the main event - Electric Six - lived up to their name and were as good as when we had seen them in Wellington a few years ago. I was a little taken aback at their first couple of songs as the lead singer seemed to be having trouble getting into the swing of things. Not to worry, as after a song or two, he picked up the pace and the crowd were spellbound. On another note, this was the first gig I had ever been to where they had cigarette girls...girls dressed glamour style holding trays with packets of cigarettes - I thought this was the noughties, not the 1930's!

The following day we headed back to London as we had a date to see a whole lot of sliced up bodies preserved in plastic…but that’s a story for another day.

Greenwich Observatory

2009-12-19T08:20:00.001Z

Uh, so, yeah, as you may recall Sha and I live in London and we have been blogging about our experiences. Well, I have become rather slack on the updating front (as I am sure you will know) and really haven't done much of it lately. Nonetheless, I will do a few 'quick fire' rapid posts to try and bring us forward to the present day. I may have more chance of eating my own face, but hey, at least I can say "I tried" (and failed).

Sunday, March the 8th 2009

Sha and I headed to Greenwich where we met Perraine and Heather for a coffee (milky) at a cafe in Greenwich park. Actually, the coffee was slightly better than the rest of the crud that masquerades as coffee over here, so that was something. Heather then headed off back home to do some work on some illustrations she was working on while Perraine, Sha and I went down to Greenwich and did a walking tour with a guide who gave us a lot of history (and through a very thick accent). As this was over 8 months ago, I can't remember the finer details, except that I am pretty sure I enjoyed myself and that the name of the ship the Cutty Sark was derived from something quite rude involving naked witches dancing around a house (or church?) which they had set on fire. This was a long time ago. Oh, and would you believe it, you can read all about it on the Wikipedia page linked to above.

After the walking tour we headed up to the Greenwich Observatory and watched a 30 minute show called Invaders From Mars, with the deep booming voice of Tom Baker narrating. Gotta love Tom! That was quite a unique experience, lying back on the seats on the Observatory and looking up to see what settling Mars may be like in the future. It was so comfortable that Sha actually dozed off for a minute. Right - now for some pictures.

Thames Underpass Walkway

By going through this walkway you can actually walk under the Thames and exit on the Isle of Dogs - from there, just a quick walk to Canary Wharf. You can see the exit point in the distance.

The Admiral Hardy Pub

The last man that Lord Nelson ever kissed...

Greenwich Observatory

You can't see them, but there are little spikes all over the ledges to prevent those damn pesky pigeons from landing.

A big red ball at Greenwich Observatory

The ball is raised just before 1pm and at exactly 1pm it is dropped. It was used by ships in Thames as a method of synchronising their time pieces (the hill of the observatory can be clearly seen from the Thames).

Another interesting part of the Observatory

All for the moment, but over the coming days I'll put up photos of our trip to Oxford and a few of the other interesting things we did in March.

Little Shop of Horrors & Vampires Rock

2009-12-18T18:00:00.013Z

Sat 28 Feb/Sun 1 Mar 2009

A very musical weekend - we saw Little Shop of Horrors in Wimbledon (yes where the Wombles live) on Saturday and Vampires Rock on Sunday. Both were fantastic.

Prior to seeing Little Shop of Horrors (a matinée no less!) we had a forage at a market in Wimbledon which has a working watermill. Had a yummy pizza lunch and bottle of red wine at an Italian restaurant too.

A nice brick pub/cafe

Mmmm, bread and bricks

Sha, wine...just waiting for the pizza

I did a sort of (Doctor Who focused) review of Little Shop of Horrors here and I can't really explain Vampires Rock except it was a musical. With lots of covers of rock songs (think Queen, Meatloaf, Kiss, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, Billy Idol). And Vampires. It also had Toyah Willcox. With characters such as Baron Von Rockula, The Devil Queen, Pandora Rosie Box and Stringfellow, it sounds like the ravings of a madman with the mental age of a 12 year old, but it really is a simply fantastic evening - a load of fun, music, comedy and vampires. Did I mention the vampires?

I managed to snap a photo of Sha with Toyah just before we left:

Vampires Rock video

And here's Toyah doing School's Out

Oh go on, one more...Rebel Yell

I think you all get the idea! Anyway, if you get the chance to see Vampires Rock, do so - you won't regret it.

Mmmmm, Monster Munch

2009-12-09T17:22:00.006Z

One good thing about living in the UK is that they have brought back the perennial favourite crisp (or chips if Antipodean), 'Monster Munch'. As a kid, I absolutely loved these yummy delivery mechanisms of salty goodness.

Anyway, I seem to recall that some of these flavours may not have been available in New Zealand, but there were a few others such as Bacon as well as Cheese and Onion. I really had to go to a lot of trouble to get hold of the Roast Beef flavour over here - while all the shops seem to stock Pickled Onion and Flamin' Hot, Roast Beef is a little harder to come by (oddly enough, it was in Bristol that I found it). Oddly enough, they actually do taste like the flavours they are emulating! Isn't food technology amazing? Until it gives us cancer I suppose.

There were also number of TV adverts which may stir some memories?

and this one:

Seatoun Gang Violence

2009-10-12T10:56:00.005+01:00

It appears that Seatoun is currently suffering from a bout of Gangsta violence. One of the 'local boys' has this story to tell about the life he leads in one of Wellington's roughest suburbs.

More London Zoo Photos

2009-09-23T18:54:00.007+01:00

As I mentioned in the last post, Perraine was also taking many photos while at the Zoo. He managed to snap far too many and sent me the best ones. I have skilfully selected the best of the best and present these below for your viewing pleasure.

As you will clearly see, Perraine is pretty damn good with his camera work so sit back, enjoy and remember - they look even better close up! :-)

A bug

Incy Wincy Spider

Grrrrrr

Feeling blue or maybe a little more turquoise?

Now, is this a clownfish?

In which case the other fish I thought was a clownfish was not.

Ooooh, all the pretty colours

Help me...I can't swim

Green lizard

Dendrobates azuereus (also called Okopipi)

Yep, that's a poison dart frog...deadly!

Yessssssssss

Hoo are you?

Camels kept inside for warmth

Cold looking pelicans

A butterfly, or is it a moth?

Family of otters

Mister monkey...actually, I think it's something else

Perraine and Heather

Well done on the super photos PB!

London Zoo

2009-09-21T18:56:00.009+01:00

22/02/2009

Wow! Seven months behind in blog land...this must be some sort of record :-) Well, I've been told that I talk too much, so you will have to make do with some photos of our visit to London Zoo.

London Zoo, while nowhere as big as the one in San Diego, still has enough to keep you busy. As we were there in Feb, it was a little chilly and many of the animals are kept indoors during the winter months.

While reviewing our photos, I have just discovered that a number of them were very poorly shot and therefore the collection below are the good ones. However, I'm pretty sure our friend Perraine managed to snap a couple of good ones - maybe I'll ask him nicely and post some of his tomorrow...

Heather and a beetle

Crickets going mad

This one is well worth viewing close up

A leafy beetle

Toucan play at that game...

Green bird with a black head

A clownfish

A Chameleon fish

I'm surprised she didn't float away!

It's MY rock

Unlike Australia we don't get these in the wild over here

'Australia' apparently - not as hot though

That's a big pile of dung - that kid's brave

One of the most amazing things we saw was a giant temperature controlled tent. Inside there were all manner of butterflies and moths - it was absolutely amazing - although taking photos was a little tricky as the camera would mist up after taking a single shot. We had a similar experience at the Eden Project which we visited in April (more on that another day).

An Atlas moth

Another amazing moth

Another one

And that was about it! As I mentioned above, Perraine took a bunch of photos which look a heck of a lot better...he has kindly emailed me through a selection and I will choose the best ones and put them up tomorrow.

London Canal Walk

2009-08-09T13:02:00.010+01:00

No, I am NOT going to neglect this page. I just have a lot going on as I pursue the magical world of job hunting, networking and keeping myself busy.

21/02/2009 (it seems so long ago!)

We went on a lovely canal walk. There are a series of man made canals that run around various parts of London. One of these starts/ends/traverses through Paddington, so we thought we'd follow it to see where it led. These canal walks are a great way to get away from the city bustle and are popular with walkers and cyclists alike.

It was a crisp day - cool, but with a nice clear sky and even some sun!

We started at the Paddington Basin and headed along Regent's Canal.

Me and my friend - he wasn't saying much!

Lovely canal boats

There is a cafe on the leftmost boat

We headed towards Edgeware Road and then onto the outskirts of Regent's Park.

No, this is NOT wildlife, it's rubbish!

Purple boat

A mix of boats

Life can be dangerous in London...

Sha and more boats

A ramshackle collection

Along the canals, there are areas where you can moor your boat permanently and others where you are allowed to stay for two or three days before you must move on. This particular area seemed to have a more permanent air about it.

As we got closer to Regent's Park, the value of nearby houses seemed to rapidly increase. Regent's Park is where the London Zoo is based (well, it occupies a portion of the park). We have since visited the park a few times and I'll blog about it at a later date.

A lovely scene...with money

More money

Even more money

A floating Chinese restaurant in the distance

We then arrived in Camden, where it was time for a beer.

Under a Camden bridge

Beer o'clock

After our beer we stopped for awhile to watch a couple of boats navigate their way through the locks. These are a series of gates immersed in water which allow boats to enter and exit different sections of the canal with higher (or lower) levels of water. Quite an engineering feat and fascinating to watch.

An old television studio

Yes, those are egg cups at the top of each building!

Proceeding on from Camden, we finally made it to Islington, where we had a look around and I made the mistake of purchasing a rather large box of beer (it was at a price that could not be beaten). No way we could carry this home, so onto a bus. One of the best things about Paddington is that it is well serviced by both buses and the tube, so never any trouble to get home.

A lovely day exploring the canals, but we are very aware we have only covered one small section of them. We are definitely going to do some more canal walks in the future!

Meanwhile, back in Wellington...

2009-07-07T11:47:00.012+01:00

IfYouSayShow
While we have been over in the UK for over six months, my thoughts often turn back to Wellington and I wonder how everyone is doing and what they are getting up to.

It seems some good friends have started making a documentary series and are interviewing people in and around Wellington. The show is called 'IfYouSayShow' and can be found on youtube here. While only one episode has been created so far (which is broken into five segments for ease of viewing), below I proudly present the segment on Roller Derby!

If you enjoy this, take a look at the other segements as they include interviews with people on the street, Carl Gifford of Carlucci Land, Tony Schirato's Media Eye and an art review by Kristelle Plimmer.

It's great to see something like this come out and by using the platform of the internet it can be viewed by anyone. If you like watching these - please pass on the links to others who may be interested...and remember you can always leave a comment on their youtube page too (I'm sure they would appreciate it!)

By the way, if your internet connection can handle it, these clips look really good if you click the HD button for High Definition viewing.

Now, on with the show:

IfYouSayShow - Roller Derby Part 1

IfYouSayShow - Roller Derby Part 2

Hyde Park I

2009-07-05T12:21:00.015+01:00

15th Feb 2009

Grrrrrr, glurk, crunch, tick tick tick. That's the sound of a blog seizing up under its own weight. With some carefully applied deblocker, it slowly swings back into action with another action packed (not really) interesting (yes, a bit) post. Here we go...

Hyde Park. Is. Big. Hyde Park is in the middle of London and is one of the biggest areas of green space in the central area and used to be the private hunting ground of Henry VIII and in 1851 the Crystal Palace exhibition took place here.

A pretty wee map - clickie for bigger view

While there are other large expanses of green in London such as Regent’s Park, Primrose Hill, St James Park and Kew Gardens - Hyde Park has a place dear in my heart (perhaps because Henry VIII hunted deer here?) Seriously, this is probably because it is a) so close to our flat, only a 3 minute walk away and b) Damon Albarn of the band Blur wrote the song Parklife here.

Blur - older but like a fine wine, even better

Strictly speaking Hyde Park is split into two parts – Hyde Park proper and Kensington Gardens. Kensington Gardens is where J.M. Barrie was inspired to write Peter Pan, where Kensington Palace is located (and Lady Diana lived), is popular with dog walkers and has many tree lined places of wonderment. Everyone seems to refer to Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park collectively as Hyde Park, and put simply, it does make things easier!

A house in Hyde Park - maybe of historical significance?

Peter Pan statue

Hyde Park is a little more open and plays host to numerous concerts in the summer. A river known as the Serpentine runs between the two parks and there are two café/bars that sit alongside it and even an open river swimming pool called the Lido. I personally wouldn’t go swimming amongst the duck poo, but it does seem popular, especially on hot summer days. Writing this post many months late and we are currently experiencing temperatures over 30 degrees - a large difference to these photos where we are well rugged up.

A scenic view

The park seems to have an abundance of bird life – geese, swans, coots, ducks, herons and the more tree birds. And pigeons. And American grey squirrels (which while cute, have displaced the native red squirrels).

A Heron

Squirrel in Hyde Park

Other points of interest include the Italian Gardens, Speakers Corner and an art gallery slap bang in the middle too. We are still to check out the gallery, but will do so at some point in the near future. There are also many statures, sculptures and monuments dotted around.

The Italian Gardens

I have been having a play with some software from Microsoft called Photosynth. It automatically stitches photos together to create a ‘3D’ representation of an area and below is my effort doing this with the Italian Gardens. Be warned, a broadband connection is strongly recommended for the pictures to load in a reasonable time!

Use your mouse to move around the pictures and you can zoom in and out too (using the controls at the bottom of the picture). Try pressing 'p' for it to show the 'points' of the picture. If you would prefer to see this full screen, click the Expand button (on the far right). You can also take a look at it within the Photosynth webpage by clicking here (and I have a few other pictures there as well).

Speakers Corner

Another institution of Hyde Park is Speakers Corner where people stand and espouse their views on religion, politics, dinosaurs or taxation (or any combination thereof). It’s also where you can be enlightened about the falseness of the theory of evolution by Americans in cowboy hats. Seriously! (Jamas, you would have a field day here). If you want to be exposed to new ideas or have a lively debate, this is the place for you.

Speakers working the crowd

He seems to have the answers

Tag team preaching!

Speakers Corner used to be where condemned prisoners would have their last say before being taken to the nearby gallows. It may very well be where Gordon ends up next year.

From Speakers Corner we moved across to Marble Arch where there was a Islamic ceremony celebration going on. It was celebrating the travels and feats of a prophet from the Middle East. Sorry – I wasn’t paying attention and don’t have much more information than that! They did hand out a few sweets to the crowd, which was nice. Pistachio sweets are always appreciated.

Marble Arch

An Islamic horse

Sha with the horse

Ceremony in full swing

Islamic prayers

With Hyde Park being so close, we may have another Hyde Park post with some more photos. It looks even more spectacular in the summer.

Well, a short and sweet post for today. I'll try and get our next post up very soon as it is of a canal walk on a stunning day.

Madame Tussauds

2009-06-02T11:11:00.003+01:00

Saturday, 14 February

When we arrived at Madame Tussauds, we had a bit of a mix up which involved queuing multiple times and then being told that we needed a print out of our electronic ticket. I had to run down to an Internet cafe and get said print out. Yes, in future, we will be better prepared (and we now have our own printer!)

Once we were in, they accepted our cut price internet tickets and away we went (once again, thanks go to lastminute.com - and no, I'm not being paid to say that).

The first person we encountered was Freddie.

We then proceeded via a lift where we emerged to a mirrored room full of pictures of paparazzi photographers, with camera lights flashing and voices calling for you to look this way and that, it was a weird experience. I assume this was to create the impression of what it was like to be one of the 'hunted'.

On that note, you can probably guess that we snapped quite a few photos (and we did). After carefully going through our haul, I have tried to pick the most interesting pics and while we have numerous others, if it was slightly blurry or simply wasn't up to scratch, I have left it out. And, as always, if you want to see the photos close up, click on them for a better view (but you're all clever people and know that by now!)

After being papped, we enter a very large room dominated by a dance floor and various nooks and crannies inhabited by celebrity likenesses. As an initial starting point, it was quite overwhelming but as a bit of a 'people flow' funnel, it worked quite well with tourists rushing about snapping photos left, right and centre.

Here is a little of what we saw...

To baldly go...

(Sorry, that was very mean...I like Patrick Stewart, he's great!)

Even as a model, he looks super

This one is for Steve Walker

Jennifer looks awful, but Will is okay

Damn, he's cool!

Alas, this photo doesn't do SLJ justice - he looked better 'in the wax' as it were

Madonna...could have fooled me!

Seriously - we had no idea this was Madge and had to ask one of the attendants who it was...how embarrassing

As we progressed through the exhibition, the settings became a little less staged (well, to a degree) and it became generally easier to navigate although there were big crowds around Obama for some reason ;-)

Steven Spielburg does look like Simon...

(Maybe it's the hat)

Madame Tussauds has varying levels of quality with some being incredibly amazing and realistic and others disappointing and very plastic looking. I will let you be the judge of which is which, however there were some photos where the lighting (usually from the camera flash) completely destroys any reality. I have a few photos which look good without the flash and terrible with it on. A good example of this is the Robin Williams model below - the second photo looks far better.

Nanoo nanoo

Love the pants!

"I'll have a scccotcccch"

No man has a chest that smooth...

Of all the bars...

Who ate all the pies?

Here's a hint - it wasn't Brian (or me)

Go Kiwi!

I think it's Will Smith, hang on, no that's not right

Lord Nelson

Nelson was happy that no one had been out with the chalk this time

A dedicated follower of fashion

"I'll get you up there" said Mr Cromwell

I think Oliver was jealous of King James's style

The Virgin Queen

I don't know how Elizabeth felt about her father executing her mother

"Hey, I only killed two of them"

Prince Harry

Oscar Wilde

I couldn't see what he was looking at either

Mr Hawking

Vinnie

Pablo

Some writer guy

Charlie

Incidentally, we saw the Darwin exhibition at the Natural History Exhibition in March...brilliant

Peter, Paul, George and Ringo

Sorry Madame T - they aren't that great looking

Astrid from Voyage of the Damned

Or Kyyyyleeeeeeeee if you prefer

Amy Winehouse

Dear Amy, will you please bring out a new album and TRY and sober up so you can perform without falling over. Your music is great, but you are more known for your extra circular activities than your singing.

Mr Bob - he sure looks happy

Must be those awesome headphones

Richie Rich

Yes, I AM touching his NIPPLE

O is for Obama

A big line to get a photo with him

Ghandi

Some less salubrious men:

Hitler

Some Japanese tourists were standing next to Hitler, having their photo taken with big smiles on their faces while they were doing the peace sign. It was kind of weird.

A very lifelike Castro

Mugabe sans 'reverse Hitler' 'tache

After the politics room, we headed to the Chamber of Horrors. We caught up with Vlad the Impaler and a few other nasty events from British history...hanging and what not.

Vlad the Impaler

We went through a 'live action' scare room with actors jumping out and generally trying to cause cardiac arrest. Nothing that scary really but probably not suitable for young kids.

Afterwards we emerge to some light relief with Benny Hill.

From here, we took a ride in a miniature black cab to see the history of London. With puppets. And music. Argh. It took us back to the 'Small World' ride in Disneyland...although it was a bit of fun.

Nearly all done and dusted...but before we departed.

Andy

My, my, my De-Liza

The final part was to walk through an area showing how the wax works were made and to learn about the history of both the exhibition and original creator Marie Tussaud. Marie was nearly executed during the French Revolution for royalist sympathies but was saved by her skill at making death masks. She ended up making masks of those executed during the French Revolution with many being friends of hers. In 1802 she left France for England and established a permanent exhibition in London in 1835. Sounds pretty harrowing to me!

After our visit, we headed out through the gift shop (as to be expected) and than homeward. Once back in Paddington, we made a small deviation to a nearby pub (The Mitre), which we now call our local. More on that pub at a later date!

Comedy, Camden and a Limo

2009-05-30T12:04:00.010+01:00

Saturday, 7 February

Travelling back to just after the days of extreme cold, we went to the 99 Club in Leicester Square. The 99 Club is a comedy club and we managed to pick up cheap tickets from lastminute.com. Laughs aplenty were had, although don't ask me to recall who we actually saw comedian wise - all we remember was that we had fun and relished the opportunity to laugh away the winter blues. One moment of hilarity was seeing a woman being told off and duly made fun of for talking through a performance (I think she had consumed most of the bar). By the time we got to the third comic she was escorted off the premises and it was made very clear she wasn't welcome back. It's fine to heckle - just don't talk! We spotted her outside after the show was over and she was still moaning about losing her cellphone - maybe she drank it? Silly lady.

The following day we went to the Camden markets. I think I preferred these to the Portobello markets we had visited a week previously. With over 1000 stalls and shops spread out over multiple locations there was much to see and a pulsing, vibrant atmosphere pervaded.

Highlights included exploring the rabbit warren that were the stable markets, finding two old Doctor Who magazines from 1980 that I was missing, marvelling at a Doctor Who TARDIS tiny beer fridge, seeing the extensive range of food stalls from a billion different countries, sampling a chocolate filled doughnut (which wasn't that nice to be honest), eating yumo Cambodian food and doing a little bartering for a belt which we couldn't get in the size we wanted. Camden sits across a lock which adds a lot to the overall feel and there is a multitude of pubs as well as places to get pierced or tattoed. It is also very popular with trendies, hipsters and goth types so a brilliant place for people watching and working out what the new fashions are going to be. I was told that when the lock was being constructed, there were four pubs built - one for each of the nationalities doing the construction work (English, Welsh, Irish and Scottish) and you only drank from 'your' pub - a big change to the mash of cultures it is today.

As it gets really busy in Camden during the weekends, the main tube station becomes 'one way' for certain times of the day and only allows people to get off and not get on. This means when you have had enough and are ready to leave, you need to walk 10 minutes up the road to another tube station or take a bus.

The throng

Looking down Camden High Street

Looking up

The Camden Market

One of many market areas

After an afternoon of market fun, we decided to head back home and took the bus to facilitate our movement. Paddington really has the transport thing going for it - the number of times we have been able to get a bus back home with very little fuss is simply fantastic and makes life a lot easier. While slower than the tube it does let you get a lie of the land and it's cheaper too.

A couple of days later, we spied this outside our window:

We seem to get a lot of limos stopping opposite us as there is a large parking space for them. We are pretty certain a limo driver lives a few houses down and the changing of the guard seems to occur. Despite a worldwide recession, there are definitely still people who have money to throw around! We've seen about five different limos over the past three months.

Edit: I should say that we have seen five different limos outside our place...there are plenty more cruising the streets of London. There are quite a few Hum-vee limos too - the ultimate in gas guzzling excess (so manly too, especially when they are bright pink).

Next post: We get freaky with wax and visit Madame Tussauds!

Snow Day!

2009-05-21T10:46:00.018+01:00

Monday 2 February 2009

Sha: February was the start of getting into some regular routines. I would go to work, and Foo would look for work and have my pipe and slippers ready for me when I got home. ‘Regular’ was something still to be worked out, as witnessed in early February when I woke up very excited to see at least a foot of snow covering everything. I didn’t think this could be too irregular because the Christmas cards that Grandma sent from England always showed snow.

Come to think of it so did NZ’s before we started talking about becoming a republic and depicting Santa barbecuing and surfing to press home our points of difference. I can hear Murray Hewitt’s voice now “these new cards will sock it to the Poms Brett, you mark my words, the Prime Minister’s gonna love them”. It would be another ten years before Santa would be given beach shorts to surf in, instead of his full Santa suit. (Blog within a blog misdemeanour).

The only thought I had was whether my boots would mind walking to work in the snow, and if they did mind, what was it they would mind, followed by; dumb boots, you’ll do as I say (such was the excitement). So I set off in the dark at 6am and headed down the road and into Hyde Park.

A brief synopsis of my usual 40 turned 90 minute walk to work; I can’t see the path, get lost, get found, run into some swans asleep and frozen beside the pond, apologise out loud for their awful circumstances, immediately slip sideways narrowly missing the pond by inches, state out loud “you did that with your minds ya c~#%$”, (refuse to engage them for the next five days), make it out of the park, get snow balls thrown at me by the only other two people out and about, virtually crawl up Kensington High St on hands and knees, make it into my place of work and wait for my colleagues to turn up, and wait, and wait, and wait.

Unbeknownst to me, this was the worst snowfall to hit central London in 18 years with 98% of public transport suspended and other miscellaneous chaos. It really was fun though, and I walked to work the next three days as well when the snow was turning into a perilous icy soup.

Frozen swans in the dark

Foo: Argh, Snow Day. While Sha was out enjoying herself in the snow, I was without internet sheltering in our house trying to avoid succumbing to hypothermia. Being without TV or internet, I had to resort to listening to the radio (an old fashion device, which is kind of like listening to a podcast interspersed with adverts and music that you aren't really interested in). The station I was tuned to seemed only able to talk about the snow for the whole day and presented startling revelations such as:

Shock, horror “schools are being closed - why do THEY (kids and teachers) get a day off when we have to work? It wasn't like this in my day, grumble, grumble.”
“The tube is closed - it's not like this in the rest of Europe. When it snows in France, THEIR tube keeps running. Our infrastructure is terrible and has to be upgraded, grumble grumble.”
“Drivers really aren't used to the conditions when it snows. They really should drive slower and to the conditions. Drivers just can't handle the snow.”
“We're running out of grit to salt the roads with. Why don't we have more grit? Everywhere else in the world has more grit than London. It’s not fair.”
“We’re in the middle of the biggest financial crisis we have seen for decades and our city has come to a standstill. The planes can’t fly and we are haemorrhaging money at a rate of knots. We’re doomed” (and pretty soon we will all descend into cannibalism…I suggest starting with the bankers).

So, it seemed to be pretty standard things to moan about. Reminds me a lot of talkback radio back in NZ.

Incidentally, the thing about grit running out was true as councils simply did not have enough to deal with the ice on the roads for more than a couple of days. As per this story, one council even rang a gourmet food company to ask the price per ton to grit roads - Alison Lea-Wilson, co-owner of Halen Mon in Brynsiencyn, North Wales, said: "Normally we only sell in grams. It would have cost more than £12,000. They seemed a bit shocked - and hung up."

Despite all the exciting chatter on the radio, I did manage to get out and about and went for a wander in Hyde Park. I took a swag of photos and present the best below.

The strangest thing about this whole situation was the suddenness that the snow descended. The weekend before it snowed was very cold, but there wasn't really an indication that snow was about to hit so severely. I don’t recall any ‘severe weather warnings’ or internet chatter. Indeed, there was more talk about snow around Christmas time with everyone dreaming of a white Christmas. I guess the powder was taking the scenic route to get here - better late than never although it reminds me of a song about wanting something really badly and when you finally get it, you realise it wasn't want you wanted after all! People are funny like that.

On the Saturday, we had gone to Portabello Markets in Notting Hill with Perraine and Heather (no, we didn't see anyone famous out and about). In the evening we went to Tate Modern to see a Rothko exhibition. While the Rothko exhibition was intriguing, I think both Sha and I got more out of wandering around the exhibitions by other artists. For Sha, the Viennese actionists were fascinating and me, I loved Dali, Francis Bacon and some of the other surrealists. There were also some fantastic videos playing with some disturbing imagery which had me mesmerised. As Tate Modern is so huge, I think a return visit is definitely on the cards. I keep thinking of art lovers back in NZ who would simply LOVE to spend half a day wandering around here (Mum, Eugene & Sonia, Lizzy, Bernie & Maelyn).

Sunday was even colder and Sha and I went to a Farmer's Market near Baker street in Marylebone. We bought pigeon breast and pheasant - both surprisingly cheap. We were assured the pigeon WAS NOT the sort you see hanging around late at night outside dodgy tube stations. Always good to try new things.

Enough ramble...on with the snow!

Don't forget, you can click on a photo for a better view.

Out our window

The Italian Gardens in Hyde Park

Snowman #1

People enjoying Hyde Park

The Serpentine

Snowman #2

Not a soul to be seen (or is there?)

This might mean something to Regan?

Now that's a snowball!

The only working bus in London!

Eurovision 2009

2009-05-18T21:03:00.006+01:00

Sha to 911: You’ve got to help me! 25 European countries just crashed into my lounge!

911 operator: It's OK madam, that’s just Eurovision 2009!!!

Most of us have heard of the Eurovision Song Contest, but how many of us in the Antipodes really understand the gravity of what it is?

Lucky for you I will tell you. Eurovision is a road crash, a 25 car pile up, except the cars are actually European countries that fought to be in the road crash. After the road crash, one half of the victims sing soothing songs to calm the other half who are maniacally jumping around dazed and demented (sometimes in their bloodied national costumes).

Every country airs the competition with a national celebrity providing voice commentary whilst the tragedy unfolds. For 30 years, Britain had Terry Wogan whose great last sentences before retiring included: “Eurovision is a triumph of appalling taste” and “I don't want to be presiding over yet another debacle”, and when asked what he will be doing this year stated "I will sit there and get drunk, the same as when I was commentating".

This year Graham Norton picked up the mantel, and I have it on good authority that Norton’s approach is fairly indicative of 38 years of Wogan’s, with one possible difference being that Norton appeared to remain sober.

The Brits will tell you with genuine surprise that they haven’t won Eurovision in years. I can probably offer some clues as to why, you see in recent years there is something called the Internet and live streaming, this means any country can watch Eurovision from another countries perspective, i.e. listen to your neighbouring countries commentary. Then there’s the unprecedented European migration into Britain by cell phone wielding maniacs texting their Grandparents in Armenia to relay the verbal atrocities being said about their national dances and costumes by the British Pig Dogs.

Britain’s commentary has one sole aim, and that is to mock every other participating country. Norton, and previously Wogan, launch an unrelenting - occasionally funny - tirade of denunciation and mockery towards their European neighbours. I personally found this oddly insulting to my intelligence, because Eurovision achieves this on its own, without the aid of a celebrity pointing out the obvious.

Anyway, what really counts is that the 24 other competing countries are freakishly serious about it! And then I became freakishly serious about it. So much so that I was moved to grab pen and paper to record my own scores, with my two judging categories being ‘Visuals’ and ‘Song’,

Time has now passed, my blood pressure has dropped, and I can barely remember what all the commotion was about. Except I still have my score sheet which I now review to reflect on the horror that was Eurovision, and the split second assessments I was forced to make between each performing country.

My piece of paper reveals quite succinctly what I thought, starting with the Norwegian song that would go on to win Eurovision 2009; Visuals; “Hate him”, Song; “Hate it”.

Israel induced a bit more commentary with its approach. Synopsis; enter Palestinian and Israeli female duo looking like sexy grim reapers singing over and over again ‘there must be another way’. I presume they weren’t talking about washing tips for getting blood out of children’s clothing. My succinct judgement at the time; Visuals; “misuse of a Palestinian”, Song; “Uck!”

I had to add an extra column headed ‘Extraordinary feats’ when the German entrant started tap dancing whilst Dita Von Teese, ex wife of Marilyn Manson, attempted to burlesque dance to a Ritalin drugged swing band about to blow its collective lolly in a bewildering crescendo of sound. And no matter how many times I re-watch the video, the moment German entrant guy's shirt comes undone to reveal his creepy man chest remains an apparent act of God.

My new ‘Extraordinary feats’ column would come in handy again later when the Ukraine offered their visual depiction of a Roman themed Fetish party. Judgement placed in my Song column....“No F-ing way”.

Needles to say, during the official vote counting, had it not been for the concrete walls of our flat, I would have been arrested for verbal ‘hate crimes’ against no less than 10 European countries.

So, for the same reasons I no longer watch International Rugby, I can never watch Eurovision again. It is too nerve wracking and stressful!!! Yet deep in my heart I know this is not true, because just like a road crash, next year I will feast my eyes on the gory sight all over again.

Roman Fetish Party - watch to the end if you dare

Bollywood pirates???

Soooo never going to Norway now...

Two new bears in Paddington

2009-05-17T16:16:00.004+01:00

End of Jan 2009

Our Neighbourhood

Sha: We chose the place for its good vibe and proximity to bus, train, and tube services. With uncertainty about where we may end up working, we figured it had good access to most places. Furthermore, it was only a 3 minute walk to beautiful Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.

For the first month or two we were still using the tube to be sure of getting to places, then with time we started walking more and more. Slowly, it began to dawn on us how close we were to everything that is quintessential London, though it should have been a clue when after walking to work through the park for two weeks I eventually noticed the drab brick building in the Gardens was actually Kensington Palace!

We can pretty much walk to anything located on two thirds of a monopoly board, but more about that later.

Sha with Paddington Bear

Foo: With Sha working, I spent a lot of time setting up the flat and on the phone to various utility companies. They tend to enjoy hanging up on you (accidentally or deliberately?) and for a country with cheaper power, gas, phone and internet than New Zealand, it does seem to take longer to get things done. A bigger population has both benefits and downsides I guess.

A couple of other differences – phone bills are billed every three months, although you can track your preliminary bill through their web site. One super call plan that British Telecom (BT) offer is unlimited calls to a host of overseas countries for only £5 a month. This means we can call landlines in New Zealand and Australia and talk as long as we want for next to nothing. If anyone wants a call - just let us know!

We signed up with power company nPower and still haven’t received a bill. I wonder if we are lost in the system? Wouldn’t surprise me…in fact, I bet we don’t receive a bill until just before we move out and are asked to pay our overdue account immediately. Hmmm, maybe I should chase them up on this.

Other exciting things…in the UK you have to pay a water bill each month as well as council tax. Council tax is similar to rates in NZ, however the person living in the house has to pay it, not the landlord. Paying for water and council tax are little things that you don't really consider when moving to the UK, but they do add to the cost of living a little.

We also had some hassles with getting our phone connected (BT messed up and we were connected to the wrong exchange). We then had the same problem with getting the internet set up leading to further delays (O2 messed up too and connected us to the same wrong exchange). To their credit, our broadband and cellphone provider O2 have been excellent with great customer service and their prices are very reasonable. Just don’t ask me how good their wireless router is :-(

Well, I think that is all for now on the 'set up house' front and after a visit or two to Ikea, we seem to be sorted furniture and homeware wise. Luckily the place was fully furnished, so we didn't have to spend too much £££.

My turn with the bear

Ikea, shopping and the hunting of the flat

2009-05-16T12:16:00.016+01:00

Jan 2009

After New Year, Heather lovingly exposed us to hell of hells that is known as Ikea. This was a ‘character building’ exercise and one that I hoped never to repeat. Alas, we must confess that we have since visited various Ikea stores a total of four times.

For the uninitiated, Ikea is a GIANT Swedish homeware store, very similar to Briscoes with a dose of the Warehouse and a couple of furniture stores thrown in for good measure. It has mocked up living spaces to help you understand the immense value Ikea can bring to your lifestyle. With it being a monolithic store, you could spend days wandering around trying to find that piece of Swedish furniture that matches your current décor and then spend an equal amount of time trying to find the way out. Luckily, they have arrows on the floor, showing you the ‘correct’ way to proceed through the store and that you can find your way out (and to the tills). It seems that others out there in blogland share my feelings as per this post. It also seems that cheap Ikea furniture can be useful for building insane Linux clusters as shown here.

Sha and Heather can barely contain their excitement

After recovering from our Ikea voyage, the following day Foo made the most of the end of the New Year’s sales and picked up a suit jacket and some new shoes.

Looking startled yet smart

Hmmm, not sure where my shoes went

The good die young, the bad get to work

Sha survived the plague just in time to commence a 3 month contract helping Her Royal Majesty out with some odd jobs. On my first day of work I learnt that the only correct piece of information that the Transport for London website would ever provide would be the time it takes to travel between Greenwich and Kensington, 1.5 hours to be exact. Ma’am had quite a bit that needed doing, in fact about 8 – 10 hours worth a day, sometimes more, so the reality of 3 hours travel on top of work wore thin quickly. As it happened, Perraine and Heather’s lease was due to come up in Feb so we all decided to look for a place in town.

Foo & Heather hunt for flats

While Sha was out earning a crust, I spent most of the time living it up. Ah, this is the life – the little lady out working while I relaxed with Heather, drinking tea and eating biscuits. Noooo, that is not completely true. I was also spending time researching a laptop to purchase, searching for an ideal flat to move into and even began the very first inkling of hunting for a job (although failed to get traction at that point in time, but more on that later!) Searching for a place seemed to take up most of my time and while Sha and Perraine were at their respective jobs, we hit www.findaproperty.co.uk to find something that suited our needs (location, transport, green, right size and right price). It was a slightly dispiriting affair; oddly enough rental prices seem to rise the closer into London you go and conversely property sizes seem to decrease. With Sha finding her nearly three hour commute hellish, we had to be closer to the action.

Heather and I popped out to a few places in Harrow Road in Ladbroke Grove which runs parallel to a canal (sounds really nice, but Harrow Road gets super busy traffic wise). Wow. The couple of places we looked at took me back to my flatting days circa 1997 – 2001 (actually, my flats in those days may have been a little better!). Threadbare carpet, huge deadbolts and a couple of well placed holes in the outside hallway, I started to have my doubts even if the price was right. Needless to say, we passed on that one! Another place a few doors down was similar, in better condition and even had a little outside area with BBQ. While better, the size was a little small and it definitely wouldn’t have worked for four of us. We were then taken to an incredibly tall building to look at a two bedroom flat situated on the 12th floor. This was a lot nicer, brilliant outlook and just the one small problem that sheer heights like this scare the hell out of me. It was also under offer so would only be available if that offer fell through. And on it went…

Next day, Heather, Sha and I took a look at a flat in Paddington (West London) and a second one near Regent’s Park (Central/North London). Paddington seemed okay (very close to Hyde Park and brilliant access to the tube) but wasn’t really suited to four people. Regent’s Park flat was bigger, but still didn’t do it for us and the price was higher.

Regent’s Park flat

Sha & Heather ponder, is it right for us?

Regent's Park statue

Sunday morning – a couple more places to see, this time in Shepherd’s Bush. Shepherd’s Bush has a reputation for having many Kiwis, Aussies and South Africans and we wondered if this was where we would gravitate towards?

We had a look at two places – one even had a garden out the back! But…it smelt like someone had been cultivating mushrooms and I prefer my fungi on a pizza, so this was out.

The second place fared a lot better, but once again size was an issue and the bathroom...well, take a look below and see.

Nice kitchen

Nice lounge (and TV!)

Bad naughty bathroom!

Apartment for rent, just round the corner from Princess Di’s old place

Finally, we got lucky with a real estate agent who had a property in Paddington that hadn’t been advertised yet. It belonged to a non-greedy landlord whose priority was getting good tenants and was willing to let the place go below the market rate to get them. When we were shown it on the Saturday, we had decided that it was a going to be a squeeze for four of us, but things did work out in the end.

To cut a long story short, Perraine and Heather decided to stay in Greenwich and we took the place on our own. We now take in short-term borders and have a nice balance between having the place to ourselves at times and making some additional income where possible.

The big move happened late Jan and we managed to get everything we had into one minicab (the driver didn't seem too happy though). Amazing how much extra stuff accumulates in the space of a month!

En route on Old Kent Road I spied the Holy Ghost Christian Centre next door to the Love Lounge. What a juxtaposition!

Holy Ghost Christian Love Lounge Centre

The New Year’s Eve that wasn’t

2009-05-13T13:32:00.013+01:00

31 December 2009

All these trips involved various forms of London public transport used by 3 million Londoners every day. When you consider how we walked everywhere in Wellington, barely ever touching a public transport handrail, our immune systems must have been like untainted petri dishes seducing every known germ and virus. And that’s when it happened…

The Plan: Central London, 0 degrees, a fireworks display, and lashings of family friendly British pop!

The Reality: A mystery illness with plague like symptoms, accompanied by a Thorazine shuffle, delusions of grandeur and the belief that a state funeral would soon follow, because I am the Queen of England.

We simply called it Tubebustrainitis, and the doctors agreed.

And so ended the week after Christmas when tourists do roam. After numerous visits to the doctor, being fed like a baby, taking antibiotics and finally steroids, I was fit enough to start work, yay!

Brighton Rock

2009-05-12T16:54:00.015+01:00

30 December 2008

By now we had traipsed around quite a bit of London, and anyone who has been to London will know there is a lot of brick, and despite some amazing architecture in-between the brick, brick in winter can be very uncheerful and make you melancholic. And traditionally the British melancholic (and insane) are taken to the seaside for fresh air (or shock therapy).

It was one of those beautiful winter days where despite the cold air, the sun shone beautifully and the ocean glistened. Definitely just what the doctor ordered. The streets were wide, the buildings brighter, and only an hour on the train from London.

Nothing could ruin this magical day, not even slipping on ice and shattering my knee, not even trying jellied eels on Brighton pier, not even the seagull that swooped down and stole the jellied eel right out of my hand, not even the flu-like symptoms that were beginning to present.

We walked along the waterfront, played on the pier and visited the Royal Pavilion, a modest royal residence for the Prince Regent, who later became King George IV.

Side view of the Pavilion

Another view

Brighton Pier

Brighton has a lot going for it and despite the stony beach and cool air, it lends itself to a sense of calm that is lacking in central London. I can only imagine what it is like in the high season – no doubt completely packed out by all manor of transients.

The walk along the waterfront was spectacular – great stone cliffs had trapped the sun and heat was gently being released, allowing us to warm our weary bones. Despite Sha not feeling 100%, she soldiered on admirably and kept the pace strong and steady.

The start of our walk

The lovely warm cliffs

I never knew what a groynes was before!

Ah, lovely!

Spot the boat in the distance

An interesting stairway

Once we reached the end of the cliff walk, we had a couple of scones and cup of tea, although the establishment we frequented wasn’t the most hospitable. It is always a chore when you are viewed as an unwelcome guest, rather than a valued customer. If only the woman who served us could have smiled and perhaps had a tiny bit of customer focus, I’m sure it would have had us raving. I will however concede that the lemon curd was most spectacular.

To preserve Sha’s knee from further damage we took a quick bus trip back to the pier and explored some of the delights around and then on the pier.

Outside Sea Life Brighton

A fishy statue (or is it a dolphin?)

Looking onto the beach (from the pier)

With many thrilling rides available, some which appeared to plunge over the edge of the pier, I am sure there was something for everyone.

Sha with jellied eels (yuck!)

Ivor, Tarot Consultant

I note that Ivor's corporate clients include Cornhill Insurance, Deutsche Bank, GlaxoSmithKline and Guinness to name a few. Is this how they make serious business decisions!?

It makes me feel sick

Around and around it goes

There was even a ghost train

Fun for all the family

A final look back from the pier

Once sated with seeing the thrills on offer, we headed to the Royal Pavilion.

Wow! Simply amazing. As per most historical places like this, no photos are allowed inside, but with the magic of flickr, I was able to find some photos from 1987.

A bedroom

A dragon

Great set up for having a guest or two over

A piano

All the above photos were from Pip R Lagenta's 1987 visit to the UK. Please check out the photostream on flickr for even more photos.

Finally, here is a link to the Royal Pavilion's wikipedia page with the historical what not of who, what, why and when (boy, I must be feeling lazy today!)

After the Royal Pavilion, we headed to The George, a vegetarian pub for a slap up feed. I recall somehow everyone having their order messed up except for me…in fact, while I am a fan of meat, the food I got was great. Not too sure about the others. Actually, having done a little further research, it appears that The George used to be a fantastic vegetarian restaurant but it is now no longer as good as it used to be.

Notice on the men's bathroom door

Ah, so that is what they were talking about!

While trying to research Brighton, I did stumble upon a great blog, Brighton Daily Photo, which has some neat photos, such as this one.

Hmmm, what a busy day and I was left with only one regret - we didn't buy any Brighton Rock! I am sure we will return, so perhaps breaking teeth in Brighton is an experience to look forward to at a later date.

As we boarded our train and headed for home we had the dawning realisation that tomorrow was the final day of 2008. What delights would this bring and how would 2009 shape up? Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Doctor Who Exhibition at Earl's Court

2009-05-11T10:08:00.019+01:00

29 December 2008

A dream comes true for Foo

As no doubt all of you know, Doctor Who is an obsession of mine. I've been a fan since 1986 which is about 23 years. I was over the moon when Who returned in 2005 and for the most part am incredibly happy with the way the series has progressed over the last five years or so.

Since becoming hooked at the age of 7, I've watched the TV show, videos and DVDs, read and collected the books & magazines and recently have started collecting toys (second childhood?) I've also met a number of great people who share my obsession and it's great to know that you're not the only one!

In all this time, I have never been to a Doctor Who exhibition, so when I arrived in London it was something that was in the back of my mind. I had a look online and found that it was all over on the 7th of Jan, so I thought I'd better get my A into G and pop along to see it.

Instead of detailed descriptions of everything I saw, I have left it to the photos below to do most of the talking. If anyone has any questions, post a comment and I will do my best to answer.

We emerged from the tube at Earl's Court and first thing we spotted was this:

A sign of things to come?

At this point, Sha wandered off to have a haircut, while I made my way to the exhibition centre for a bit of Who indulgence!

My first look

Exciting stuff (well, it was for me!)

After heading in and getting my free Top Trumps card (Davros), I proceeded to wander around for the next two hours with a stupid smile on my face .

First up, some Autons

Martha's clothes

A blank faced Doctor with TARDIS

The above image of the Doctor had David Tennant's face projected onto it, playing a looped video clip. It was very eerie.

With face

Pint sized service worker

Zu-Zana

The Face of Boe

Slitheen

Sycorax

I was very impressed with the Sycorax - the costume and prosthetics are very well done and look good close up.

A Cat Nun (or Sister of Plenitude)

Cassandra

Cassandra's brain

The Absorbaloff

An Ood in creation - Part 1

An Ood in creation - Part 2

An Ood in creation - Part 3

It was just after I had taken the first picture of the Ood that my camera ran out of juice :-( This meant I switched to using my cellphone which luckily has a very good camera (although obviously not as good as a dedicated camera). Memo to self: remember to take a fully charged battery in future!

Telescope from Tooth and Claw

One of the witchy Carrionites

A Clockwork Man

Another great costume best appreciated when up close

Scarecrow

The sewn together mouth was very creepy

He was completely 'armless

Cyberleader on the commode

Don't Blink

Mister rhino man

Must-have fashion from the future

A Sontaran

The above pose made me laugh - he looks like a naughty schoolboy

A Hath

Make mine a crème de menthe

Dalek Emperor

It looked a LOT bigger on TV

Black Dalek

Another angle

You can never have too many pictures of a Dalek

Fe Fi Fo Banana

Heavenly Host

Miss Hartigan's Dress

Jackson Lake's Costume

A Cybershade

A Vashta Nerada

Not quite as disturbing in the flesh

So, that was the exhibition. I have only posted the more interesting pics, but do have a few more which weren't as good (and simply couldn't get a decent one of Davros at all).

All things considered, a fantastic experience with some exhibits having interactivity which added to the fun. Interactive features included big red buttons which made things move/speak etc, a Dalek voice changer housed inside a Dalek case and touch screens with info on each Doctor, special effects - that sort of thing. I think there is further scope for the amount of interactivity to be extended, but this all costs money and such things can be prone to damage by over enthusiastic hands.

Well worth the ticket price and would definitely go again if the chance presented itself. A shame that a few of the exhibits had been damaged, but I guess there is always that risk when people can get really close to them.

As I have come to expect, I exited via a gift shop but managed to resist the temptation to splurge. A lot of the merchandise available was available online or in other stores such as Boots, ASDA or WH Smith at much cheaper prices. Having said that, there were a few items on special and I'm sure that something could be found to match every budget.

Do add a comment if you have any questions.

Next post, we take a visit to Brighton.

Monkey: Journey to the West

2009-05-06T08:54:00.004+01:00

28 December 2008

A dream comes true for Sha
# 1 of an occasional series
Sometimes dreams happen in your sleep, other times they present themselves as a billboard on a dirty train platform infested by gout and tumour ridden pigeons.

This is what a little girl saw…

Monkey, Sha’s all time favourite childhood programme made into a stage show! With music and art by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz fame!

Needless to say we went to the show and loved it. A combination of live action and animation, all mixed perfectly. The first of many shows we would/will see whilst here. It’s worth noting that with a small amount of effort and research, it is possible to procure tickets to most shows and attractions for well below full price.

The Show

Art Work

Video

The original TV Show Intro

The Stage Show

And here is an interview with King Monkey himself!

Cruising the Thames to visit the London Eye

2009-05-04T11:36:00.014+01:00

27 December 08

Version 1 of events - we were very keen to go on the London Eye to get an overview of the city and its layout.

Version 2 of events - we were desperate to go on the London eye ‘cos it’s big, round and cool, and what better way to get to it from Greenwich than to take a cruise up the Thames, ‘cos boats are also cool.

Canary Wharf

Sha looking all Russian

London Bridge & St Paul's Cathedral

Tower of London & the Gherkin

The Slug

The Globe Theatre

Cleopatra's Needle

Our destination

The London Eye is one of a handful of visual monstrosities dotted around the city, others include a building affectionately known as the Slug, and another called the Gherkin. Such monuments serve to remind you that London is a modern city, which is a good thing, otherwise you could be forgiven for thinking that every spare inch of London is a memorial to some act of historical torture, poverty, social injustice or (to be fair) social change.

The Thames has clearly changed a lot over time. Its history as a place of commerce and hard work is still evidenced by the architecture and industrial remnants, however, many of the buildings along the London sections now house apartments, cafes and restaurants. The conversion of old warehouses into trendy apartments is very popular, although the property market isn't doing as well as it was a couple of years ago.

We never quite imagined how picturesque the Thames actually is, especially towards the outskirts of central London.

Contrasting views of the Thames:

Day

Night

Above photo taken from Jason Hawkes website

Green

Brown

Going up the eye

Just like my sister, I am not a fan of heights although oddly enough the London Eye didn't really worry me. After queuing, you head into a encapsulated bubble and are spun slowly around the giant wheel, with the entire flight taking about half an hour. There has been the odd little hiccup in the past, as per this news story but generally the Eye is reliable. Hmmm, I just read that they do Hen and Stag parties. Oh dear. Although that could be amusing if it were to break down while one of those were going on.

In our capsule there were about 24 people which is bit of a squeeze. With that many people, it was a little hard to get a good view all of the time, but we did manage to get one for most of the time.

At the height of the wheel, the distance you can see out to is impressive. It gives you a really good sense of perspective of London and surrounds, perhaps only a helicopter could get you a better view.

Yeah, the Eye is a very touristy thing to do, but it is very cool and well worth a look in. One bit of advice is to try and go during the week and out of school holidays if possible as this should minimise numbers a little. A few days after Christmas is not really ideal timing!

On the way up

Looking South

Looking North East

The capsule behind us

Looking North East again

Looking South

Well, that's all for now. Don't forget - all the above pictures can be clicked for a close up view. Stu & Sha - bringing the hard to see even closer.

From here on in, we will be co-writing, so sit back and enjoy! Coming up, the stage show of Monkey and then a Doctor Who exhibition.

The week after Christmas when tourists do roam

2009-05-02T10:56:00.008+01:00

Having spent an earlier afternoon brainstorming two years worth of things to do in Britain and Europe, no doubt fuelled by the grape and the grain, we combed the list for less fanciful activities to keep us busy until fortune got the memo that we had a new address.

We should remind you that the average London temperature is now 0 degrees, but the Germans had taught us that freezing weather should not stop you standing around in the snow drinking hot wine! So off we went to see a bit of London…

Friday, 26th December 08 - Picnic fun at Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace is an interesting and odd little gem. It was originally erected in Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's 990,000 square feet of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in the Industrial Revolution.

After the exhibition, the building was moved Sydenham Hill. There, Crystal Palace was enlarged and stood from 1854 until 1936, when it was destroyed by fire.

The remnants remain in a park-like setting that includes miscellaneous sphinx and lion scattered around the place, as well as a pond area containing prehistoric cement creatures created in the image of what they believed such creatures looked like in the 1800s, the expression that comes to mind is ‘good effort, but no cigar old chaps’.

Then:

Now:

A small sphinx

Sir Joseph Paxton - creator of Crystal Palace

Cool car

Beasts

More beasts

Dinosaurs 1800's Style

The ducks don't seem worried!

Night falls

A Christmas Tale Continues...

2009-04-30T20:23:00.013+01:00

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a Foofoo was stirring, not even a mouse.
The beer fridge was filled in the kitchen with care
In the hopes that St Nicholas would make more appear.

At Westminster Abbey, the occupants were there
For a wee round of carols and a wee Christmas prayer.
They marvelled at the tombs, and the choir they cheered
Then looked for the Queen, till all disappeared.

Then back at home all snug in their beds
Dreams of Guy, Madge and the Doctor danced in their heads.
They tried to sleep, excited and pale
Till they settled their brains and passed out from the ale.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter
They sprang from the bed to see what the matter.
Away to the window they flew like a flash
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

A werewolf! A werewolf! A werewolf they exclaimed,
Then sleepy and frazzled the others explained.
Back to sleep little darlings, it is just a fox
Out here on the Heath, you tend to get lots.

But others, oh others, please just explain,
Why do they sound like babies about to be maimed?
Now little darlings, don’t you be worried
Just pretend they are reindeer, before Christmas is sullied.

Then, in a twinkling, they heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
To sleep back they went, and in the morning arose,
Had their first glass of champers, then presents they chose.

Cherry Ripes, Doctor Who, and calendars did flow
A plaque of the Bucket Fountain, to remind them of home.
Too many to remember, but many more missing
From the friends who forgot them, whose names they were dissing.

Then after a while, eyes twinkled and went merry
Cheeks went like roses, and noses like cherry.
Their droll little mouths drew up like a bow,
They slumped in their chairs, all pissed in a row.

As by some intervention, they suddenly awoke
Ready for action, nobody spoke.
They hustled and rustled, fuelled by beer
Sounds of cooking, was all you could hear.

At last, the feast was prepared before dark
They ate their own weight, then walked through the park.
They were heard to mumble as they walked out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Westminster Abbey

Queues for the carol service

Big Ben

Actually, the bell is 'Big Ben' not the clock

O Christmas Tree

Christmas Day Sha

Notice the cheesy Vegas photo in background!

Perraine is delighted with the floss

Nothing is too good for our friends

Oh, great, a Kiwi quiz game...

...we left that country for a reason you know

Me with wine and thread

'Cos if you cant mend your dressing gown on Christmas Day, when can you?

A Christmas Tale

2009-04-29T15:17:00.013+01:00

We began our descent and glimpsed our first sight of the mother country! We wished our German flight buddies the best of luck using up their ambitious supply of condoms and searched yet again for the duty free that seemed to elude us at every airport. Clearing customs, or should I say being welcomed back into the Queen's bosom after an ancestral induced absence, we made our way in search of our friends, hosts, and reason for being at this particular destination. It’s fair to say it was simultaneously the weirdest and most natural thing in the world to see Perraine and Heather standing there, and definitely seemed like only yesterday since we last saw them, and not 2 years ago.

There is a blurred recollection of apologising for being late (like we had some control over it), then throwing pound notes at Heather and begging her to manage our lives until ready to work it all out for ourselves. Thus the purchase of our Oyster cards was made manifest and we were bundled onto our first Tube followed by a black cab and taken to a place simply known as home, in a place called Blackheath near Greenwich Park.

Home had a Christmas tree with presents under it that had labels with names like Sha and Foo written on them!!! Luckily, we had the foresight to gift wrap the NZ dental floss they begged us to squeeze into our luggage the day before leaving NZ. This along with the Kiwi Quiz and obligatory calendar of NZ scenery - 1 of 3 they would open on Christmas day - our dowry was placed accordingly under the tree of Christmasness.

The following day we joined Heather on a trek to our first British farmers market to source our Christmas day produce, this was the beginning of the realisation that our food choices and ability to purchase ethical food at reasonable prices had just grown exponentially.

A church in Blackheath en route to Farmers Market

Old buildings are starting to become very interesting

We also had a quick wander through Greenwich Park and surrounds, where we would return at some point in the future.

Sha and Heather in Greenwich Park

Perraine was feeling poorly, hence it was just Stu and the girls

Looking towards London's beleaguered financial district

I kid you not, jousting used to take place down on that green field many years ago!

Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson

Sha and Heather with Nelson - some wag has been out with the chalk

The Tube
The first few days were a mish-mash of catching up, settling in and organising necessities such as bank accounts and grasping the transport system. It’s worth mentioning what an incredible piece of branding the Tube symbol is.

The first time we rode the tube, it was a surreal feeling of ‘wow I am on a tube’ mixed with boring familiarity. You wonder how you instantly adopted the London ‘bored with the tube’ look, then realise it’s the branding.

That's not unusual...

Typical bored tube commuters

Permission is seldom given to film or photograph a tube train or station for any commercial use whatsoever, so you wonder how you are so familiar with the branding, and then you remember all those Underground map t-shirts adorned by kiwis returning home from their OE, those same kiwis who still wear them with holes ten years later to remind the rest of us what losers we are for not destroying our liver 3 times over in a London squat.

Tomorrow: A Christmas Tale Continues

A message from our broadcaster

2009-04-29T14:48:00.003+01:00

As all of you following this blog of unimaginable delights will know, the current date is the 29th of April. We are still writing about December 2008.

Never fear faithful reader, I have enlisted the help of the amazingly talented Sharon of London who has taken the art of blog writing to heart and is, as we speak, skilfully crafting stories of magnificence. This will allow us to deliver, to you, much to idle your time away with.

Enjoy!

Auf Wiedersehen Munich!

2009-04-28T16:29:00.006+01:00

Saturday, 20th of December

Today is the day we leave Germany for our new home in England!

We took our time at the breakfast bar before heading out to the bus - an army marches on its stomach (just like a caterpillar), and Stu and Sha are no different.

Now, we were running a LITTLE bit late but weren't too concerned. As the bus left every 20 minutes, we knew we could catch one easily enough. We had tried to ask staff at Wombats as to what time we should leave but no one really seemed to know.

We ended up taking the bus 40 minutes after our ideal departure time, but when we got to the airport we were relieved to see that it was all going to be okay. We joined a queue and proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. And waited some more. As we slowly inched our way forward, it rapidly dawned on us that our time was running out. Visions of Perraine and Heather patiently waiting at Heathrow for our non-arrival swam in our heads.

To cap things off, there was an awful family who were slowly cutting their way forward through the line, pushing their way ahead one person at a time. As time trickled away, more and more people left the line and went straight to the counter (I guess they had a plane to catch or something). The awful white trash family were now right behind us and tried to skip past us but Sha held her ground and steadfastly refused to let them go ahead - for a few moments I thought Sharon was going to smack the woman in the head. Sharon told her “don't you dare” which had the effect of other people in the queue piping up and saying that the family had been trying to push ahead the whole time they had been there. Interesting how one person can say what many others are too afraid to.

We made it to the counter with no time to spare and the check in guy said it was our lucky day as it turned out the flight had been delayed ever so slightly. Even with this delay, if we were any more than one person further back, we would not have made the check in time. Having checked in our luggage we found Sha's well packed bag was slightly overweight, so we had to take it to the heavy baggage area, further delaying us.

As soon as we had done that, we RAN from the luggage area to our flight gate and made it with 30 seconds to spare. A very exhilarating experience, but not one either of us want to repeat any time soon!

We made our way down to the shuttle bus which would take us to our flight and sat across from two young German guys in their late teens. They were heading over to England for Christmas and one of them had in his hands a giant pack of condoms. Sha turned to him and said "Planning a good time are you?" and he blushed and said "No, not me, my girlfriend is still here, but he is" pointing to his mate. His mate joked about joining the mile-high club, when Sha looked around at all the families and quipped "Your mate might have to help you out with that one".

Once we were on the flight, these two German lads kept buzzing the stewardess for more drinks but hey, it was nearly Christmas and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. English girls watch out!

Coming up next...The Descent (no, not the scary horror film).

Our final flight...for now

Munich - Day 4 - Castle Tour

2009-04-26T11:16:00.043+01:00

Friday, 19th December, 2009

Today was our castle tour day. We were taking a bus to two castles in Southwest Bavaria - Schloss Linderhof and Schloss Neuschwanstein (some good pictures shown at those links).

Both of these castles were built by King Ludwig II, with Schloss Linderhof being built in 1869 in an area where Ludwig II used to go hunting. Schloss Neuschwanstein is more famously known as the Sleeping Beauty castle when Walt Disney saw the castle and ‘borrowed’ the design and construction also started in 1869.

The bus tour guide had been doing this tour for over 30 years and still managed to keep it fresh. He had a naughty gruff persona and liked to be a bit rude (all for laughs of course).

Other people on the bus that stood out were the three Americans (mum, daughter and Dave) all dressed in huge fur coats. The daughter reminded us of Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In fact, Dave seemed to be the only normal one of the three of them but was often being told what to do by his step-daughter.

As you will be able to tell from these photos, there was a little snow and this was fun.

Both the castles were spectacular - Sha's favourite was Schloss Linderhof. Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take photos inside, so all we can say is that they were both amazing and as with every tourist attraction in the world, you always exit through a gift shop.

Sha outside Schloss Linderhof

The castle

The grounds

In summer the fountain is working and it looks even more impressive

Linderhof up close

As I have mentioned in previous posts, sometimes the photos don't seem to do things justice. Here is the Linderhof official website, which has a few more photos and more on the history of the castle.

And here's a youtube video of Schloss Linderhof

Once we had taken in Schloss Linderhof, we went to the village Oberammergau where a passion play takes place every 10 years. A passion play is a telling of the death of Jesus and the entire village is involved to some degree. In 1633 the region was being ravaged by the bubonic plague so the residents of Oberammergau made a vow that if God spared them, they would perform a passion play every 10 years. The death rate subsided in the space of a couple of months and they’re still performing the play even now, with the next performance being in 2010.

While taking in Oberammergau, we took a look at a couple of gift shops which contained cuckoo clocks, wood carvings and carved crystals (the region is well known for wood carving). Oddly enough, there was also a lot of religious iconography. Oberammergau also has some brightly coloured buildings with murals, which illustrate various fairy tales and religious scenes. All up, a very cool village with a lot of history.

Yep, Oberammergau is where we are!

Is that Joseph?

Correct me if it's not!

A gift shop

Another moose...

...this one seems a bit wooden

King of the beasts

A magnificent mountain

Notice the cross at the top - imagine getting that up there!

From Oberammergau we headed to our final stop, a village at the bottom of the mountain that Schloss Neuschwanstein was on.

We were told that we had just over an hour to kill before our entry time to the castle so we headed to a hotel for lunch. I had some Bavarian white sausage with bun and mustard, served in a bowl of hot water (the sausage, not the bun!) while Sha had soup and bread. Lunch was served to us by a well dressed waiter with incredibly strong body which only added to the authenticity of the alpine village. Hey, the sausage was fine and that's what is important!

After lunch, we went for a little wander and looked at the lake where King Ludwig II 'drowned' under very suspicious circumstances.

The lake

Later, we found out that this wasn't where he drowned at all and the lake where this happened was somewhere completely different.

Kind Ludwig II was a very flamboyant King who didn't really take his duties that seriously and was more focussed on building castles and having a damn good time. He is known as the fairy tale king for good reason and left a lot of the running of the country to others which seemed to fit with his schedule slightly better.

As it got closer to entry time, we made our way up the steep path to the castle. For a more traditional approach (and a few Euro), you could take a horse and cart up to the top. As we preferred the 15 minute walk, we passed on this.

Horse and cart up the mountain

Schloss Hohenschwangau

This castle wasn't on the tour but is in the village at the bottom of Schloss Neuschwanstein

A distant view

Sha loves her fire hydrants

Schloss Neuschwanstein isn't fully completed and it's a little sad to see something so magnificent when it is only one third finished. Apart from being a tourist attraction it isn't used for anything else, although it was once used for staging a Wagner concert. Ludwig II was a big Wagner fan and at one point considered abdicating and following him into exile.

Getting closer

Inside the courtyard

A bedroom (from a postcard)

As we were leaving

Here are some more photos from outside and here are some inside (via a flickr search). Well worth checking out, especially the ones inside.

We had been warned about being back at the bus on time and if we were late, we would be left behind. We were also told that taking the horse and cart up to the castle was fine - but in NO CIRCUMSTANCES were we to take it back down. They ran infrequently and there was a risk of missing the bus. If we missed the bus, the taxi fare back to Munich would be over €100 (over $230NZ) and it would be cheaper to stay the night in a local hotel and come back on the tour bus the following day.

On the way back down, we had decided to stop for some mulled wine and this was nearly our undoing. We had to canter down the path clutching our vino, being careful not to spill any. When we got to the bus with a few minutes to spare, we hid our souvenir cups to ensure the tour guide didn't hassle us. Luckily, the Veruca Salt family were the last ones back and got suitably chastised by the tour guide (always good to have someone else running later than yourself!)

While heading back to Munich, we were allowed a wee snooze and upon our arrival, we paid a tip for the in-flight entertainment. Sha and I were both impressed that the tour guide had been doing this trip 3-4 times a week and therefore over 4000 times in the last 30 years. Personally, that sort of repetition would do my head in, but good on him for sticking with a job he enjoys.

Once we got back to Wombats, we decided to head out to one last Christmas market in Munich. This time, it was a medieval one. The medieval market had people dressed in costume, was selling things like swords and armour, food and Christmas gifts.

Night ice skating

Pretty lights

Sha with a medieval sausage

Looks a little burnt, but still tasty

Before

After!

Giant metal man

I think it is Maximilian II of Bavaria

Intriguing poster

Peter Fox and his monkeys

Music Video...

This is bizarre but quite cool - just need to learn German!

After the wander around, we went for dinner (Italian) and popped in on the Wombats bar to see some live music and claim our free beer. I'm guessing that most of the bands were in their early start out phase.

The thing that really got to us in the bar was the amount of smoke. As you are allowed to smoke in bars, everyone seemed to be and the fug was overpowering. We managed to stay for one small beer, a few songs from a solo artist and then had to get out. As Wombats is a backpackers, the majority of people were a little younger and the bar reminded me of a school disco. But with beer. Oh well, off to bed for us oldies. Tomorrow we fly to London!

Munich - Day 3 - Bus Tour and Tollwood Festival

2009-03-31T15:05:00.016+01:00

Thursday, 18th December, 2008

We woke up to a fresh snowfall, which was the first amount of real snow that we had seen since leaving NZ.

I popped outside to the ledge outside our room and made a little snowman which wasn't there when we got home later. I'm not sure where he went - probably shopping down the Marienplatz.

Mr Snowman

Close up

Go that way

Hop on/Hop Off Bus

After breakfast, we went for a ride on the hop on/hop off bus, which was quite interesting. We have become fans of the hop on/hop off bus tours as they really give you an easy way to see everything and you can cover a lot of ground. We've done one in LA, Munich and a few weeks ago Oxford (more about that in a future post) and we intend to do one in London shortly. Of course, you don't get the breadth of information as you would by visiting everything individually, but when pressed for time, they're great.

The bus was a double decker, as seems to be the standard for these tours. While the day was cold and wet, with the snow giving way to rain, the bus tour was still a lot of fun. After reviewing the photos from the tour, I'm afraid they aren't that clear, so will post the best ones. Hard to get good photos when it's wet, the bus is moving and you're behind glass.

Wow, looks pretty cool

Notice the rapidly melting snow

Another impressive building

Statues

A column

That's a lot of windows!

The other thing about this bus is that played a song about München. Constantly. It seemed to play it about every 15 minutes - usually when we stopped to let people on or off. It's quite catchy. We probably heard it four or five times. I'm humming it to myself now. Damn.

The München Song (Video)

Sha buttoned up warm

Here is a nun store...

...or maybe, nah, I don't have a clue.

We actually saw quite a lot of nuns in Munich, all going about their nunnish business

Clock store

Regretfully, we didn't have the time to pop back and check it out

Some more landmarks

A giant ship propeller

German houses lined up straight

I love the colour contrast here

A bridge

Another clock tower

There's a cool mural in the centre of this picture (click to see closer)

A perilous position!

We came across some girls sitting on the window sills of a department store. Not to worry, they weren't real!

And one more clock...

Hmm, Germans do seem to like clocks!

The skating rink

Here is the skating rink I mentioned in my last post And that is more or less the end of the bus tour. After the tour, we took some time to head back to Wombats to take a breather. Sha popped into a couple of stores looking for things to keep her warm.

Tollwood winter festival

Late afternoon, we headed to the Tollwood festival, which was an alternative winter festival held in the same place as Oktoberfest. Of course Oktoberfest was in October, so we had well and truly missed that. Good to see the grounds being used for more than just the most well known beer swilling event on the planet. It appears they also have a Tollwood summer festival as well (wasn't aware of that until googling it).

Tollwood festival

Doesn't it look impressive!

The Tollwood festival was amazing. When we arrived, the first thing we were greeted by was the smell of mulled wine. We had been advised to try the Feuerzangenbowle (fire tongs punch) which we quickly did.

Sha enjoying some Feuerzangenbowle

The Feuerzangenbowle is basically a type of mulled wine served in a mug with a lip. To the lip a sugar cube is added, soaked in rum and then set on fire. It looks spectacular and tastes twice as good. In the photo above, the sugar cube has fallen into Sha's mug. And if you get a hankering for making this at home, here's a recipe.

Throughout Tollwood, there are giant tents (absolutely huge), each holding a variety of different things of interest. I'm guessing the tents are also used for Oktoberfest as each one could hold many thousands of drunken revellers.

One tent was full of 'Food of the World' and had various types of food from all over the globe. We saw African, Ethiopian, Mexican, Caribbean, Indian, Malaysian, Thai, Japanese, Greek, Italian - pretty much anything you could imagine and it was an amazing sight to behold. It also made us hungry but we had to hold out as we were planning on going to a beer hall a bit later on.

A second tent was a giant craft market with different things from artists far and wide. You name it - it was there. There were wax figures in the shapes of different African animals (with some being made on the spot), hats, coats, shoes, paintings, writing paper, crystals, wooden toys, games, electronic toys, drinking glasses, chainmail armour (yes, for real). They were all being sold ferociously in the lead up to Christmas.

Tollwood also had various bars and different bands played each evening for free. We didn't stick around to see any but it looked like a fun place to be.

It wasn't all about food, booze and crafts though. Oh no, there were also other tents dedicated to art, health and environmental issues. Not reading German made it fascinating wandering around trying to work out what was going on.

Mannequins

I think this was an art installation...

More Mannequins

...or another Auton invasion? (ask a Doctor Who geek!)

As dinner started to beckon, we left Tollwood, passed the church below which I thought was quite striking, and headed to a beer hall.

The church

The Beer Hall

This was another experience altogether! We went to the Augustiner-Bräustuben beer hall. Here's some more info.

We didn't really know what to expect, as despite having been through one on our walking tour, the one we headed to was far less commercial and felt a lot more authentic. We had been advised that it was less tourist focussed and consequently better. We went to the counter and approached a waitress dressed in a little black and white tunic. Very cute but it looked like she had been doing the job for 40 years! However, she was very helpful and found a seat for us at an already bulging table - there was no way we were going fit into. We managed to squeeze in and were placed slap bang in the middle of everyone.

It's interesting when you are sharing a table with a bunch of people who you haven't met before and who are all speaking German. We were asked what we would like to drink and Sha put up two fingers up and said "two minutes" and the waitress wandered off (hey, we had to decide which beer to drink!). A couple of minutes later the waitress returned with a stein of beer for each of us. Oh well, it still tasted pretty good. We joined in the practice of lifting our glass and saying "prost" (cheers) when the rest of the table did. We then ordered our meal - I can't remember exactly what I had, but Sha seemed to have three kinds of meat, a large dumpling and a LOT of potato. She couldn't finish it. While she is a big fan of dumplings, in this instance the dumpling out dumplinged her.
I really wish we had managed to get some photos of our meal and our surroundings, but it wasn't to be.

After our meal, we waddled back to Wombats (luckily we had a decent walk ahead of us) and reflected on things. We had an enjoyable experience but it's not necessarily something we would rush to repeat. I think it's more of a social thing and one that works better when you are sitting with people that you know or at the very least are drinking and conversing with. It is certainly something different to be placed at a table with eight strangers - I guess if we could speak German, we wouldn't have had any issues! The Augustiner-Bräustuben also has a restaurant area at the beer hall, but that would negate the whole experience.

Overall, we were happy we had done it, but the food wasn't anything to write home about. Last year, when we were living in New Zealand, we had a German boarder for a couple of months (hi Gabriel!) and he mentioned that the Germans are known as 'potatoes' due to the type of food they eat. This certainly did seem to be the case at the beer hall.

Well, that's it for today. Next post - castles and snow...a lot of snow.

Munich - Day 2 - Walking Tour

2009-03-25T14:48:00.019Z

Wednesday, 17th December 2008

We awoke and made our way down to the breakfast hall. Wombats does an all you can eat breakfast for €3.50, which was exceedingly good value for money.

Breakfast consisted of rolls, cheese and meat - we are in Germany after all! Well, there was also cereal, toast, fruit, juice, coffee, the works...we even took some fruit to have later. The following day, we noticed little signs on each of the tables with a picture of a wombat saying "Please do not take food away from the breakfast hall as it encourages pests to come into your room". Oooops! I swear, these signs were not there the day before!

We vacated our room, put our luggage into storage and met our guide for the walking tour. He was in his early thirties and had started his own tour company with a few friends a couple of years ago. However, the company hadn't quite worked out and eventually folded but he had decided to carry on with the walking tour side of things. He was a really nice guy and had a great approach, very informative and with a sense of humour. He also was able to recommend which places had the best food, which beer houses were tourist traps which was all very helpful indeed.

We were taken down through the main streets, past an ice skating rink, through an ancient city gate and towards Munich’s most well known church.

City Gate

Mmmm, nice curves

One point of difference of Munich is that the very middle of this city is designed for people and not cars, which made a nice change from America. It's great to be able to walk through paved areas without having cars whiz past, nor choke on their stinky fumes. This also makes it easier for people to get around by cycling – especially considering the number of university students in this town. Actually thinking about this some more, I guess it is natural for cities that were built many hundreds of years before the rise of the motor car to be centred around people. However, there are still old cities where the car has found its way in quite easily (London anyone?)

We proceeded through the main town centre simply soaking up the history of the place. I'm constantly blown away at the age of things over here, which I guess comes from living somewhere which only has a couple of hundred years of architectural history.

Frauenkirche

One of the towers was being worked on...

We arrived at Frauenkirche and before taking a look inside, we were shown this little model of the old city.

A cute little model

You can see where the church is, on the left with the twin towers. For the more logistically challenged amongst us, this helped us to get our bearings to some degree.

The inside of the church was simply amazing. We saw the impression of the devil's footprint which he had left when it was being built. The legend goes that the devil did a deal with the builder not to include any windows in the church and when he came down to check, he didn't see any. He then found out that they had been added but weren't visible from where he stood at the front door. He stamped his foot causing the mark to remain inside the church. Mr Devil then vacated, furious and left the almighty wind that he had rode outside the church - we had been told by our guide that outside the church was the windiest place in the city. All very interesting!

The devil's footprint

Pope Benedict XVI

The current Pope hails from Munich

Visually impressive

I can't see the side windows either - does that mean I'm evil?

Interesting

That flag in his hand looks like a hockey stick

We were then taken to the Marienplatz(town square) to see the world famous Rathaus-Glockenspiel.

Rathaus-Glockenspiel

This was quite amusing to see and it is one of those things you have to do if you are ever in Munich. It is a mechanical glockenspiel, which performs at 11am each day. The little figures act out scenes from Munich history. There is a bit of jousting and black plague going on (although not at the same time as it would be hard to handle a horse, let alone joust if you were suffering from the plague!)

The Mariensäule, a Marian column found in the Marienplatz

Marian columns are religious monuments built in honour of the Virgin Mary

Close up of a cherub

At each corner of the column is a cherub (although I've just read on the almighty wikipedia that these are putto which are often mistakenly confused with cherubs. Let us not make this mistake again).

Each of these putto is fighting a different animal and each animal represents a different adversity - lion (war), cockatrice (pestilence), dragon (famine), serpent (heresy...i.e. non Catholics).

From the Marienplatz, we went to a wee market (Viktualienmarkt) with many varieties of food and drink. Meatloaf sandwiches are a very popular delicacy as are sausages. Mulled wine is the drink of choice. You basically roll up to a mulled wine cart, pay a small deposit for a cup and then you get your cup filled. You can keep the cup if you so wish or return it for a refund on your deposit. The more you drink, the quicker you roll; although that sometimes means that other people end up rolling you home.

Sha looks happy!

Isn't that boot cute?

In this instance, the cups at this vendor were in the shape of a boot and in retrospect we should have kept them as they were quite unique. Everyone seems to like drinking in the streets over here, probably due to how cold it is (although the scientifically minded among you will know that drinking doesn't really warm you up).

A very tall maypole

We were told a couple of stories about maypoles. Generally the maypole was laid out a few days before being erected; many years ago people would steal it and carry it away (I'm guessing they were lighter back then?). The story goes that if you manage to steal it and carry it away, if you then return it, the village has to provide you with a reward of food and drink and invite you to the festivities. Our guide told us that very recently a maypole was left outside the airport and it went missing. Luckily the police were on to the case and were able to locate it and get it returned relatively quickly. It then turns out that they were the people who stole it in the first place! Needless to say, they were provided with a large amount of booze and food as their reward. We were told that these days, maypoles are no longer left out overnight - they are erected quick smart! Some more info about the tradition here and a fantastic effort in stealing a maypole from a mountain peak here (love their demands!).

Hofbräuhaus

Here is the Hofbräuhaus - a very well known beer hall. This is one of the beer halls that Hitler used to frequent. If you check out this link, you can have a look at a fantastic little video which covers a lot of history.

Stein after stein

Revolution No. stein

Here are some of the steins that people have in the beer hall - they can lock their own away. I think we were told that the wait time to get a stein locker is about 2 years. Yikes!

When Hitler was in power, the roof of the Hofbräuhaus was painted with swastikas. When World War II ended, these were never removed; rather they were simply painted over. If you look at the roof, you can actually see the shapes of the old swastikas which have been painted over with new designs.

Meet the band...

Inside the beer hall was an 'Oompa band' complete with tuba. They seemed to move around playing Happy Birthday an awful lot.

Mmmm, beer - I'm getting thirsty just thinking about it!

From the beer hall, we were taken back to the streets...below are an assortment of what we saw. Sorry if I can't give too much detail about everything!

First king of Bavaria, King Max I. Joseph

A satyr

More awesome architecture

Wow!

This one is worth a close up (click to see)

The English Garden

We would soon find out if this was an accurate representation!

Going through the English garden we arrived at a 'winter wonderland fair' which had sprung up around the Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower). It was great to see a lot of very young children enjoying the pre-Christmas spirit.

Sha looking cold

Chinesischer Turm

Sha still looking cold

Mmmm, sausage vendors

Ain't that cute

Arches and lions

On the way back to the hostel we popped in on a little market we had passed earlier. It was here that we encountered a reindeer (that looked like a moose) that spoke to us and then sung. It was fantastic!

Talking Reindeer (video)

This is my first video upload, so please let me know how it plays!

Modern art?

Nah, just promoting something in a nearby store

And that is about it. Tomorrow - I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.

Munich, Germany - Day 1 - Arrival

2009-03-23T14:37:00.002Z

So, we arrived in Munich a little disorientated and pretty tired from lack of quality sleep. We had left San Fran in the evening and with the length of the flight and the difference in time zone we arrived, I think, in the afternoon (2 or 3pm rings a bell).

As Sha was using her British passport, she went through the Euro customs border, whereas I went through the 'everyone else' border. Needless to say, it was a lot quicker for her.

At the border entry, I was asked for the purpose of my visit, I said "I'm on the way to the UK to find work". The guy behind the counter gave me this strange look and wished me "Good luck". Many months later, I came to understand what he meant.

As I pushed my trolley laden with suitcases out, I past some security/customs people. With nothing to declare, I simply walked straight past them. They stopped me. Then they asked if I had any alcohol or cigarettes in my bag. I said I didn't smoke and there was no alcohol in my bag (more's the pity). They then seemed more interested in what country I was from and what I was going to do in Munich. If I was in France, I'm sure they would have asked me to do the haka! However, they did help me by pointing out where to catch the bus from.

On the other side, I quickly spotted Sha - turns out, she had no hassles with the freeze dried coffee she had declared. Ironically, Sha had purchased it in America when it was packed and sent from Germany in the first place! I think the whole 'declare any and everything' stems from living in NZ, where the biosecurity thing is taken very seriously.

We then headed outside to wait for the bus. As soon as we got outside, we noticed how cold it was. Freezing! America was warm, Munich was not.

Now, Sha and I were both guilty of not learning any German before our brief stay. This wasn’t too much of a problem as everyone here seems to speak (or at the very least understand) English to some degree. I do think that next time we travel to a non-English speaking country we will learn some basics!

The first person we encountered outside was a roughly dressed little man, who wandered towards us and asked something about ‘da boos’. We just nodded, said ‘ya’ and pointed to the pick up point. This seemed to satisfy him as he then shuffled off, turned his back, pulled out a bottle and proceeded to fill it up. I guess it beats using the facilities inside the airport! I was a little taken aback, especially as he then put the bottle into his little rucksack. As Sha mentioned, maybe this is normal behaviour for men like him. The now full bottle could also act as a hot water bottle – heaven knows it was cold enough!

The bus arrived and we began our trip to the centre of Munich. A 40 mile trip, so gave us plenty of time to watch the scenery fly by (no speed limit on the highway over here). I think it was around 4pm or so, and rapidly getting very dark – I’m not used to it being dark so early, I tell you!

The bus driver was quite gruff and not really interested in talking to two tourists whose grasp of the German language was zilch. When we arrived at our destination (outside the Munich train station), we took a look at the instructions of how to get to our accommodation and tried to get there. We asked the bus driver for help and he pointed us down the road, but in another direction to the instructions we had and the language barrier made it even trickier. We then wandered around through the train station and eventually found our way to the hostel, although it took much longer than we had anticipated. Turns out the directions from the travel website, were, of course, slightly wrong. Guess that means the bus driver did know what he was talking about after all. Hmmm, maybe we should let the Flight Centre know that they're instructions aren't that great...oh well, I'm sure other Kiwis will get to experience this for themselves! It’s always hard to find your way around when you have just arrived, are cold and tired and are dazzled by everyone speaking a non-native tongue.

Wombats was a studenty type hostel – as we were both exhausted, we checked into our room as quickly as we could. It seems they had mucked up our reservation and given us two single beds, but not to worry as we could change it the following day. We had a quick look around the hostel before sleeping until Wednesday morning, where we had a walking tour planned. Sha and I are now firm fans of the walking tour as they give you a bit of history and context of a new place and afterwards you are free to explore for yourselves, without feeling like a complete tourist!

One of the perils of writing up the trip so late - I can't remember if it was this night that we went to a lovely Italian place for dinner. Anyway, at some point, we had an awesome Italian dinner. Actually, we had Italian twice while we were here.

Well, next post (yes, will be up much quicker than this one) will be tomorrow! Join Sha and me for a walk around Munich. And a talking moose (or was it a reindeer...?)

Update 30/3/2009: Ooops, I made two mistakes in the above post (doesn't surprise me really). It appears that it wasn't the Flight Centre that had the instructions wrong, but the (non Flight Centre) website we got them from. It also appears we arrived a lot later in the day than I thought - It was around 5 or 6pm. Good to get these memories correctly recorded for posterity!

Farewell America

2009-03-02T12:58:00.005Z

So, the America experience is all over and we’ve left for pastures new.

A few weeks ago, while Sha and I were on the bus returning from Ikea (aka hell of hells), we brainstormed 12 things we learnt and wanted to share from our little trip to America (okay, California). We could probably come up with more, but you have to stop somewhere.

So, without further ado, here they are in no particular order...and with links galore.

What Stu and Sha learnt from America

How America uses 25% of the world's energy yet only has 4% of the world's population.
Homelessness is a big issue over here.
A lot of American stereotypes are unjustified. They DO know how to eat good quality food not just fast food. Of course, this does depend where you are and the prevailing socio-economic factors.
Americans often mistake us Kiwis for Brits...in fact, they do it on other blog posts like this...I guess it was the pear cider comment on my blog.
San Francisco is an awesome, awesome city! We could definitely live here. Here be a cool blog about San Fran.
Vegas and L.A. are all about the money baby! If you have it, everyone else wants it. Maybe this is the reason why...
The only way to comprehend the sheer surreality of the Vegas strip is to experience it for yourself. And if you do go, take a gander at this.
America is HUGE. We only saw a tiny bit of what it has to offer. It would literally take years to see it all. Both Sha and I would love to drive cross country from one side to the other, the ultimate in road trips (maybe we could get our kicks on route 66?) Wow, how many blogs are there on Route 66!? Here's a goodie.
If driving - make sure you have a car with a GPS device. Seriously. It's very handy (and most rental cars come with it as standard). Hertz do Neverlost.
America does some superb beer. I'm not talking Bud, Millers or Coors but the good stuff. Anything one pour removed from mainstream should do the trick. Check out Rate Beer to see how your favourite tipple fares.
Make sure you've read up on tipping. It's pretty straightforward but worth knowing what the score is before you go. Remember to check your meal bill as some places will add a gratuity to it automatically so no need to tip (unless exceptional service). Tipping tips.
We want to go back. Yep, we enjoyed ourselves immensely for most of the trip. We would love to return one day - next time we might take a bite out of the big apple and see what the East Side has to offer. Ah, New York.

Well, that's that. America is all done and my next post will absolutely be about castles, snow, beer halls, white sausage, Tollwood, feuerzangenbowle, another castle, Mad King Ludwig II and the town of Munich. And not one mention of lederhosen.

San Francisco - Day 6 - Final Day

2009-02-24T12:17:00.007Z

Monday, 15th December, 2008

Well, our last day in the US. I can't remember too much of what we did, but do recall posting my Christmas gifts to the family, checking out the Castro area and being caught in another deluge. We also tried our first Krispy Kreme doughnut - it was creme filled and simply delicious (and no doubt not that healthy for us).

Us and Barry

Byeeee Barry, we'll miss you!

Our US travel Map

This shows our US driving route and the places we stayed. I've left off Anaheim and the places we visited on day trips. As usual, click to see better.

Around 5pm we got picked up by a shuttle van and taken to the airport where we ended up hanging around for an hour or two. We used up our last US cash in a Mexican themed bar (where we watched some REALLY drunk Americans getting even more plastered) and then took our flight from San Fran to Munich. The Lufthansa plane was smaller compared to the Air NZ flight we had taken from Auckland to LA, and the videos available to watch on the flight were of a lower calibre (ooooh, I sound like such a snob!).

Not to worry, I managed to read a fair bit of my Watchmen graphic novel, listened to some Tintin audio books and even managed to sleep a little, although there was a lot of cabin noise - far more so than the Air NZ flight.

Edit: Forgot to mention, on the flight there was a bit of wine consumed by most folks. There was also the Abba musical movie playing on the in-flight entertainment. The combination of the two lead to the priceless experience of hearing a slightly drunk Middle Eastern guy (sitting a few seats back from us) slurring "money, money, money...it's a rich man's world" and then tailing off waiting for the next chorus. So funny :-)

Next stop - Munich, Germany! Our first European experience!

San Francisco - Day 5 - The Mission District

2009-02-23T18:13:00.010Z

Sunday, 14th of December 2008

Not much in the way of photos for today, sometimes it is better to enjoy the moment rather than view it all through the lens for enjoyment later. I guess that is the paradox of taking photos.

Sunday morning - we took off to the Mission District. It is a predominantly Latino community and has a bustling neighbourhood feel with a lot going on and all manner of people wandering around.

Our main reason for coming here was to visit the Mission San Francisco de Asís, a Spanish mission founded in 1776. Even if you don't visit the mission, it's a still a fascinating place to check out.

Mission San Francisco de Asís (side view)

Now, I'm not a religious person, but I was blown away by the history, architecture and overall feel of the mission. Well worth checking out if you are ever in San Fran.

That roof is amazing!

Wall relief

Murals

Jesus x3

Very impressive!

Prayer time...

As we wandered through the Mission we came across a Sunday morning mass going on inside the basilica - this was impressive to poke our head in on to see the huge chamber full of people. We stayed well back in the shadows and observed for a minute or so (no photos of course).

Stick with me kid

Mosaic mural

Bows, arrows and foxes...

We also wandered through the historic graveyard within the mission. There are houses which run right next to the graveyard; I can't imagine living so close to a graveyard with that much history.

Statue in the graveyard

The last tribute of love

A hut (Indian hut - maybe?)

After completing our visit, we left through the gift shop. This was a recurring theme of our trip - every single tourist attraction ALWAYS exits through the gift shop...to do it any other way would be criminal).

After leaving the Mission, we wondered around the Mission district, put up with the rain, had some Vietnamese for lunch, spent some time in a few second stores/thrift shops (that was a lot of fun...lots of interesting people).

I was obsessed with finding good second hand book stores to look for Doctor Who books (to get those last few I've been hunting for). Finding very little (probably due to not looking in the right place) I did end up purchasing a copy of the graphic novel Watchmen which has been made into a movie and is coming out sometime this year. If you haven't heard about the movie, don't worry, there will be adverts EVERYWHERE when it is finally released. Very simply, Watchmen is about superheroes and gives a very realistic portrayal. Time magazine voted it into their top 100 pieces of literature ever. It's really good. I hope the movie can match the novel - guess we will see later this year.

After we returned to Barry's, she made up for the not so great Mexican food of a few days back by driving us back to the Mission District to El Farolito (averaging 4 and a half stars on yelp) and we got some really good Mexican food. When the queue goes out the door, you know you're going to get something fantastic. I had a Shrimp burrito (what is with me and burritos…I guess it is something I can easily say!) Yep, Barry did us proud...awesome food.

Barry than whisked us back to hers and we thought it an opportune time to look at our flight plan in more detail. It was then that we discovered we had miscalculated and were flying out on Monday evening rather than Tuesday evening as we had first thought. This meant that Monday would be our last day in SF. One day left...it's not enough. Damn.