yet another hazy city

I'm currently sitting at a computer in the Cathay lounge at Hong Kong airport. Its very near the end of this (rather quick) journey, and to quote cliches, feels like two weeks since I sat at this same computer blogging about the impending excitement that was this trip to Europe.

I've spent the last day and a half in Hong Kong, trying to adjust to the time difference and to find some cheapish electronic goods and a PS3 for Jenni. One thing that was rather difficult to get used to in this country was the busyness of the place. Its a really cool place, but I definitely couldn't live here. I'm way too westernised as an asian to get used to this country. It may be the fact I'm exhausted and sick of re-packing my luggage to make the most of the limited space I have, but I am ready for home. I'm sure I probably won't feel that tomorrow when I go back to work, but meh, it'll be nice to be in clothes that are clean! :P

The first night we were here, Danny and I went to the Sony store in Causeway Bay (which was cool) and around the Times Square mall looking for prices. PS3, camera and W880i phone was the enquiries and the prices were all high as they were all pretty much the same! I had major trouble getting to sleep that night, and the jet lag caught up with me as my body kept telling me it was only early evening, when it was supposed to be 2 in the morning. Arg.

Yesterday we went to Wan Chai to look at computer stuff, had dodgy "yum cha" around there and then went to Mong Kok. Mongers was quite good, the prices were good, so we got a few things here and there. Even funnier were the markets in the street, where I picked up a number of mobile phone accessories and a mad stuffed toy for Jenni. No more PS3 was required, so I was less worried about luggage space at this point.

We ate at Cafe Coral at night, which is this funny chain sort of Hong Kong cafe restaurant, and the food was quite good. After that Danny left to do some shopping as we shopped for business shirts and trousers. I think to get the most out of shopping in Hong Kong, I really need to spend near to a week here and have lots of luggage room!

Anyways, I had to get up before 5 this morning to check in early for the flight, and I'm about 20 mins away from boarding the flight home. One thing that struck me this morning ont he train to the airport, is that Hong Kong would rival the UK as rather depressing due to the lack of a visible sun. It seems to be always overcast here, and very hazy. While I won't relish going to work tomorrow, I'll be glad that I'm back in Australia, if only for the clear horizon and clean air(comparatively).

Cheers
-d

the land of tea, fish & chips and bangers & mash

After our quick Germany stop, we came to the land of the Eng, and its capital: London.

The first day evening was a bit of a writeoff, so all we did after trekking to the hotel by train was to have dinner across the road and then sleep.

Sunday 29th
The next day we went out to Winbledon to visit my cousin Karen and her family. That is, her husband Tom and her 13 month old daughter Grace. I had wanted to check out Wimbledon tennis centre as well. We took a train and got picked up from the station by Tom. I hadn't met her daughter before (and I don't think my dad had either), and so she was very shy at first. Which Karen said was quite weird as she was normally quite rowdy. They decided to take us on a walk past Wimbledon and I was quite amazed at the whole town itself. It's a really nice area and I could see why they chose to live there. We walked past the tennis centre but I didn't feel like going on a tour then. We trekked to Wimbledon village and had lunch at an american place Joe Schmo's. After lunch we walked back and most of the afternoon was spent playing with Grace as she had gotten over her shyness and spent a lot of time poking the Aussie animals on my Socceroo jersey.

After visiting them my dad wanted to go to Chinatown so we went to get some dinner. One thing I had to get used to (but still haven't) is that many of the restaurants here allow smoking. I'm glad that isn't the case in Syd, heh.

Monday 30th

Danny Lee arrived in London from DC in the morning, and came over to our hotel after he had found his hotel. We decided to do a bit of shopping (well I did, I was looking for shoes). So we went up to Bond St station to go down Oxford St to check out the shops. We went down here for a while (their Niketown is massive!) and found our way to Regent St, which contained the Hamley's toy store. When I come back to London in the future I'm so going back there, hehe.

Picadilly Circus was the next stop and then we felt like being touristy after lunch by checking out Big Ben at Westminster. I had no idea of its true scale until I saw it in person and was quite impressed by the architecture of their parliamentary buildings. We also saw Westminster Abbey and walked around a bit before separating from my dad as I followed Danny back to help him check into his hotel. We searched for a good pub dinner after that and found a place where we could have two meals for 6 pounds 95p. Good deal that was, so we both had bangers and mash. The cool thing was that Oasis was being played and so I had my proper "I'm fully in England" moment. That was cool.

Tuesday 1st
Buckingham Palace was our touristy objective for the morning as we viewed the changing of the guard. Well, it was more the marching, as we weren't near the gates to see the proper changing.
After the excitement, we went to Picadilly Circus to get the shoes I wanted, and went back to the hotel to drop it off. We found a pub to have lunch at where I had a massive Guiness Steak pie and mash. That also felt very English.

Went walked along the waterfront after lunch and made our way to the London Eye. It was great being in it at the height it got to, but losing battery in the camera sucked. It was Chinatown for dinner again in the evening.

Wednesday 2nd
Manchester was our sole objective for the day. Old Trafford!
We all took a train in the morning, and it took us about 2 hours to get to Manchester. At the ground, we stopped by the megastore, where I picked up a jersey with Rooney number, name and Champions League arm badge for 61 quid. My gosh that hurt the bank. But still, I figure it was worth it. :) We took the stadium tour and this was incredible, as my dream of coming to Old Trafford and seeing the ground was fulfilled as I got to sit in the player's dugout on the side of the pitch and in the dressing rooms.

The dodgy thing about the day was that my sickness that was developing for a bit hit me fully today and put a dampener on things. Anyhows, we got Burger King for dinner before getting on the train back. We went to find an internet cafe so that my dad could online check in for our flight to HK, but could only find one in the hotel near London Euston station. While he used the computer, we found that they were showing the Milan v Utd Champions League match. We got to see Utd go down horribly for the 2nd half and we (well, just me) trudged back to our hotels to pack for leaving the next day.

Today (Thursday 3rd)
As I had packed my stuff the night before, I met with Danny and we shopped for last minute souvenirs and stuff we can't get in Sydney. Then I went back to the hotel to get my stuff as we trained it to the airport.

And that is where I leave you for now, as I'm sitting in the Heathrow Cathay lounge. If I have time I'll blog from HK.

-d

germany

Ahoy. As this is the first time I've gotten to a computer with time to blog, I figre I'd fill you all in about where I've been to in a couple of parts. First its Germany.

After Glasgow, we flew out to Berlin last Thursday. We flew first to Heathrow, then connected to a flight to Berlin Tegel airport. At the British Airways lounge at Heathrow we also saw a former Bond. That was amusing, he didn't seem very nice though, pity.

In the air on the way to Berlin, we met this nice middle aged German woman who we spoke to for a while. She offered to help us get on our way to our hotel which was really great, as we learnt that the transport system is very confusing for those who are unaccustomed.

With her help, we managed to make it to our hotel quicker than if we tried to get there ourselves. Berlin is a really interesting city, and the side we were on was East Berlin. The area was considered a "trendy" part of town, and it sort of showed. Being an asian in Berlin is like being an NBA basketballer in China, you stick out heaps. As a result it felt pretty uncomfortable getting around for much of the German leg of the trip, especially since we couldn't read any of the signs or anything (apart from some words I picked up through logic).

The day after arriving (Friday) we took an Inter City Express train (man it was fast) to the town of Wolfsburg, to check out the Volkswagen centre, the Autostadt. It was an amazing place to go to, and many of the pavillions were really cool with the factory tour being the highlight I'd say. Great for car fans. I managed to get a headache through the day though (which may have been a result of being upside down in a harness), and when heading back to Berlin I felt really icky and sick. I recovered with some meds and stuff, and tried not to do to much when back at the hotel.

Our trip to Germany ended with our flight to London Heathrow the next day.

quiet day

Ayyy, the last night in the land of the Scots. No tour for us today, just a large amount of cruising the shops around Glasgow looking for stuff. Like the rest of the trip so far, this place amazes in me, just in a different way to the rest of the place. It was odd that in a city that really isn't that large, there seems to be multiple locations of the same stores.

So yeah, all I mostly did all day was just walk around a lot. Lunch was at a chinese place, which is really funny, as nearly all the meals I've had so far has been asian food, hehe. Not too much else to mention I'd say. Was watching the Chelsea v Liverpool Champs League match on Sky Sports HD. Man that was cool as. If only Aus had decent quality pay tv sport like that.

Tomorrow we're off to Berlin in the morning. To get there we gotta fly to London then change plane for Berlin. We'll have a bit of time once we get there and look around, and then we go to the VW Autostadt the next day. Not sure how my access to the internet when I get to Germany though. Hopefully I've be able to eat some German food when I'm there tho, ehehe.

I'd put up photos of stuff so far, but I can't get to a mem stick reader. Dodge. I'll get some up when I find one hopefully.

-d

wonders of scotland

Maan I'm exhausted. Lots of walking around everywhere in the past couple of days. On the day of my last blog, we went up north towards Stirling. On the way we visited Bannockburn, the site of Scotland's battle for freedom over the English when led by Robert the Bruce. (The stuff that Braveheart was based on). It was pretty interesting stuff, and the hertiage centre there had chain mail and helmets from that time period which you could try on. Way cool.

After that, we went up to Stirling Castle to have a look. We were lucky that it just happened to be a free weekend to visit it, and we didn't need to pay the £11 each to get in. It was okay in there, but there wasn't a lot of things due to the ongoing renovations of the place. That night I got to try one of my uncle's guitars, his Gibson ES-335. Unbelievable instrument, so incredibly nice!

The next day we had to be up early to follow my uncle to his asian grocery store. As his staff had not made it to work yet, me and dad had to help him with a bit of work at the shop, including unloading stock from a truck, ehehe. At around 12pm we went off to the train station to take our trip to Edinburgh.

1 hr later, we got to Edinburgh with the intention of looking around the place for a bit and then heading to St Andrews to stay the night near the golf course. We took a hop on-hop off tour bus around Edinburgh to see the place, and it was really nice. Heaps different sort of city to anything else I've seen, the architecture and history being the things which really stood out for me. We visited Edinbugh Castle, seeing the Scottish crown jewels amongst other things. As it got later in the day, we realised that we should try and find accomodation. We weren't able to find anything in St Andrews that wasn't heaps expensive, so we stayed in Edinburgh for the night and decided to go to the course in the morning.

The next morning (which was this morning) we trained it up to St Andrews to try our luck with golf. The good news was that we were able to play if we really wanted to. The bad news was that it was £125 + £30 for club hire if we wanted to play. Incredibly expensive for two ppl who haven't played for a while. Hehehe. As a result, we had a look around and while at the main clubhouse found out that there were different golf courses that weren't the famouse Old Course. I really should have looked it up on the internet before we came, haha. We thought to have a go at one of the other cheaper courses, but my dad didn't feel up to it (he hurt his shoulder carrying the bag he brought up there with his golf stuff!). We shopped around at the various golf shops in the town centre, and I picked up an Adidas cap and shirts.

After lunch, we tried to rush back to the train station and get the train back to Glasgow. Like what seems to happen to me quite a lot back at home, we missed the train by 1 min! Ah well. On the plus side though, the Tornado jet fighters from the nearby air base did a number of fly bys as they landed at the base. We had the same in the morning when we got off the train, as a couple of them flew by on their take off, with full afterburner. The noise was incredible. Anyhows, we got the train back an hour later, and soon after getting on I was so tired and just slept for most of the trip.

As I'm really tired at the moment, I'm not really concetrating well on what I'm writing right now. But how good was Man Utd's win over Milan! Awesomeness!

-d

laggin of the jet variety

Ahey there,

Sitting in my uncle's living room watching tv atm, feeling a lot better than I was last night. I hit the wall around 6:15pm yesterday while on the plane to Glasgow and felt really tired. That continued for most of the night, but I was a bit more awake when we got back to my Uncle's place after dinner as he was showing us his home entertainment system and array of guitars.

At this point, I think I've mostly gotten over the jetlag, but we'll have to see how it is later on in the day. Apparently it hasn't been raining much here, but since our arrival its started to rain again! It feels like Melbourne at the Aus Open again, bringing the rain and all.

I think the plan for the day is check our some castles at Stirling and maybe check out the city. I'm watching Narnia on SkyMovies HD right now, which is cool as. They have HD channels on their tv here, soo cool! In a bit I'll have a go at my Uncle's guitars.. his Gibson ES-335 looks incredible.

Anyways, time to get more socks on, its 13 degrees today, nice springtime day in Glasgow, hehe.

-d

yum cha breakfast

Ahoy all those people who have decided to follow my trip (or are just bored at work)!

I'm currently in the Cathay First Class lounge and I'm just marvelling at the stuff they offer people here. I'm so lucky my dad is an uber frequent flyer. Anyways, we begun this trip waiting for the check in gates to open at Sydney. We had tried to avoid traffic so much that we got to the airport way early. It was good though, and we spent plenty of time at the Qantas lounge as well. After a nice bit of food, we got on our plane to HK. This flight was actually a bit icky, as it was really uncomfortable to get to sleep, and my butt is still feeling the after effects of a bad sitting/reclining position. Otherwise the flight was great, and they had dinner served (at 10:30pm) and breakfast as well (chicken rice congee! my gosh that was cool I'd have to say).

We arrived in HK right on the anticipated time they had planned, at 5.05am local time. After which we mafuddled around until we got to the Cathay lounges here. I could not believe what I saw, there was an entire games room, with banks of tvs and PS2s to be played! Also, there was a full seat/wheel/pedal set up for Gran Turismo 4! Crazy.

The great thing about these crazy lounges is that you can shower here with everything provided, and I'm really feeling heaps better now that I'm not cramped in economy anymore. The flight later this morning will be a killer though.. 13 hours to London!

Back to brekky now. Har gou, noodles, etc. for breakfast! Crazy

Will post more once I get there.

-d

hmm

maan
stupid email disclaimer..

So it (nearly) begins

Heyheyhey

This place certainly has a lot of cobwebs ay..

Well! I'll amake sure this is updated in the next few weeks at least. Heaps of things have happened since I last posted, the Aus Open has come and gone, and so has my life as a bumming uni student. I began work on the 5th of Feb at the most sustainable bank in the world (5 years running). I'm part of the grad program, and while it has its heights, I'd say that there are a number of lows too. Lets hope it evens out a bit :)

Work has sorta sucked a lot of my time, but I currently have a good schedule. I start around 7:30-7:45 and finish around 4:15 or so. I'm savouring this until I get to an area that is more pressured. It will get long then.

Oh, the exciting part now, I'm going to be off to Europe for the next two weeks (as many of you know).
I fly out tonight at 10pm, to London with a stopover in HK for 4 hrs. Then change planes and go to Glasgow to stay with my uncle for a bit. Then theres golf and castles (St Andrews GC!!) and then off to Germany to see the Volkswagen Autostadt in Wolfsburg. Then back to the UK to see London for a while and then stopping in HK for a couple of days before coming home.

It doesn't seem very long, and I'm sure that it will go faster than I realise, but I'm grateful that I can take the leave so soon after starting this job!

I'll try and put up pictures too ay.

-d