Wherever you may find us

Cape May - A Holiday's Holiday

2010-04-19T11:14:00.013+08:00

(To our loyal armchair travellers: standard-issue apologies for the laxity in our blogging routine - if you like, you might imagine that this was a good old-fashioned postcard that found some difficulty getting past the massive ash cloud over Europe, if it makes you feel any better.)Aside from our aforementioned day of Philly silliness, the time between DC and NY is an oasis of calm set in the

Philadelphia Freedom*

2010-04-17T21:14:00.018+08:00

Those of you who assiduously follow this blog ( and deserve a medal and a hug for doing so) will notice that we sometimes play it fast and loose with the continuity between the "Next..." bit at the end of each post and what actually does come next. Usually this is due to a growing dissonance between one's memory and real life events that comes with age and a dissolute lifestyle. This time however

Hey George, Washington!

2010-04-15T23:21:00.012+08:00

DC, that is.Naturally, after all our carefree carousing in New Orleans, we'd need to settle down to some serious sobriety and there's no better town for that than the nation's seat of government - as one former resident also named George discovered.We arrive late in the afternoon quite surprised by news coverage of our visit.However, DC being DC, our story is soon overshadowed by the arrival of a

A Big Time in the Big Easy

2010-04-13T19:40:00.015+08:00

Take your run of the mill Big Day Out and replace the following:MTV-approved "alternative" rock with jumpin jazz jive and dirty Southern funk; emo kids with hepcat oldies; sticky cardboard nachos for 12 bucks a pop with the finest and widest range of Cajun and Creole cuisine; gulag-style booze-pens with drink-wherever-you-like; Aussie-flag loincloths with Mardi Gras beads; and here's the kicker -

"Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie and File Gumbo..."

2010-04-12T04:22:00.014+08:00

The 6 words in this post's title not only kick off the chorus to the old Hank Williams song but they are also the start of our food and jazz odyssey through New Orleans, as our first meal pictured below shows:Okay, so maybe Hank didn't mention giant oysters in his song but dammit, he should have - look at the size of that sucker! So much for the food - as for the jazz, we just had to take two

Random Roundup

2010-04-09T21:19:00.009+08:00

Here's a bunch of unblogged photies - posted for no other reason than its 6:30 in the morning and a local sporting team in our hotel is checking out in the noisiest way possible.No life jackets on UA Express - just grab whatever floats.Gem cracking open her Easter Bunny. Elsewhere, we've noted that the choc bunnies here are totally solid - unlike the hollow bilbys we get back home.Parking

Going Back to Cali...

2010-04-07T13:41:00.021+08:00

A quick catch up post on the rest of LA:Santa Monica - Of course, no trip to the West Coast would be complete without a visit to a place where the sea meets land. So we hop on the Santa Monica Rapid line that drops us right on Pacific Pier, a good old fashioned amusement park where tubby kids on holiday get to go all spinny and spewy on all manner of things that go round and round and up and

Viva You Know Where

2010-04-06T23:36:00.012+08:00

So far we've been trying to follow some sort of chronological order but we're now nearly a week behind on account of actually doing stuff to blog about, as well as staying in places where asking for wireless would most likely get us a radio that plays Benny Goodman and His Orchestra. So while we're here at McCarran Airport making like a drunk Nicolas Cage, their superfast intermenet lets us put

LA - love them...

2010-04-04T09:44:00.005+08:00

Like any big city new to us, there is much to love and quite a bit that weirds us out about LA.Our favourite exchange so far:(At a bus stop in Downtown LA)Lady: (yelling as bus is pulling out) STOP THAT BUS!!Us: (waiting for a different bus) Um...Stop!Lady: (boarding stopped bus) Thanks guys, you must be tourists.Us: (speechless)Anyway, it's Day 3 in LA and we're finally ready to do a theme park.

Lost in LA LA land

2010-03-31T13:40:00.019+08:00

Perhaps we'd been spoiled by the relatively small but perfectly-formed cities we've visited so far - but Los Angeles is definitely not a city that rewards the casual stroller. Now we understand the funny looks we got when we proudly proclaimed our refusal to drive as a matter of principle, As if to prove a point, the train we took from the airport was delayed by about an hour due to an accident

10 more things we love about Seattle

2010-03-29T13:30:00.021+08:00

It's worth mentioning that the previous 10 things happened over the course of 24 hours - so here's what we loved about the next 24...11. The Seattle Aquarium - where one can quite easily while away a good hour or so in the company of our finny friends and their aquatic associates.Much like the AQWA back home there's a prodding pool where visitors are allowed to engage in the tactile sensation of

10 things we love about Seattle

2010-03-28T12:00:00.019+08:00

Yes, we're resorting to a list post - the last couple of days have left us feeling like we'll need a post-vacation vacation which means we're not quite up to the usual palaver of purple prose (except for those last few words.) So here goes:1. We love that people here get really confused when they look at our driver's licence and wonder where Perth is in the state of Washington (WA).2. Breakfast

San Francisco - Days 3 & 4

2010-03-26T12:36:00.019+08:00

So bear in mind, folks, that we are now complete and utter tourists which means that if it's printed on the back of a bus pass or a beer coaster - we're there! Hence....Our first stop, Fisherman's Wharf, natch - towards which we travel via ye olde rickety and gravity-defying cable car.The creaky squeaky and altogether eeky sounds this carriage makes on its way up and down are hardly reassuring of

San Francisco - Day 2

2010-03-24T00:39:00.012+08:00

Still somewhat jetlaggy but ready to take on The City (apparently calling this place "Frisco" is the quickest way to get a dirty look here.) Jeff and May have been awfully helpful with tips on where to go and how to get there - wish there was a pair of them in every city we're visiting. (New Jersey pal Steve who lived here some years ago also had some handy hints - cheers!) So today we're hopping

G'day from yesterday!

2010-03-23T00:45:00.010+08:00

The past 36 hours has seen us hurtling forwards in space and backwards in time so that if you're reading this on Tuesday, we're still getting over Monday. Speaking of getting over, that's pretty much how we've spent our time thus far...First there was the getting over the ocean which for the most part looked like this:Getting over to Singapore for George's favourite Changi treats: congee &

In case anyone was wondering...

2010-03-20T17:55:00.004+08:00

Yes, of course George is coming with us.Is he excited? Hell, yes!Is he terrified? A little....Know the feeling, old chum.

Is this thing on?

2010-03-16T16:05:00.002+08:00

Ok so where were we?Ah yes...3 years ago I thought it might be fun to keep blogging occasionally with wondrous tales of our fabulous adventures both home and abroad. However, with a dwindling readership that has now boiled down to just you and possibly my Mom, it seemed easier to just show and tell everything in person. Also, some bright boffins invented Facebook which rapidly became the

Ben, the two of us need look no more

2007-10-20T17:14:00.000+08:00

(image ganked from the net by someone with a better vantage point and camera than we had. Go here for more.)Over the past decade, we've been to see Ben Lee, Ben Folds and last Friday night we completed our trifecta of Bens (yt) and caught Ben Kweller doing his thing at the Hyde Park Hotel. (A geographic note: the HPH is a five minute stroll down the road from ours - sometimes the mountain does

A Perfectly Cromulent World

2007-10-18T17:38:00.000+08:00

Stop wasting your time here. Try some philanthropic boondoggling.

Howard, I Know If He Really Loves Me

2007-10-12T08:21:00.000+08:00

Yesterday's news of our Dear Leader's perceived epiphany on Aboriginal reconciliation has been predictably welcomed with derision and contempt by SMH readers in their "Your Say" opinion box. Overall, most of the problem appears to lie (no pun intended) on Mr Howard's timing, which is seen as either ten years too late, or ten weeks too early to be considered a genuine change of heart.Sometimes,

Imogen has no hair, then...

2007-10-11T18:43:00.000+08:00

Watching this (Youtubery) brought me back to the 90s. Not just the fond memory of an America before it went all green and "MERRKA SMASH!!" on us, but also the memory of an assembly held at one of my old schools as an inauguration for our new chaplain. This was back in '94 and on the agenda was a special item presented by the school choir - a rendition of Mr Lennon's imaginary sort-of-hymn.It was

In Which Cary Admits to Being A Big Fat Lying McLiarpants

2007-10-10T14:40:00.000+08:00

Yes, I am, indeed.Having promised to continue blogging ahead after the travel tales and subsequently doing NOTHING AT ALL, I can only offer prostatey apologies to anyone who might have wasted a couple of clicks here expecting an update. I could also offer a feeble excuse about the rhythm of life and its various vicissitudes that have prevented me from updating this here blog but that would fall

This Post is Brought to You By the Letter 'H'

2007-08-17T16:51:00.000+08:00

Our last day in London begins with the now-mundane task of packing up and checking out. A steady regime of plain bread, carrot sticks, prescription drugs and plenty of water brings Gem back to some semblance of life.And then we say Happy Trails to John who will go on to enjoy an extended trip to Ireland with Marty. Their wacky adventures on the Emerald Isle remain undocumented but the morbidly

Pills, Thrills & Bellyaches*

2007-08-12T17:35:00.000+08:00

Oh dear.(Not a great day for photies. This is about as close a graphic depiction of Gem's day as I can offer.)I suppose it was only a matter of time before our gustatory indulgence would inflict its ass-biting vengeance on us, or to be precise, on Gemma. From the wee hours of the previous night, the contents of Gem's stomach have been staging a re-enactment of the Titanic's last hours, with

Sun is in the Sky, Oh Why Oh Why Would I Wanna Be Anywhere Else?

2007-08-05T10:26:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the none-too-brief hiatus, folks. The best explanation I can offer is a conspiracy of the following factors:- An inconvenient (as in right in the middle of my two-week break) bout of the seasonal infection doing its rounds.- Exceeding my monthly volume allocation which meant seeing out the month with the Internet running at turn-of-the-century bandwidth. - And finally, a general blog

Martin Moore Is A Hairy-Chested Love God*

2007-07-24T15:13:00.000+08:00

As awesome as it was to catch up with old chums Kiron and Martin back in Paris, it's awesomer to continue seeing Martin here in London. While it was hardly surprising that Kiron would make a name for himself with the pretty pictures, I can't say that I ever looked at Martin as a kid and thought, "hmm...head chef!" (That any one of us could be considered a future high school teacher was probably

Fast Train to London (just leavin town)

2007-07-19T13:21:00.000+08:00

And so we leave Paris with mixed feelings. Looking back, there's a sense of regret over the bittersweet brevity of our visit and the opportunities we've missed. Looking forward, we're about to take a train that goes frickin' underwater!Meanwhile, Robin is still suffering from the effects of his calamitous calamari as Marty gladly hands over the mantle of Tour Casualty. The aforementioned

All Out of Louvre

2007-07-17T14:39:00.000+08:00

This just about says it all.We chose to do the big monumenty sights the previous day so that we could do the galleries today. We chose STUPIDLY. As it turns out, Tuesday is the day when most galleries, including the Louvre, are closed. Worse yet, we leave Paris tomorrow morning which means we have well and truly missed our chance to visit Ms Smiley-face and Ms Armless, among other storied works

Get an Eiffel of This!!

2007-07-11T13:33:00.000+08:00

For Day 2 of zelig's Parisian invasion, we decide to take a two-pronged approach.Gem and I head out early to meet the lads in order to make the most of our limited time with Kiron. One can only guess where the others ended up...We'll make our own way there later. But right now, time is short as Kiron has a train to catch at noon. We find a cafe (yes, they have those here, too) and reconstruct our

Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..

2007-07-02T17:23:00.000+08:00

(Once again, sorry for the slow postage. Just imagine that I sent the postcard without a stamp. It's been a busy end of term but hey! I'm on a two week break now so expect the posts to arrive a little thicker and faster than current form.)Before we begin, a little context*:yeah, get over it.Having seized the opportunity to visit old school chum Gary on our last trip, coming back to Europe was

Bonjour Parisites!

2007-06-28T16:43:00.000+08:00

The next day begins with the now regular routine of loading up, checking out and vamoosing outta town. Some of us approach this task a little gingerly after the previous night's street drinking escapades.And so to Paris, where our first challenge is to get rid of the Eurobeast. Upon arrival at the Europcar drop-off point, we're told that the car is too big to fit any of their nominated undercover

Stand Up and Be Conty-ed

2007-06-25T17:46:00.000+08:00

With only one sleep left before the Eurobeast is due to be returned in Paris, we break away from the coast and head inland. Along the way we stop off at Amiens, home to France's tallest cathedral. We're here long enough to take a peek at the big old thing:The two stony-faced gentlemen with the somewhat displaced noggins on the right are Saints Victorius and Fuscian. As legend has it, they were

Touquet or Leave It

2007-06-24T20:10:00.000+08:00

The breakfast at the Faidherbe doesn't look like much (The French word for breakfast is petit dejeuner which literally means "little lunch" - it's the "little" that seems to be the operative word here.) so Gem and I pop out to look for les oeufs which we find in this pretty eatery.By the way, the saucy French maid in the background is just a painting. The real ones don't come out till lunch, by

We Boulogne Together*

2007-06-24T11:23:00.000+08:00

It's not just the sprawling white beaches that draw visitors to Calais, it's also the last stop for England-bound travellers to stock up on cheap wine. The French, after all, are very serious about their cheap wine and as fellow budget oenophiles, zelig respects that.Our quest for lodging for the night leads us to Boulogne-Sur-Mer, which I'm guessing is French for "Sausage-Upon-the-Sea". It's a

Calooh! Calais!

2007-06-19T17:00:00.000+08:00

(Many apple logies for the irregular posting - stupid real life work commitments!!)It's pretty safe to assume that no one living in the town centre of Ghent owns an alarm clock. The church bells here ensure that everyone is up at dawn's unsightly crack and they stay up for as long as the ringing prevails. And prevail they bloody did.It's a do-your-own-thing morning for zelig before we hit the

On the Road a-Ghent

2007-06-17T14:36:00.001+08:00

The morning starts off slowly as we wait for news from the freshly-surgerised Marty. Once we get the all-clear text, we bust him out of the joint and the zelig road trip is GO!...that is, once Robin works out some general directions on his laptop with the GPS (an awesomely handy device whereby under the watchful eye of the Satellite Gods, we never get lost in the woods)...and John works out which

Here we go, here we go, here we d'oh!

2007-06-12T16:14:00.000+08:00

And so the next leg of our journey begins as we pile into the Eurobeast, hit the open road and throw ourselves at the mercy of the European countryside.......fields of gold......croquet trees......windmills that John Howard seems to think will break the economy but appear to be working just fine over here...….um, except that we didn’t....yet.The truth is, on the morning of Day 4, Marty returns to

It's All Gezelig*

2007-06-10T11:43:00.000+08:00

As it turns out, there is this part of Amsterdam called the Red Light District, which sounds like a really odd way of dealing with their lousy traffic.It looks to be in the poorer part of town where the womenfolk are unable to afford drapes, decent lighting and much in the way of clothing. Despite such adversity, they seem awfully friendly and will probably do your laundry if you asked politely.

Tulips to kiss you...

2007-06-05T17:33:00.000+08:00

(Note to regular visitors (hey, both of you - leave a comment!!): this is so obviously not written in real time. Be patient....)Our Dutch digs, when we do finally get to check in, is the Hotel Freeland, with its pretty, Ikea'ed-up, theme-decored rooms and stairways just a few degrees away from being completely vertical.Going by the giant rainbow flag out the front of John & Marty's balcony, it's

Return to the Land of Nether

2007-06-02T10:41:00.001+08:00

(At this point, Robin and Girly have left a week ahead of us to take in the pretty bits of Italy and Germany and will meet us a couple of days later in Amsterdam.)Our trip begins in earnest when we're several thousand k's up in the air, fiddling with our inflight entertainment console, looking for a movie without Leonardo DeBleedin Caprio and ripping the plastic wrapping off of just about

Hello again...

2007-05-30T19:09:00.000+08:00

....and we're back!!For a while, it's been too easy to lump this blog in with the world trip as this crazy foolish adventure that remains hermetically sealed in our photos, journals, addled memories and this wee spot on the interweb. In fact, it feels odd now to be doing this from our couch at home and not from the top bunk of a crappy hostel leeching low-signal wiffy from some nearby

And then just like that....

2005-12-07T11:05:00.000+08:00

...we're home.And it feels so good.After spending virtually all of our Singapore time clicking our ruby red slippered heels, we've finally come to the end of our trip.So for now, like a bunch of crazy-ass monkeys we're going to run around the house buck nekkid, flinging shit everywhere. If you read this and happen to live in Perth, you're quite welcome to drop by and witness us doing so.To all

Where were we? Oh, of course - ON HOLIDAY

2005-11-25T11:19:00.000+08:00

Hello again to the last two remaining readers of this once-prolific blog. Since we arrived in Asia, we've been swept away in a flurry of family, food and frolicking that has rendered us either too busy or too shagged out to compose a reasonably coherent post.To make matters worse, I had also succumbed to the ministrations of the belly-demons that are given to visit upon those whose appetite for

Joe's Son!*

2005-11-09T22:52:00.000+08:00

And so we leave Rome, where we sucked every last sweet drop of Europe and find ourselves in Hong Kong. Yes, folks, we’re in the same time zone as home and so, thoughts of loved ones and our own bed loom a little more prominently. Which shouldn’t distract us from this shiny messy land they call the Fragrant Harbour. Not sure if it’s the same harbour that we ended up in, which kinda smelt like

Buon Giorgio!!

2005-11-01T22:24:00.000+08:00

Now, some of you might be thinking, "Hang on...all these posts without pictures...they might well be back in Perth now, for all we know."In fact, you're right, we've had a gutful and are now back home. Instead, we decided to let George carry on with the tour:So he found his favourite Tall Pointy Thing in Paris,got lost in Amsterdam,Conquered Berlin, both East and West,Had his own little

B'giorno Mates!!

2005-10-29T01:15:00.000+08:00

Hi y'all and welcome back to another of our exceedingly irregular and sadly photie-less posts. Unfortunately, you're all in for a long LONG "here's us standing in the way of another famous landmark" session when we get back. Oh and thanks to everyone for your birthday hugs and kisses.This post comes to you from Florence, or Firenze, as the locals call it. During our time here, we've viewed

A'Dam fine time

2005-10-16T15:54:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone. This isn't quite normal service as the laptop issues continue to plague us. At this point, we're hoping it'll hold out fuctioning as a photo processor, at the very least. Like the girl with the curl, when it's good, it's good but when it's bad it's horrid.Which also quite accurately describes our time over the past week. Paris, as we mentioned, was a whole lotta fun. In between

Stand by..

2005-10-10T22:43:00.000+08:00

Yes, it's been a while between drinks and some of you may be wondering if Spain has swallowed us whole.In short, we've spent a week in the English countryside where to ask for the Internet would have us directed towards the nearest fishing supplies store.Subsequently, we have found ourselves in Paris where our trusty laptop decided it had had enough of this travelling malarkey.So...sadly, the

Hola Hola

2005-09-30T17:46:00.000+08:00

Some few thousand miles away from the urban bump and grind of London lies a quiet little Spanish town called Hijate. Most maps will pretend it doesn’t exist and one suspects that the Hijateans probably like it that way. More on this later…Our journey here turns out to be less fun than any of our adventures to date. It begins with a five-hour wait at Gatwick airport for our flight. On our list of

More please...

2005-09-23T21:23:00.000+08:00

By now, it is obvious that London is too big to swallow in one giant gulp, so here we are for a second helping. Much of our first day back in town is spent at the museum curated by the lady with surplus candles and very clean ears - Madame Tussaud. This is where, for a princely sum of 25 quid each, the Great Unwashed get to pose alongside the

An auld acquaintance unforgot

2005-09-20T23:47:00.000+08:00

And so another week passes without so much as a how’s yer father…In short, we’ve been to Scotland where though mighty rivers like the Clyde, the Forth and the Tay flow freely, nary a dribble of our sweet Internet can be found. Our trip oop north sees another mission accomplished – a reunion with my old school chum Gary whom I last saw some 20 years

That's Entertainment*

2005-09-12T19:31:00.000+08:00

Many apple orgies to our regular visitors as our updates have been less frequent of late. We thought we’d get off the computer and actually do some stuff worth writing home about. Natch, we now have four extremely packed days to reflect upon. However, we’re still trying to keep to our “less screen – more seein” imperative so here are some of the highlights: First we plunge ourselves into the heart of the West End, starting off at Piccadilly Circus. As any Monopoly player would know, this usually means one is dangerously close to a

London Calling*

2005-09-06T19:42:00.000+08:00

Yes, it’s all here – the river, the palace, the bridge, the tower – everything you ever saw on your nana’s tea towels is here in Big. Fat. Real. Life. Day 1 was spent trying to wrest back the hours lost to leaping over time zones and negotiating the spaghetti-like maze that Londoners call the Tube. Our host here is our cousin Angie who has, in a

2005-09-06T05:12:00.000+08:00

Hi y'all we're currently experiencing broadband access problems so the usual giant post with photies is still forthcoming. Suffice to say, London is bloody huge but we're chipping away at it a bit at a time. In the meantime, here's a pic of us with our generous host, cousin Angie.Be right back.

Lying back - thinking of England

2005-09-02T21:58:00.000+08:00

As monkey Georges everywhere know, it's hard work being on holiday and sometimes you just need to catch a brief nap, wherever possible.Our last full day in Montreal had us taking on Le Parc du Mont-Royal - with the emphasis on "mont".With calves of steel and heads full of craziness, we climbed to a point, which while not quite the top, was nevertheless high up enough to catch a stunning mountain

2005-09-01T07:45:00.001+08:00

And so we leave Ottawa behind us with a few lessons learnt that we'd like to share:Lesson #1: Three days in Ottawa is one too many. However, if you do find yourself with a few spare hours to kill, the National Gallery of Canada has the requisite rifle and bullets. We stumped for the extra dime to see an exhibition that was called " Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and the Renaissance in Florence"

Ottowatic for the People

2005-08-30T04:28:00.000+08:00

The day we arrive in Ottowa coincides with a visit from a certain English beat combo who seem to occupy a rather moist spot in the hearts and trousers of many Canadians. And dagnabit, my new favourite t-shirt makes me look like a fan.This was taken near a convoy of trailers where everyone was expecting a Stone or two to turn up sometime. The train ride from Montreal was an opportunity to enjoy

Going Underground (where the brass bands play and feet start to pound)

2005-08-28T05:54:00.000+08:00

Ok no brass bands here but did them feet go pound! pound! pound! as we attempted to cover as much of Underground city as we could tolerate. Purportedly the longest subterranean pedestrian network in the world, we found our eyes glazing over past store after store selling stuff we could neither afford nor lug across other continents. Going free, however, were some pretty spots to hang around.

Childhood TV Myths Debunked no. 643:

2005-08-26T23:57:00.000+08:00

Contrary to old saucy British sitcoms, speaking English in an Inspector Clouseau –type French accent is NOT considered a native tongue here in Montreal or in any other French-speaking territory. Which leaves me no other recourse but to delve deeply into that folder in the old brain-puter labelled “Stuff I Learnt at School That I’m Never Gonna Need to Use… Ever”

2005-08-24T21:10:00.000+08:00

Imagine taking a million bathtubs full of water and tipping the lot over the side of a cliff – every minute. Or to put it in terms our ocker-bloody-bewdy-mate friends might better understand - imagine taking 60,000 bottles of beer and tipping it over the cliff per second (shortly followed by the sound of plummeting Aussies going "nooooooooooo!!") Thankfully, Mother Nature has taken it upon

Remember when Abbott and Costello used to be funny?

2005-08-22T10:41:00.000+08:00

Incidentally, whilst we may be a fair distance from home, the Internet Genie still lets us keep up with stuff going on back home. Having read this and this* in today's news, we really have to ask WHAT.THE.F-WORD.IS.GOING.ON.BACK.HOME??? (Should the links expire before you read this, as news links tend to do, the first is about Tony Abbott pulling out of a university debate for fear of angry

On to T.O. Ontario

2005-08-22T07:57:00.000+08:00

And just like that - we crossed the country. Though to be honest, "just like that" is our 3-word precis for "nearly got stuck on a bus bound for Seattle, bending our minds around the self-check-in console, 2 hours of Will Ferrell, followed by one and a bit of J-Lo vs J-Fo, circling the Toronto sky waiting for the airport to get its act together, getting to see someone's onboard meal not once but

We (heart) Vancouver

2005-08-20T11:45:00.000+08:00

We spent a whack of our last day here at the museum cos it's the kind of thing you do when you fall in love with someone, y'know? You want to find out as much as you can about them, their past, their little idiosyncracies, the things that make them tick.So here's a partial list of the things we love about this town:soup, dog-lovers, skaters, queer-friendliness, funky footwear, soup, vintage

2005-08-18T14:04:00.000+08:00

We're back in Vancity now for another couple of days and quite frankly, we're a little pooped out with the sightseeing and placegoing. We're back at the hostel we'd stayed in before only now we have a room to ourselves. Yes, finally - a mess to call our own!Today was a nice quiet one when we finally decided to take on the local railway system.Once again, we worked on the recommendation of some

Mission Accomplished

2005-08-17T05:05:00.000+08:00

She asked for snow and lo and behold - here it is. Of course, we did have to climb a whole bloody mountain to get there - Whistler's Mountain - home of the 2010 Winter Olympics, so they keep telling us. I guess there's some justification for their pride as getting hold of the Olympics appears to have been this town's raison d'etre since 1960.The village itself is a folksy, quasi-Disney type place

Rockin in the FREE World

2005-08-16T02:10:00.000+08:00

Life at the hostel is a bit like a being on a field trip, only with the teachers kept bound, gagged and locked in the storeroom. But the cool thing about this town is that there’s a bunch of other people who are always happy to tell us where to go (especially if you refuse to give them money.) So upon recommendation from new German pal Eva, we

Vancouverin' on...

2005-08-14T03:28:00.000+08:00

And so it was with a heavy heart and just a slight hint of moisture welling in our eyes that we bade farewell to our own private bedroom, bathroom, TV, maid, drink machine etc. Sure we could have stayed for longer but then we’d be home next week and would have to pretend we’re still out of town. The

Hello Vancouver!

2005-08-12T12:40:00.000+08:00

It'll do your head in if you think about it too hard, but on the face of it, we left NZ at 7:45 pm and about 20 hours later, arrived at Vancouver at 8:30 pm – quite possibly the longest 45 minutes…ever! Not sure what to make of this, but our first two encounters with random Vancouvrians on the street were with folks asking for money. Turns out to be quite the thing in this town as we will

Auckland (part deux)

2005-08-11T07:21:00.000+08:00

We’ve missed a couple of days so here’s a mega-post. All you have to do is cast your minds way, way back to Monday when we learnt some valuable lessons: Staying up late to watch a crappy horror film will make you miss your complimentary breakfast the following morning. Riding on buses beats walking in the rain. (We

Auckland! Gateway to the Land of the Long White Cloud!

2005-08-07T16:23:00.000+08:00

Only today that cloud was not so much long and white as fat, grey and very wet…but I guess The Land of The Sopping Elephant wouldn’t have the same tourist appeal. Day 1 was spent resetting body clocks before venturing bravely into both the CBD and its ineluctable raininess. We found our way to the Victoria Park Markets where if one so chose, one could go home in the company of this comely,

Very well. Through the lips, over the gums. Look out world, here we come!*

2005-08-06T07:22:00.000+08:00

Enough with the counting down, the checking, the double-checking, the answering of "are you excited yet?" and let the games begin.....From here on in, we hope to post reasonably regular reports/pictures/pleas for cash etc so pop by often, will ya?First stop: Auckland.And to that lovely lady from Jetset Kardinya who organised alla this for us.... thanks.* pinched and parsed from our new favourite

2005-07-30T19:07:00.000+08:00

It's one thing to tell George Bush to go to hell.......but it's a morally gratifying and hypnotic thing to watch him do so.(click & drag if he gets stuck)

2005-07-22T08:32:00.000+08:00

Ok so we're in the fortnight zone now...our tickets, passports and luggage are beyoncifully all huddled together in prayer backstage before running out air-punching.At present, our schedule is sending us to Auckland, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, London, Munich, Rome, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Malaysia and >phew!< home.Our main mission is to confirm that these places actually do exist and are not some

And the fun starts....here!.........................no wait, here!

2005-07-07T09:52:00.000+08:00

So it begins.... Yes, folks I am as of Monday - free!!Yes, free like Michael!!Now there's about a month of omigodweveforgottensomethinghaventwe runniness in preparation for the trip.We bought a backpack yesterday...looks like this - cept it's blue:And here's what the company website had to say about this little unit:Zyro:Large capacity. You can come home with bulky gifts for all and sundry! An

Looking for Etra's Raisins

2005-06-13T15:44:00.000+08:00

Now that the virtual pee stains are in place and this little corner of the interweb has been named, it's time I gave some thought to what this blog'll do.Nominally, it'll serve as a travelogue for when Gemma and I throw ourselves in to the arms of the world (ok, mainly the Canadian and Euro bits) which willl make the slide night much shorter when we get back. But till then, I have to deal with a

2005-06-06T15:58:00.000+08:00

This is a pic of us just to prove that I am learning the ways of blog-fu. Gemma's the one with the shirt.

This is new...

2005-06-06T07:54:00.000+08:00

New blog!! Hopefully this is one that'll stay live as long as we remember it exists.