Observations of Tokyo

Konnichiwa

I'm in Japan. I've always wanted to come here, so it's great to have a chance to come here on a business trip.

What have I found so far?

• Japanese people don't wear sunglasses. It's the summer and it's stinking hot. Sunny, muggy and humid. Everyone is mentioning the heat to me, so I'm sure it's not normally this hot. Yet nobody on the streets is wearing sunglasses. I'm the only one. I don't know why. I hope it's not considered rude. The women, however, are hiding from the sun with umbrellas.
• Japanese people are concerned about contracting diseases. Upon arriving at the airport, I had to go through quarantine before passport control and customs. Video cameras were looking out for people with symptoms.  Many places have alcohol hand sanitiser available for everyone to be able to clean their hands at the first available opportunity. In 7-Eleven and similar stores you'll find a whole shelf dedicated to medical face masks, and indeed you'll see many people wearing them. I'm not sure if they are wearing them to stop other people's germs getting to their face, or whether they are being considerate and wearing the masks so that they don't breathe on other people - maybe they are sick and don't want to spread the germs.
• In Japan, I'm a millionaire. By no means rich, but at $100 to a yen, it feels like I have a lot of money in my wallet. A lot of zeros anyway. Which is fine, until I pay 900 yen for a coffee and a bagel at Starbucks.
• Japanese food is great. I was worried about what I'd be made to eat in Japan. Raw fish? Chicken feet? But I've really enjoyed the food, from chicken yakitori freshly barbecued over coals to sushi ordered straight from a computer screen. The weirdest (yet surprisingly delicious) sushi I had was cheeseburger sushi!

Tokyo from one of the many meeting rooms I've visited this week

I have a few more days left in Japan so I'll do my best to supplement this with a follow-up post, maybe with some observations about the politeness and conservatism of the Japanese people.

Sayonara.

A mild winter

Last winter, as I trained for a half marathon in April, I was constantly having to run through frost and snow in and around London. This winter, however, has been very mild. It has barely been freezing at all, which is more than I can say for some of the winters I've endured since moving to London. Some years I've witnessed a frozen serpentine in Hyde Park and tubes not running due to snow.

Last week I visited Oslo for a business trip. I expected Norway in winter to be a really cold experience but even there it was surprisingly mild. No snow on the ground and temperatures in the positive side of the Celsius scale.

Grand Hotel in Oslo, where I stayed on this occasion.

Back in Canada

Happy new year and greetings from beautiful Victoria, British Columbia in a Canada. I'm back in BC for the first time since April 2008. Tomorrow I head up to return to Whistler for some skiing.

When I get back to London I plan on writing my travel summary for 2013. Talk soon!

Where is good to shop for gadgets these days?

If you wanted to buy the new iPhone 5s when it gets to the stores next week but had a choice of where in the world to buy it, where would you choose?

I've checked out the prices for an unlocked 16 GB model quoted on the Apple website for various countries and compared these prices, and listed them in Aussie, British and US currencies.

Currency	Australia (including 10% GST)	UK (including 20% VAT)	USA (not including tax)	USA (including 9% sales tax - California)	Canada (not including tax)
Australian Dollars	869	939	696	759	748
British Pounds	508	549	407	444	437
US Dollars	810	875	649	707	697

You're certainly better of getting one in the USA if you're there (especially if you find yourself in one of the tax free states such as Oregon, Delaware or New Hampshire). With the recent weakening of the Australian dollar, Australia would also be a good bet especially if you claim the 10% GST back when you leave.

Getting up at 4am sucks

Anyone who knows me well will tell you I'm not a morning person. It is hard enough to get in to the office by 9am most mornings.

So when I tell you that I got up this week not once but twice at 4am you will understand that that is quite a struggle for me.

Last week I needed to go to a meeting in Stockholm for work but didn't have time to stay there the night before and needed to be back that night for a work function (at the top of Tower Bridge - can't be missed!)

So I got up at 4am to get the 6:30am flight from Gatwick to Stockholm, just in time for my 11am meeting. Then time for a quick beer (150 SEK for 2 beers! That's about GBP 15!) before hitting the 4:50pm flight back to London City airport in good time to get back to the party on top of London's most famous land mark (well maybe second after the Elizabeth Tower  of the Palace of Westminster best known as the Big Ben).

The second time was leaving Glastonbury yesterday morning, in order to avoid the crowds leaving the festival. It is strange getting up at 4am at a music festival, a time where a good proportion of people have not gone to bed yet.

The up-side, of living in the UK, however, is that 4am is about the time it gets light at this time of the year, and by 5am the sun is truly up.

Glastonbury Festival

I've been a bit poor at updating this travel blog lately, and normally I write about international travel, not things like trips to music festivals. But for Glastonbury I'm going to make an exception.

I've been to a lot of music festivals in my time, both in Europe and in Australia. From going every year to small festivals like Meredith Music Festival (a couple of hours from Melbourne) to bigger European festivals like Sziget in Hungary and Isle of Wight (circa 65,000 people). But nothing I have ever experienced even comes close to Glastonbury.

Glastonbury, where I went for 4 days around this weekend, is a whole city set up in the west country of England catering for the 135,000 ticket-holders  plus many more thousands of staff and performers over 100 stages. It took me about an hour to walk from one side of the festival site to the other, and another 45 minutes to the car park. What a huge set up.

I was fearful of images I remember seeing in newspapers in previous years of revellers wading through knee-deep mud and just about needing boats to haul their camping gear across the site. I encountered a night of rain upon arrival but was lucky to get scorching sun* throughout the long weekend. Which was great for sitting in the sun with cider, watching band after band come and play.

Watching bands play in the sun at Glastonbury

There were hundreds of acts across a handfull of main stages and some 100 other small stages. Watching the Rolling Stones with about 100,000 other people was an interesting experience, but of course some of the more intimate performances might remain more memorable.

Despite the massiveness of it all, the people are friendly and the crowds are mostly tame. The festival organisers did a great job of managing so many people. Nevertheless, a camp out festival still ends with getting home and appreciating the comforts available, like flushing toilets, warm showers, and peace and quiet. Or am I just getting old?

* - Scorching by English standards, that is. Nothing like the 45 degrees I had to endure on New Years Day 2006 at the 2005 Pyramid Rock Festival on Phillip Island with a huge hang over (partly caused by the lack of food available at the festival) and no shade.

Easter in Morocco

As an Australian, I struggle with the London winter. And this year it's been a long one. Despite spending Christmas and New Years in Florida and Mexico respectively, I couldn't cope with the cold and gloom so decided to go somewhere warm for the Easter long weekend.

At about one month left before Easter, I decided to go Marrakech. My girlfriend couldn't come with me so I decided to go alone. It was a destination well-suited to solo travellers, with hostels costing around GBP 7 a night.  The problem, however, was that all of the flights from London for Easter were either full or uber-expensive.   I ended up finding an Iberia itinerary on Opodo that was affordable, but hardly direct.

On the way out: London Heathrow - Madrid - (overnigt stop) - Casablanca (6 hour wait) - Marrakech

On the way back (somewhat better): Marrakech- Casablanca (4 hour wait) - London Heathrow

It wasn't as bas as it sounds. I flew out to Madrid after work on the Thursday night and stayed in Madrid at a cheap but nice hotel by the airport. The next day I flew down to Casablanca at around lunch time.

Casablanca

What to do with a 6 hour wait in Casablanca? That's just enough time to get out of the airport and have a chance to look around town. It sounds simple, but the city is 40km from the airport. There is a train but it only runs once an hour and takes over 30 minutes. So timing is key.

The train journey to the city was already interesting. First of all I was surprised by how green the countryside was. I'd always imagined Morocco to be red and dry but it was anything but that. Green lush fields surrounded the tracks on the way to town. Various animals - sheep, goats, horses - pastured along the tracks, each flock watched by a shepherd sitting or lying in the grass. Children played in  fields, sometimes shared with animals. Shanty shacks were littered across the countryside before we got into the built-up Casablanca suburbs.

I met some French girls also catching the train to town and once we got to the main train station I shared a taxi with them to the centre. The taxi ride was hair raising but we managed to survive. After a quick mint tea at their hotel I walked back across town to the station, taking in the surprisingly Western feel of Casablanca.  It didn't feel like a typical Arabic-Muslim city. Young women were not covered up and hanging out with young men in the streets.

Once at the station I popped into a shop to get some snacks. I ended up with some local cashews and a drink which I think was some sort of chunky, pomegranate flavoured, yogurt drink.

I went to the platform where the next listed train to depart was the one to the airport. It was to leave in 10 minutes but was already terribly crowded, so I decided to board to guarantee a spot. To my shock, it then departed straight away! This wasn't the train to the airport!

I didn't know what to do and was too embarrassed (and non-French-speaking) to ask someone what to do, so I decided to get off at the first station and decide what to do next. Perhaps catch a train back or get a taxi to the airport. Luckily, it turned out that Oasis station was the only stop that the airport train stopped at between the city and the airport so all I had to do was get the next train from the green leafy suburb appropriately named.

Arrival in Marrakech

I finally got to Marrakech in the evening. A taxi was waiting for me. The taxi ride, although largely uneventful, was a bit scary. Not because of the driving (that was the reason for my taxi fear in Casablanca) bit because of the state of the car itself.

Typical Grand Taxis in Marrakech
Image borrowed from Read: Between the Lines

It was a late 70's or early 80's Mercedes, with no seat belts.  I spotted the fact that it had 650,000km run up on the clock but I'm not even sure if it hadn't already looped past zero before. The speedo didn't work as it constantly showed 0 km/h. But there was no chance of speeding: the 5 speed manual  couldn't seem to go above third.

A taxi not dissimilar
Image borrowed from Sending Postcards

My taxi dropped me off in some narrow street inside the medina. Despite having some printed instructions which directed me to the hotel, there's no way I would have found it as I had no clue where I was. Luckily, there was a guy from the hostel waiting for me. He guided me through a series of narrow pedestrian alleyways, which were nevertheless frequented by motorbikes, horses and carts, donkeys and bicycles.

I was welcomed with biscuits and Moroccan mint tea. I didn't have long in Morocco so I booked myself in for an early trip the next day to the Atlas Mountains and beyond.

Over the Mountains

I did a minibus tour which drove us for over 4 hours into and over the mountains. Although the drive was long, it was amazingly scenic. The red cityscape changed to green fields around Marrakech, which turned into lush green valleys under the mountains. As we climbed the snow-capped mountains the scenery slowly got less and less green, eventually turning into barron, rocky cliffs under snowy peaks. Once we passed the mountains the scenery became dry, flat and dessert-like. We were at the edge of the Sahara.

High Atlas Mountains

Although I only spent a few hours outside the minibus, I managed to get myself sunburnt  It seems I now have English skin which is no longer used to the Aussie - or Moroccan - sun.

Marrakech

By the time I got back to Marrakech I was so sick of being in a car I decided the next day would be spent purely walking around. So I managed to get myself more sunburnt walking around, taking in the craziness of the city.

The main square in Marrakech. Usually full of vendors, snake charmer and various other people and animals,

I enjoyed shopping in the vast souks around town and eating the street food in the market in the square that's set up each night. The local shopkeepers and food vendors were pushy but friendly, and much easier to manage than I expected. Overall the city left a great impression on me.

Flying First

On my way back to Madrid I received my first ever free upgrade to business class. With all the flying I do, I was disappointed I had never been upgraded but that is no longer the case. Of course business class on a short haul flight isn't particularly special, but after being in a country for 4 days where it's very hard to find alcohol, the free champagne was a treat!

Austria for Business and Pleasure

I started skiing relatively late, when I was 19. I was absolutely terrible at first. But I loved it and stuck with it and have been skiing for at least one day every year ever since.

This winter I decided to return to Austria, to a resort called Gastein which I visited back in early 2010 (see my post on that trip here).

My girlfriend and I flew to Salzburg on Saturday night. We stayed the night and had the biggest Austrian feast of all sorts of meat that you have ever seen at the beautiful hotel Grünauerhof in the suburbs.

The next day we headed for the mountains of Salzburg state to Bad Gastein. There, we skied for 2 and a half days in the warm sunshine, enjoying Austrian beer, schnitzels, sausages and goulash. Bad Gastein is a town built on thermal springs, which meant that after a hard day's skiing we were able to relax in the comfort of the spa, enjoying the region's healing waters.

We were due to fly back to London on Wednesday but a need to see some clients came up, so instead of jetting back to London, we caught a train to Vienna so that I could attend business meetings and that we could enjoy more of the Austrian cuisine. We visited a number of those classic Viennese coffee houses to sample traditional meals such as Sachertorte, Apple Strudel and Viennese coffee.

Ironically, even though it was sunny and warm when we were in the mountains for skiing, it was cold, snowy and windy in Vienna.  Battling the snow to get to business meetings was certainly fun, however, and beats a day in the office in London.

Miami to Mexico

My 2012 ended in Miami and 2013 began in Mexico!

I've never spent a Christmas in London. In 2012 I escaped last minute, and flew out on Christmas Day (which actually isn't easy, as there is no public transport in London on Christmas Day, not even the Heathrow Express.)

I thought Christmas Day at Heathrow would be quiet, but boarding the London to New York flight was anything but. It turns out, unsurprisingly really, that these cities' large Jewish populations disregard Christmas altogether.

Miami Beach

I landed in Miami on Christmas night and headed straight for my hostel right in the middle of South Beach's Art Deco District. I didn't have a lonely Christmas night, as the Miami Beach International Travellers Hostel is not a quiet place! The place is something of a party base. Between the party  atmosphere and  the warm weather (t-shirt weather despite it being the middle of winter), it was hard to tell it was Christmas.

South Beach

Miami is an interesting place. The main thing that surprised me (which I first found out on my connecting flight from New York to Miami, where I was the only English speaker apart from the American Airlines crew) was that it's mainly a Spanish-speaking city. With it's large Cuban population, Spanish is the main language used by the locals and English seems to be reserved for the tourists.

But I really liked the place - a much more relaxed part of the US than I'd experienced elsewhere, with beach culture and fitness being prevalent.

Florida Keys

After a couple of nights at Miami I headed back to the airport but not to fly. No, I was there to rent a Mustang Convertible.

I drove the red beast down the Florida Keys, across the long bridges of the Overseas Highway which I'd marvelled at on TV since being a teenager.

Hours later, after battling holiday traffic all day and lots of stop to take photos of....errr, Bridges, I made it all the way down to Key West, the southern most part of continental USA.

The problem with arriving at a popular holiday destination at sunset, especially one that's quite a small city, on a day between Christmas and New Years is that there isn't a lot of accommodation. I couldn't find anything.

In the end I ended up driving the whole 300 km back to Miami stopping off at various motels and hotels on the way with no luck whatsoever.

(Tip to proprietors: If your vacancy sign is lit up but there is no vacancy, turn the damn thing off!!)

Even in Miami I had trouble finding a room, despite going from hotel to hotel and in the end ended up at a run down motel near the airport.  Despite looking far from luxurious, I was desperate to get some sleep, so I went to enquire about a room.

I should have known something was up when they queried in broken English, "you want it for the night?"

Yes, of course I want it for the night, it's a hotel room, right?

Oh.

It's THAT sort of hotel room. Maybe I should have asked for the hourly rate. It's not like I got much sleep anyway.

"You can have room number 5, over there."

"OK," I replied. "Do I get a key?"

"No. Just lock the door behind you."

Upon entering the room and duly locking the door behind me, I definitely knew what kind of place I was in. The windows were boarded up so nobody could see inside. There was a TV, already on, showing only one channel - hardcore porn. And I didn't want to let my face touch the pillowcase.

I slept, shivering from the cold (I was too disgusted to get under the covers, and couldn't go to the car to get more clothes because I couldn't lock the door behind me) whilst thinking about whether my red Mustang would still be waiting for me in the morning.

Morning did, eventually, come. And I was out of there as quickly as possible. I left with my head hung low as I didn't want anyone to see me leaving the place, or the owners to ask "you sure you wanted it for the night?"

I drove to the nearest McDonald's and used their bathroom to get changed from the previous day's clothes and brush my teeth. You know you're in a dodgy hotel when you'd rather bathe in a McDonald's toilet.

Fort Lauderdale

I decided to head up North to Fort Lauderdale. The suburbs between Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale were quieter beach-side communities and really pleasant.  Fort Lauderdale itself was touristy, with nice beaches and plenty to do. This time I found a hotel nice and early, and enjoyed staying right on the beach.

Return to Miami Beach

I returned to Miami for 3 more nights culminating in New Years Eve. I stayed at the Miami Hostel on the non-beach side of South Beach. Despite being significantly further from the beach than the previous place I stayed, I would have to say it was one of the nicest, friendliest and most pleasant hostels I've ever stayed at. Guests culminated in the outdoor decked area to socialise and relax and prepare for their nights out.

Holding a baby alligator in the Everglades

I was excited to go on an air boat ride in the Everglades, something remembered seeing as a kid back in the 80s in the movie Police Academy 5 (which I thought was good at the time but click the link to see the awful trailer) to go alligator spotting.

New Years Eve was at the world famous Nikki Beach but it wasn't to be a late one as I had to get up at 5am on New Years Day to head to the airport to catch my flight to Cancun.

NYE at Nikki Beach

Cancun

I arrived at the aiport in good time and got through security quickly. Turns out early morning on new years day is a good time to fly. I managed to catch up on sleep for an hour or two in the lounge.

I arrived at Cancun airport about lunchtime, and started off my 2013 with some Mexican food and a Dos Equis beer, complete with lime, while I waited for my girlfriend to fly in from Canada, where she had spent Christmas.

Our first 3 nights in Mexico were spent on Cancun's hotel zone, in an all-inclusive hotel. The hotel zone is a peninsula some 10km long, which contains just about nothing but hotels and golden beaches. I know, it doesn't sound exotic at all, but after a week staying in backpackers hostels and dodgy motels, an all inclusive, beach-side stay, complete with hot tub on the balcony, is exactly what the doctor ordered.

My girlfriend and I spent the days and evenings lounging, drinking, swimming, drinking, eating, drinking and walking along the beach.

We did venture into town on the bus one evening, and experienced shopping in a real Mexican supermarket, where 1 litre bottles of tequila went for about £4/$6.

Isla Mujeres

For our last three nights we headed out of the hotel zone, and caught a ferry over to Isla Mujeres, an island off the coast. We checked into a hotel there which exceeded my expectations. It was the biggest hotel suite I've ever had, with a massive balcony overlooking the tip of the island, and, you guessed it, another balcony hot tub.

Isla Mujeres, while touristy, was more down to earth than the mainland resort area, and definitely very relaxed. Golf cart was the way to get around the island, which could be done in an hour or two if not stopping off at beaches for swimming and nachos.

My hot girlfriend drives me around the island in a golf cart

Unfortunately after 3 nights on the island it was time to leave the snorkelling trips and beach massages behind, and head back to London to proceed with 2013 in reality. 

Is NY still exciting the 4th time around?

Is New York City still exciting on your 4th visit?

Quite simply, yes.

The first time I went to NY it was awesome. What an atmosphere.
The second time I was in NY it was just as much fun.
The third time I went to NY was when Icelandic volcano ash cloud grounded flights in 1999 and I was stuck in the States while on business. Milling around NYC was starting to lose its exactingness.

Would my fourth visit be boring?

No. I was in town at the end of last month for a conference and although I didn't get out as much as I would have liked to, New York still provided an amazing, unique and unmistakable atmosphere when walking around those one-way city streets.

View from the top of the Rock towards the Empire State Building and Downtown

It was my first visit in Winter and I experienced both how bloody cold it can get, and how unseasonably warm it can be.  I enjoyed jogging in Central Park like a local, visiting the Top of the Rock and of course a lot of shopping!

A quiet weekend in the Cotswolds

Last Friday I took a day off work and ventured into The Cotswolds for a winter long weekend with my girlfriend.

The Cotswolds are a part of England not too far from London (just beyond Oxford) which have rolling hills and cute villages. Apart from the literally freezing cold, it made for a nice relaxing weekend away from the big smoke.

The weekend involved driving around the villages and going on country walks, and then warming up by the a fireplace in a pub.

The place we stayed is worth mentioning. The Feathered Nest Country Inn is a gastropub and B&B in a little village with views over the hills.  Great service, amazing food, large open fire and 5 star hotel quality!

2012: A year of travel in review

I have not been posting to my travel blog much this year so seeing as it is now December, I thought I'd write a summary for 2012.

• My year started well with waking up on New Years Day in Paris. I had got there just for new years eve (with only about 2 hours to spare) after getting spending the night on a bus stuck on a closed, icy mountain road in the French Alps and having to be rescued by the rescue services (see separate blog post). I would visit Paris two more times in 2012, both in November, with a business trip and a trip to Disneyland Paris in the same week. 

• My business travel year also started well. I travelled to Pennsylvania for business meetings, and combined the trip with a weekend in Atlantic City. I managed to lose both my passports on this trip and only realised on my way to the airport to fly back to London. Luckily I managed to get them back!

• The Spring was packed full of travel! A boys' trip to Las Vegas for a mate's 30th, a long weekend in Tenerife, a business trip and weekend in Ireland, a surprisingly rainy weekend in Gibraltar, and Easter in Australia, where I went just for a week. I surprised my parents as I didn't tell them I was coming home. On my way back from Melbourne I stopped over in Doha to look around. 

• During the summer, my parents were over from Australia. With them, I travelled to Prague and Venice, and also did various sightseeing around the south of England. 

• However, my main trip this summer was to the Benicassim Festival, on the coast of Spain between Barcelona and Valencia  We stayed at a spa resort instead of roughing it camping, spending the nights at the festival and the afternoons recovering on the beach.

• Autumn was spent chasing the last of the summer sun. I saw my parents off to Dubai on their way back to Australia, and had a weekend in Ibiza with my girlfriend.

• Other business trip destinations this year included Brussels, Madrid, Munich, Oslo, Prague, Vienna and Zurich.

• My travel year will finish off with flying to Miami on Christmas Day to get some winter Florida sun!

Overall less flights this year than 2011 but about the same distance flown:

Munich. Business or Pleasure?

I have not written in a seriously long time. Sorry for neglecting you! It's not that I haven't been travelling. I have. I have so much that I've barely had time to write. Plus I think I'm one of these people who starts a lot of things but finishes nothing. Which, of course, is a terrible trait.

So, where in the world is DK? Tonight I am in Munich. I flew in last night for some meetings today. The meetings finished in the late afternoon and I enjoyed the sunshine walking around town. I had dinner in the outdoor beer garden at the Chinese Tower in the English Gardens.  Bratwurst and sauerkrout with potatoes, mustard and a big beer, to the sound of a Bavarian brass band in Lederhosen playing on the tower. I felt very Bavarian.

It has been interesting summer weather here in Bavaria this week. Quite tropical, really. Warm and humid during the day, and wet in the evenings.

I stayed at a hotel last night (thank you, Mr Employer) but decided to book a hostel for tonight. I stopped off at the Hauptnahnhoff (central station) before checking in to change from my suit to shorts and a T-shirt. This had two main purposes:

1. It was pretty bloody warm and walking around in a wool suit in the sun is never that much fun.
2. I wouldn't be caught dead walking into a hostel wearing a business suit!

To be fair, I did compromise.  I had booked a private single room in the hostel, rather than a dorm for the night. Or so I thought.

It turns out I had booked a single room, but not for tonight. Rather, I'd booked it for a night next week. When in fact I will be in Spain. And there were no more single rooms left.  So rather than getting a single room for 43 Euros I got a twin room to myself for 70 euros. I could have got a decent hotel for that. Of course, that would be a much less interesting atmosphere.

Speaking of atmosphere, I'm sitting in the hostel bar right now. I just bumped into a bunch of people who conduct tours in Munich, including one guy I went skiing with near Salzburg a few years ago. Small world!

Christmas and New Years in France with the Fanaticas

If you know me at all, you ill know that I like to use all of my days off work for travel. When I found the Fanatics Skifest and Paris Combo tour, I knew it was perfect for me because it left after work on Friday 23 December and returned on Monday night, 2 January - absolutely maximising the Christmas and New Years break: ten days away for the price of 3 days' annual leave!

It certainly made for a Christmas to remember.

On the way there our bus driver got lost, and although we were driving from London to France, we somehow made it into Italy.  Thanks the extra few hours that added on, it made the bus ride there a whopping 23 hours.

We got there late on Christmas eve, too late for the French Christmas Eve festivities, but not too late to party. When you are in the snow with a group of 150 Aussies and Kiwis in their 20's and early 30's, you know it's going to be wild. Christmas Eve was spent in a rather drunken haze, and for the rest of the week the apres-ski didn't disappoint, as all of the nights seemed to me equally big.

The skiing was good too. There was a big dump of snow before we arrived, and for the rest of the week (bar the final day when it snowed again) we were skiing in glorious sunshine under bright blue skies.

Risoul, photo courtesy of Lucy

The snow did get a bit patchy and icy towards the end but it was manageable. Risoul is a small resort in the south of the French Alps, and our accommodation was true ski-in-ski-out.

I shared a room with an English friend of mine and a brother and sister from Townsville. The Queenslanders helped me get back some of my Aussie accent that had faded in London over the last few years.

Snowing on the last day

After six nights of carnage and one more day of skiing on some finally fresh snow, it was time to head on to Paris. The bus ride from Risoul to Paris was to be eleven hours. Our tour leader joked it might be more like 17. It turned out she had underestimated it.

A few hours into the drive the drivers decided to take the snow chains off the bus. They had some sort of problem with a piece of one of the chains getting lodged in the wheel, so it took them an hour or two, while we waited patiently watching DVDs' on the bus.

Then came the second hiccup. We came to an intersection where a rear-wheel-drive car without chains was stuck on the ice. No problem, a whole bunch of us got off the bus and pushed the car out of the way. By this time it was past midnight and I was getting ready to settle into the bus seat for the overnight bus ride.

But then came the biggest problem of all. In order to get us to Paris quicker, the bus driver decided to take a small detour. A short cut, if you will. It was windy B-road through the mountains, which I think would be treacherous at the best of times, but on this occasion, given the snowfall on our last day of skiing, was covered in ice.

GPS screen capture of where we were, courtesy of Eleanor

We got stuck on one turn, and as the driver tried to get us out of it, we started sliding down the road. The girls on the left side of the bus started screaming in a panic, as they looked out of their window and saw a sheer drop down the cliff next to them.

Most of us decided to get off the bus at that point, and wait for the drivers to get the bus around the turn. As we waited out in the dark, freezing, cold, they put some grit down and managed to get the bus moving again, with us once again on board.   But before you knew it the bus was sliding around on the ice, culminating with the back wheel in a ditch and the front wheels lifted firmly off the road surface.

The bus drivers called for their road-side assistance but a few hours later we were still waiting on the bus and assistance was nowhere to be found.

Eventually we were rescued by the French National Gendarmerie, who shuttled us down the mountain a few people at a time in their cars, and put us up for a few hours until morning in a hall of a local village. The next morning, once they managed to get the bus off the mountain and the bus driver had paid his fine for taking us down a closed road, we continued on to Paris.

Our 11 hours drive to Paris turned into a 24 hour drive and we made it at 10pm on New Years Eve. A quick shower in the hotel and we headed out to the Eiffel Tower, armed with imitation Champagne bought from (probably) illegal street vendors.  Made it for the midnight celebrations - just!

One more night of partying on the evening of new years day, and we headed back to London.

Reflecting on 2011

Happy new year!

2011 has been a good year of travel. Some long haul destinations included Brazil, Argentina, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and of course Australia.

More locally, I visited Estonia, Wales and the Balearic Islands (Ibiza and Majorca on separate trips), Slovakia and Norway for the first time.

I also made return trips to France, Germany, Italy, Northern Ireland and Hungary.

Some of my trips were by train (for example all the way from London to Monaco) and some were by bus (for example the 23 hour journey from London to Risoul in France).  But many of my trips have been flying.

I have been keeping track of how many flights I have flown and the result shocked me this year. 47 flights, covering almost 70,000 miles (112,000 km).  That's more than enough to circumnavigate the world 2 and a half times.  If only I had collected frequent flyer points for all of these!

I wonder what 2012 will bring.

London to Singapore

This year I went to Asia for the first time.

Having lived most of my life in Australia, it was a bit of a shame having never visited South-east Asia at all.But 2011 was the year this would be fixed! (Even though I now live in England.)

Over the next few blog posts I will write about my trip two-and-a-half-week trip which included Singapore, Langkawi, Bangkok and Phuket.

I left for Heathrow airport after work on a Monday night in mid-October. This was great, because that is what, inherently, one day work weeks are.

I boarded my first Airbus A380. I was impressed with the Singapore Airlines A380: I thought it was significantly more spacious than the Boeing 747's I'm used to doing long-haul flights on.

Apart from one of the flight attendants having a little bit of attitude, the service was also great, from the food to the in-flight-entertainment.

Singapore Airlines Economy Class on the Airbus A380

I landed in Singapore and met up with my friend who lives there.  We caught the MRT back to her condo where I freshened up, and then we headed out.

My highlight of my first night in Singapore was definitely going to the New Asia Bar, which is a bar high up on the 71st floor of the Swissotel tower in central Singapore.  Certainly the highest bar I've ever had a drinks at!

View from the New Asia Bar

The next instalment will cover the side-trip from Singapore to Langkawi in Malaysia.

Virgin Atlantic and British Airways are fighting to buy BMI

Who would you prefer to buy BMI from Lufthansa? IAG (British Airways) or Virgin Atlantic? I hope I get to keep my BMI frequent flyer points. Ideally, BA will trade me a silver BA membership for my recently-earned silver BMI membeship. Fingers crossed.

Mallorca

As you will have realised by now, I have been terrible in the last year or two at keeping this blog up-to-date. On the weekend I went with some friends to the island of Mallorca (Majorca) and luckily for me, one of those friends wrote an excellent blog post about the trip which I am going to simply link to. Here it is.

Septuple Dutch

No, I’m not speaking Double Dutch. It’s just a play on the fact I’ve just come back from my seventh time to the Netherlands. My seventh time to Amsterdam. I do love the city, but that’s not why I’ve been seven times. 

I’m not that crazy about it. Each visit has been for its own unique reason.

The first time I went to Amsterdam was back in 2006, when I first came to Europe. It was one of my first European destinations and I was excited to go there. I went with PP Travel – the party professionals! It was for a long weekend and great fun.

The second time was during the summer of 2006, as a stopover on a Paddywagon bus tour from London to Munich for the World Cup soccer game between Australia and Brazil. 

The third time was in January 2009, a weekend for a mate’s 30th.  Amsterdam is a great city for a boys’ weekend!

My fourth time to the Netherlands was in October 2010. I had spent a weekend in Krakow, Poland with some friends, and on the Sunday night needed to be in The Hague, in the Netherlands, for a work conference. So I flew from Krakow to Prague to Amsterdam, and then caught a train from Schipol (Amsterdam’s airport) to Rotterdam, and then another one to “Den Haag”.  After spending a few days in the Hague, one of my colleagues and I headed to Amsterdam for some meetings, staying at the curious Hotel De Filosoof. I was in the ancient Greek room, while my colleague was in the Japan room.

My fifth time to the Netherlands, earlier this year, was with the same friends with which I went to Krakow. They were spending a week in Amsterdam and I went to visit them for a weekend. We even managed a side trip to Groningen, a small city in eastern Netherlands, to visit some friends who we met on the Krakow trip.

My recent sixth trip to Amsterdam was a quick overnighter. It was a last minute work trip: I booked the flight at 4pm and at 7pm I was taking off from London City Airport.  I stayed the night at the very interesting CitizenM hotel at the airport, and at 10am the next morning was on my way back to London.  Luckily I did have time to wander into town in between.

Yesterday was my seventh time to Amsterdam, and just a quick day trip for some work meetings with potential clients, and a visit to my company’s Dutch office.

So, after seven visits to the Amsterdam, what do I like about the city?  Well, I’ll name seven things, in no particular order:

• The Architecture. Amsterdam’s unique narrow but tall, red, slightly crooked buildings lining a vast network of canals gives the city an instantly recognisable scene.
• The coffee shops provide a unique experience.
• The red light district.  Amsterdam is a beautiful and friendly city, not the sleazy and drug infested town that it’s sometimes made out to be. But the red light district is definitely worth a stroll at night. Window shopping for beautiful, young women (as well as some rather disturbing ones!) can provide an interesting cultural experience.
• The bakeries. Sweet and savoury snacks looking fresh and delicious on many a street corner.
• Febo. A fast food chain where you buy the food from vending machines by inserting coins in the slot. It is all fresh though, because on the other side of the wall are chefs putting in fresh burgers and croquettes.
• Dutch girls. They are tall and attractive!
• Dutch people’s amazing use of the English language. Of all the places in Europe to not have to worry about the language barrier, this is the one. Sure, it’s nice trying out a different language here and there but in Amsterdam you don’t have to worry about the stress of not being able to communicate. Everyone seems to be able to speak English, which means you have a better chance of understanding the locals than in some places in the UK like, say, Belfast, Glasgow or Liverpool.  Even at Schipol airport, most of the signs are primarily in English, sometimes with a Dutch translation underneath.

Violence and Looting in London

A rather different travel blog post tonight!

This has certainly been one of the most interesting, and somewhat scary, moments of my time away from Australia.

On Saturday night there was a bit of rioting in the North London area of Tottenham. I didn't pay much attention to it. It is a rough area, and I didn't think much more of it.

On Sunday I had breakfast with friends in Brixton.  The area was just gearing up to have a street festival. It ended that day in looting in the area.

Today is Monday. This evening various looting, rioting and violence has spread all over London. I've just put together a map showing some of the epicentres where this has taken place (in red) compared to where I live (in green).


View London Riots in a larger map

Buildings on fire. Shops ransacked. Buses burned. Police attacked.

I went shopping in Clapham Junction on Sunday. Now I hear the book store is the only shop that hasn't been looted.

Apparently there are not enough police to tackle it all.

And now it is spreading to Camden and Tower Bridge areas.

Interesting times in London. Tomorrow after work I fly to Budapest.