Jesse and Shenny's Travel Blog

30-Jul-2009: Christine and Danny's Farewell

2009-07-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

It was time to farewell Christine and Danny back to Australia. Drinks after work were organised at Jewel bar in Piccadilly, and the many friends that Christine and Danny made during their stint in London came along to say farewell and good luck. It was so sad to see them leave as they have been such a big part in our experience of living in London. We've really missed not having them around!

19-Jul-2009: Shen's 30th in Spain

2009-07-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

We celebrated my 30th birthday at the Costa Brava coast in Spain, just north of Barcelona. We stayed in the seaside town of Tossa del Mar and hired two vans for the weekend to get our group of 14 around.

On the first day, we drove to the Emporda wine region and did a tasting and tour at a winery called Cellar Can Cais. At the end of the tasting, we were told that the 3 euro cost per person for the tour and tasting would be waivered if that person bought a bottle of wine. And since the cost of the bottles of wine started at 3 euros, it made a lot of sense to just buy 14 bottles of wine!

After wine tasting, we stopped at a local supermarket and stocked up on deli goods and headed towards the beach for a picnic lunch. It was a lovely afternoon of chilling out at the beach and enjoying the sun.

In the evening, we headed out to a restaurant by seaside in Tossa del Mar where we feasted on seafood platters. Afterwards, we walked up to top the headland to a castle where there was a cocktail bar where we sat for a while and enjoyed the view. We passed a couple of pubs on the way and wondered which one was the one owned by the family of Kylie Minogue's beau.

The next day, we took a trip along the coast on a glass bottom boat and spent a couple of hours at one of the coves on the way before heading back to Girona airport for our flight back to London.

We had problems finding a petrol station where we could fill up our hire vans before dropping them back at the airport. After reaching the airport, we discovered the closest petrol station was more then 10 kilometres away at an earlier turn off on the highway. It was a massive stress when we lost Chris and Madzia in the second van who were meant to be following us, and they ended up almost to Barcelona before they could do a U-turn. They would have definitely missed the flight had it not been delayed.... a very close call!!

12-Jul-2009: Brussels

2009-07-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

We boarded the Eurostar for a girls weekend to Brussels - it was Christine and I and our friends Ella and Leanne, who are also sisters. The train trip takes less than 2 hours from London to the Brussels centre... you can't beat that for convenience!

We took an open top bus around the city to explore the main sights and ended up at the Atomium, a massive steel and aluminium monument which was built for the World Expo that was hosted by Brussels in 1958.

The Atomium is an impressive sight - nine steels spheres 18m in diameter, connected so that the whole forms a model of a ion crystal magnified 165 billion times. It stands at 102 metres in height. You can go inside the structure right to the top sphere where you get a fantastic view of the city.

Also we visited the Manekin Pis - a small statue of a little boy urinating into a fountain, which draws crowds as most guide books proclaim it to be a sight not to be missed. We loved the waffles and the chocolate there, as well as the beers and the mussels and frites... a very indulgent weekend with the girls :)

14-June-2009: Paris

2009-06-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

Another girls weekend, this time to Paris. It Leanne's and Leeanne's first time there, whereas Ella and I had both been before. I was a happy to go again as Paris is one of those cities I could visit over and over and never get bored of.

The climb to the top of Eiffel tower was nowhere near traumatic as the experience Jesse and I had the first time we went. We also visited the Arc de Triomphe, Sacre Coeur as well as the Catacombs.

On our final day, we headed down to Versailles to visit the palace and gardens. It was a gorgeous spring day for it and the palace itself is gorgeous and well worth a visit despite the huge crowds. The queue out the front snaked around the square at the front of the complex and we all placed a guess as to how many minutes it was going to take us to get to the front. From memory I think Leeanne won the closest guess of 52 minutes!

The Palace of Versailles was the official residence of the kings of France from 1682 until 1790. Many historic events took place there, such as the signing for the treaty of peace between Germany and Allies inside the Hall of Mirrors.

24-May-2009: Scottish Highlands

2009-05-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

With our friends Luke and Ella, we hired a car from Glasgow and headed up north to the rugged Scottish Highlands. On our first night we stayed in a beautiful B&B overlooking a lake near Fort William. We visited the Ben Nevis National Park where we experienced very wet but very typical Scottish weather and had to cut short the hike we had planned at the Ben Nevis National Park, after gettting drenched to the bone in a matter of minutes at the start of our walk.

We enjoyed the Scottish specialities such as haggis with tats and neeps (potatoes and turnips), scotchbread, fudge and of course scotch whiskey.

We crossed over to the Isle of Skye and stayed in Portree. The scenery was beautiful and rugged, some parts reminded us of south island New Zealand and Patagonia.

We also stayed in the town of Loch Ness where we went on a boat trip to spot the famous Loch Ness Monster. As you can see from our evidence below, we were successful :-)

01-May-2009: Germany - The Romantic Road

2009-05-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

We hired a car in Munich and hit the road for a girls weekend to explore the Romantic Road in southern Germany.

The Romantic Road is famous for its many picturesque castles, cathedrals and medieval towns. On our roadtrip, we visited the towns of Nordlingen, Rothenburg ib der Tauber, Harburg, Fussen and Harburg.

We spotted some beautiful rapeseed fields and couldn't resist but stop to take some photos, even though we ended up being covered in yellow pollen afterwards :-)

The most interesting and beautiful castle we visited was Neuschwanstein castle, which was built in the late 1800's by King Ludwig II. Construction was halted after 14 years of building, when King Ludwig was removed from power after he was deemed unfit to rule. Shortly afterwards, the king died from an apparent suicide. And then 7 weeks later, the castle was opened to the public as a museum. It really was what you would imagine a fairytale castle to be - in fact, Walt Disney used Neuschwanstein castle as inspiration for Cinderella’s Castle at the Disney theme park

The other girls flew back to London and I stayed an extra night to visit my penpal Claudi and her husband Sven, in Stuttgart and meet the new addition to their family, Anna-Lena. It was great to catch up and see Claudi in action as a mum - it seemed like she had settled very well into motherhood and enjoying it very much.

4-Apr-2009: Road Trip to Montreal

2009-04-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

From New York City, we picked a hire car and headed north, destination Montreal to catch our onward flight to London. Our first stop was the city of Rochester in up state New York, an old mate of mine from uni days, Brad. Brad's been living in Rochester a few years now (so pretty much a local!), and is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Rochester - doing very well!! We crashed at Brad's place for a few days and saw some of the sights - one being Niagara Falls, about an hour's drive away.

Niagara Falls was a bit sad and a little disappointing to visit... firstly we didn't realise that the falls would be found situated in the middle of two cities which kind of spoils the nature aspect of it. Secondly, the US city of Niagara was not unlike a ghost town when we visited (we didn't get to go over to the Canadian side to view the falls as we didn't bring our passports with us that day!), tired and old, with many of the restaurants and businesses closed down.

The falls themselves were beautiful, and it was interesting to visit when we did (end of winter) as we got to see the ice bridge that forms during the cold season across the river downstream from the falls, due to the mist of the falls. The actual magnitude of the falls didn't quite live up to our expectations - perhaps had we not visited Iguacu falls earlier on in the year, we might have been more impressed. Still worth a visit though, another place we can tick off our list :-)

Our next stop was Adirondacks State Park, in the mountains, where we got to see some beautiful scenery and our first frozen lakes! Now that was impressive! The weather although sunny, was still so cold - I couldn't imagine how it would be in the middle of winter!

We stayed in resort of Lake Placid, the city that hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic Games. We visited the Olympic bob sled run and watched several international teams train, including Brazil! Yes they have a bob sled team! They were super fast... almost vertical on some of the bends!

We also got to watch the USA Women's ice hockey team train - I never realised how fast and rough ice hockey is... an awesome spectator sport!

The last meals of our trip in Montreal, at a french restuarant for dinner and delicious chinese for lunch, were memorable ones. We couldn't believe our big trip that we had planned for so long was now over! By that time we were ready to head back to London again though - had such a great time on our adventures away, ready to hit reality again :-)

30-Mar-2009: New York City

2009-03-30T01:22:00.000-07:00

We loved NYC so much that we ended up staying for a whole week - and we even found it difficult to leave then! We can now see why everyone raves on about New York!

While in New York, we watched some standup comedy in Greenwich, a local Jazz show in Harlem, were dazzled by the lights at Times Square, wandered around Central Park, admired the amazing art collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We devoured delicious slices of New York style pizza, homemade pasta in Little Italy, cheap chinese in Chinatown and also sampled the tasty $1 hotdogs from Gray's Papaya as well as the oh so aromatic caramalised roasted peanuts sold on the side of the streets.

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We found lots of bargains at Macys and Century 21, enjoyed the view of the Manhattan skyline on the Staten Island ferry and also from the top of the Rockerfella Center.

The hotel we stayed in, Park 79, near the Museum of Natural History was fantastic. From what we heard and for the fairly reasonable price we paid, we were expecting a tiny and dingy room, but it ended up actually being one of the nicest and biggest hotel rooms we stayed in during our 4 months away! I think we were really lucky!

We also found Zabars deli on the corner of 80th and Broadway on the first morning we stayed in Manhattan and we ended up going back there from every morning onwards to sample something new from their menu; the bagels, paninis, muffins, pizzas, yoghurts, croissants, slices, soups, coffees - they were all so delicious!!

16-Mar-2009: Galapagos Islands

2009-03-16T13:54:00.000-07:00

The Galapagos Islands, at the equator off the coast in Ecuador, are just amazing - we really felt privileged to be able to visit such a special place like this. There is no where else in the world like Galapagos - every day we were there I was in awe by what we saw and what we learnt. The animals there are fearless of humans, as over time each species has developed their own special niche to survive in a situation where they have no predators, and therefore have no reason to fear other animals around them. If anything, the animals are curious of us strange beings who seem to like standing around, observe them and take photos of them like slightly annoying paparazzi.

We spent eight days on board the yatch Angelito, with a group of eleven others. Our group were not the usual demographic we're used to travelling with (no Australians!), but as we got to know everyone over the duration of our trip, we found that although we didn't have a great deal in common with everyone (except a love of travelling!), we all got along so well. Such a fantastic group of people to experience Galapagos with.

The Sea Lions were my favourite (hence the millions of photos of them!). Especially the pups, who were so curious of us - we all wanted to take one home! Although they did stink pretty badly - there would be no way you could sneak one of them past customs! We were instructed never to touch the wildlife while at Galapagos, but a couple of times we had the wildlife approaching us!!

You could see right infront us the evidence that Darwin saw to come up with the Theory of Evolution and survival of the fittest. Each island we visited had a different habitat to the next and the wildlife on that island had perfectly adapted to the harsh conditions found. For example, the land iguanas feed exclusively on cactii, which is found in abunance on several of the Galapagos islands. They sit patiently waiting for juicy yellow cactus flowers to fall for them eat. Their close relative, the marine iguana, have adapted to swim but feed almost exclusively on algae. They gaze out into the sea every morning for hours on end, as though contemplating life, waiting for the exact right moment for their daily swim.

We snorkled and swam and had afternoon siestas everyday. On most of the nights, our yatch Angelito did it's navigation to the next island, sometimes travelling over 5 hours to the next destination. The mind boggles how the different species managed to end up on the different islands, surviving the long transit on logs and other debris on the wide open sea.

Watching marine turtles mate in the wild was an amazing experience. The really didn't seem bothered that we sat there in a boat only metres away observing them splash about. Seeing large schools of 50+ Spotted Eagle rays swim ever so gracefully under our boat was also an awesome sight.

The Galapagos Islands National Park has many strict rules enforced for it's visitors in order to preserve the special environment there. Visitors are not allowed to land on any of the islands without a permit and without being accompanied by a ranger (except for the main island, Santa Cruz), and once on an island, visitors must not stray from the marked paths - you could endanger the fragile nests of native wildlife even by straying half a metre off the marked path!

The large Galapagos Land Tortoises were wonderful to watch. Some of them reach over 150 years in age! You get a feeling of their wisdom, having lived through so much, as you watch them move slowly to where they wish to go. We felt so lucky to be able to watch them in their natural environment in the wild.

Our yatch Angelito wasn't new or anything fancy, but it was comfortable and there was lots of space for us to relax and move about. We had our own ensuite bathroom with shower and toilet attached to our room, and the swaying of the boat in the water ensured that we had a good night sleep each night (there was only one instance where I had to take sea sickness tablets!). The naturalist onboard our yatch, Maya, was exceptional. She allowed us as much time as we wished to observe the wildlife, while other groups passed us to move on to the next "sight".

6-Mar-2009: Machu Picchu

2009-03-05T14:54:00.000-08:00

It was a 3:55am wake up on day four, the last morning of the Inca Trail trek. It was only a 5km walk from our last camping spot to Machu Picchu, although the early start was neccessary to reach our destination before sunrise.

The trail contours a mountainside, then drops into a cloudforest before coming to an almost vertical flight of 50 steps which leads to the Sun Gate.

Machu Picchu was hidden somewhere under the thick blanket of cloud when we arrived just after sunrise. We dearly hoped that soon the cloud would lift and that we would get the chance to view Machu Picchu, especially after our trekking efforts during the previous few days!

It wasn't long until the cloud did lift, to reveal Machu Picchu in its glory. It really was a amazing sight and made the trek even more all the more worthwhile.

We had several hours at Machu Picchu before the first hordes arrived in the trains and buses to visit the ruins for the day. It was nice to enjoy the beauty of the site without having to share it with crowds of other tourist.

After exploring Machu Picchu for a few hours, we headed off on a bus down the zigzagging road down to Aguas Calientes, where we had some lunch then treated our tired muscles to the thermal baths in the town.

3-Mar-2009: The Inca Trail

2009-03-03T11:57:00.000-08:00

We could not fault a single aspect of our experience on the Inca Trail trek. Although it's a lot more controlled and organised these days, we still felt that it was an amazing experience and something that we are so lucky to have had the opportunity to do. Our guide Marcello, who has been taking gringos on the Inca Trail trek for over 20 years, and the 21 mostly Quechan porters, had everything down pat to ensure the logistics of getting the 14 in our group from start to finish, 4 days and 42km later, without a hitch. The porters were especially amazing, carrying the heavy loads that they did, at the speed (almost running!) they were doing. Jesse and I were in a great trek group of mostly Aussies, who made it all the more memorable.

We had heard about some of the controversy surrounding the unethical treatment of porters, so we made sure that the tour company we chose were reputeted for treating their porters with fairness. As far as we could see, the porters in our group seemed well looked after. We noticed porters from other groups carrying much heavier loads, most definitely over the imposed 18kg limit.

Our chef was genius and the food we ate throughout the trek was spectacular. We were expecting to eat beans and rice everyday, but instead every meal we had was sensational, as well as nutritious- he really did raise the bar in the standard of camp food! All meals were 3 courses (including breakfast!) and we also had morning and afternoon tea everyday... I never knew fresh popcorn could be so delicious! And on our last night, he even baked us a cake! We just couldn't work out how this was possible, without an oven. All equipment and food for the group for the duration of the trek was carried by our porters, which made it even more incredible. Each meal was consumed sitting at tables and on alumnium chairs inside a dining tent that the porters had set up prior to our arrival at each eating spot - complete with dishes of warm water and soap for handwashing before each meal, and a porter waiting to give you a clean, dry towel!

The trek was physically challenging, mainly due to the altitude of the trail. The second day was by far the most difficult - 11km of nothing but uphill! We started at 3000m altitude in the morning and trekked up to the highest point of the trail at 4200m about 5 hours later. Approaching the highest pass, I could take no more than 10 steps and then have to stop to catch my breath. Each time recovery was quick, but it only took another few steps to become breathless again.

The scenery was magnificent, but it was easy to lose your sense of perspective as all the mountains around are just enormous - it was impossible to justify the magnitude of these mountains in the photos we took.

The group we had were an awesome bunch and we all got along very well. We experienced one of those small world moments when we met Bec and Joel on the first day. Jesse and Joel recognised each other, but neither could place how. It took a few hours to figure out that we have mutual friends in London, and then another day to work out when and where we had actually met before - it was a brief 10 minute introduction one evening more than a year before, while we were over at the house of our friends that we have in common having dinner, when Bec and Joel popped in just as we were leaving. Small world, or what!

23-Feb-2009: Amazon Jungle

2009-02-23T12:10:00.000-08:00

We took a flight to Puerto Maldonado from Lima and set off down the Madre de Dios River into the Amazon Jungle just over an hour, to our eco-lodge cabins. Our bungalows were simple but comfortable, set amongst beautiful rainforest, by the river. We just had to watch out for those mozzies - honestly they were the biggest ones I have ever seen!

Our first excursion was onto Monkey Island, across the river, not far from our lodge. It was very wet and muddy and our gum boots were definitely a neccessity. My pair however, had a 4cm split on the top just under the knee, which I didn't think would matter... although it sure didn't take long for my boots to fill with water when as we walked through almost knee deep muddy water! We managed to see a few different types of monkeys, although due to the amount of moisture in the air, it was very difficult to get any good photos.

We saw frogs, tarantulas and many different kinds of birds. Even the brave in our group got to sample an edible grub, the Amazon's version of Australia's witchety grub.

The sun finally came out and we went fishing for piranhas on the river. No luck with bringing any fish home, but it was a lovely afternoon nonetheless.

15-Feb-2009: Patagonia, South Argentina

2009-02-15T13:07:00.000-08:00

With the extra week we had free in Argentina, we decided to head down to Patagonia. We were lucky to score some reasonably priced flights last minute from Buenos Aires. The flight down was one of the most turbulent flights I've experienced - apparently quite common for that route with the air currents over the Andes. We noticed the dramatic change in landscape and the air temperature as soon as we landed. When it was over 30 degrees in BA, it was less than 10 degrees in El Calafate, one of the main airport towns in Patagonia.

We visited the Perito Mereno glacier, about a 2 hour bus ride from El Calafate. There are 48 glaciers in total fed by the South Patagonian ice field that feeds Perito Mereno (the 3rd largest fresh water reserve on Earth!), Perito Mereno being one of the major tourist drawcards in Patagonia due to its size and accessibility. It is only one of 3 advancing glaciers in the region (a glacier is advancing when the the glacial flow downvalley is faster than it is reducing at its terminus) and is 30km in length, 5km in width at its terminus and has an average of 60m in height - massive! It was an awesome experience watching huge chunks of ice fall off the end of the glacier causing enormous splashes into the water.

The landscape is so rugged and beautiful in Patagonia, with greenish blue glacial lakes and constrasting brown grasses. It was a great place to do some hiking, although the weather there is so changable and while we were there, it wasn't always on our side. One eight hour walk we did mostly in the wind and rain and one point snow... that's when we wished we had all the good wet weather gear!

14-Feb-2009: Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

2009-02-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

It was a 2 hour ferry trip from Buenos Aires across to the small city of Colonia del Sacramento, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Uruguay. What struck us as unusual at first was the brown coloured sea - it looked quite strange to see such a large open body of water with waves breaking at the shoreline, that colour.

The cobblestone streets of Colonia are very pretty and full of character, lined with Portuguese style buildings occupied by restaurants, craft shops and museums. I noticed there were many stray dogs around of all shapes and sizes.

We hired a scooter and explored the area surrounding the city. The shoreline was pretty and Colonia is known for it's lovely beaches but with that colour water, it didn't look all too apppealing to swim in. Jesse gave me a lesson in riding a scooter for my first time on one of the empty dirt roads outside of town, and we stumbled across an old abandoned Bull Ring in the middle of what appeared like no-where.

The food in Colonia was also exceptional. A speciality in many of the local restaurants in the area is homemade pasta, one if my favourite foods - I was in heaven!

The sunset over the water was beautiful - the colour of the water almost appeared as a normal in the bright sunset rays!

11-Feb-2009: Buenos Aires

2009-02-11T15:45:00.000-08:00

Buenos Aires was a fun, meeting up with some of Jesse's mates Tully, James and Henry from Wollongong who were in BA at the same time as us. It was great to see some familiar faces on our travels. There, we attended a football match and watched the other popular team from BA aside from Maradona's Boca Juniors - "Riverplate", who played against "Colon". It sure was an experience to witness the serious football fans watching the game with such passion. Outside the stadium, there were riot police everywhere - we were glad that the home team Riverplate did not lose as we weren't sure what was going to happen if they did!!

The city of Buenos Aires was different to any of the other South American cities we visited - it feels more European that it does South American. The city of BA is made up of a number of interesting barrios, or neighbourhoods: La Boca, filled with colourful buildings and wide cobbled streets; Palermo, an area of traditional low houses adapted into bars and boutiques creating a bohemian feel; San Telmo, the oldest barrio, characterised by colonial buildings, cafes, tango parlors and antique shops, with cobblestone streets filled with artists and dancers - just to name a few.

In the barrio of Recoleta, known for its French architecture style buildings, parks and galleries, there is the Cemeterio de la Recoleta which houses graves of some of most influential and important Argentinians, such as Eva Peron. The entire cemetry is laid out in sections like city blocks, each of the graves like buildings in a street.

The food in Argentina was great, especially the Argentinian steaks - we couldn't get enough of them! There are many all-you-can-eat restuarants around the city, where you can eat as much BBQ grilled meat and a huge range of salads for under 5 quid!

Buenos Aires is famous for it's Tango culture. We went along to a local Tango show at Cafe Tortoni, the oldest coffee shop in Argentina, founded in 1858. The entire show was in Spanish, but even for us with limited knowledge of Spanish, we could get the gist of the performance. The dancers were incredibly talented and spectacular to watch.

3-Feb-2009: Iguazu Falls

2009-02-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

Iguazu falls, on the border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay is truly a spectacular place to visit. Iguazu is one of the world's largest waterfalls, made up of over 275 falls and over an area of 2.7km.

On the Argentine side, we did a speed boat trip that got us pretty darn close to one of the falls - we got very very wet! There are lots of walks around the Argentine side, linking up the different falls so we spent the day exploring the National Park and we were so lucky to have a spot on beautiful weather for it.

The Brazilian side gives you a good scenic view of the falls, whereas you get to walk amongst them on the Argentine side. You only need a few hours on the Brazilian side to visit to the viewpoints and take a few photos, but it was definitely worthwhile doing this first to appreciate the magnitude of these falls before actually getting in amongst them.

We stayed a hostel nearby the Argentine side of the falls, which used to be a grand casino - now converted into a hostel. The pool was fantastic to hang out in all day to escape the heat.

We also did a tour of Itaipu Hydroelectric power station, just around the corner from Iguazu - the largest power plant in the world and listed as one of the 7 engineering wonders of world. A real treat for Jesse!

We caught an overnight bus from Iguazu to Buenos Aires, which was the most luxurious 20 hours on a bus I have experienced! The long distance buses in Argentina are all of a very high standard - and not too expensive either. We had wide leather seats that converted into full lay-down beds and our own lcd screen to watch movies. They served dinner, including apertifs, chamagne, a hot main meal, wine and beer as well as desserts!

1-Feb-2009: Rio de Janeiro and Saquarema, Brazil

2009-02-01T22:18:00.000-08:00

With it's mountains and long wide beaches, Rio De Janiero really is a spectacular city. We walked up to the Christ the Redeemer statue at the summit of one of Rio's overlooking moutains, which took us just over 3 hours from the hostel we were staying at in Mt Teresa. It was a scenic walk with beautiful views over Rio the whole way. We met some local kids playing in a water hole along the way, who were more than happy to pose for some photos for us!

Through one of the local community projects, we arranged to visit one of the shanty towns in Rio called "favelas". Favelas in Rio are found crowded onto hillsides and are made up of poor-quality, randomly built residences with networks of narrow stairways and sidewalks, inaccessible by vehicles. We were surprised to be met at our hostel by 3 young boys carrying skateboards for our tour - the eldest, Carlos, who was actually 18 years old, was our guide - the other two boys were mates from the youth community group they were all involved in. They were great kids, all lived in the favela we visited. Carlos had just finished high school and won a scholarship to study tourism at university.

At the favela, we watched kids play capoeira which was a lot of fun to watch. Community projects run these capoeira classes for the kids, and they also run craft classes and provide computers at the community centre for the kids to be able to access the Internet.

We visited the beaches at Copacabana and Ipanema, which are packed with sun worshipers during the day and lined with high rise apartments and hotels.

We couldn't time our trip to make it to Carnaval, although we were in town 2 weeks before and were able to watch final rehearsals of 3 different samba schools at the Sambodromo. The final rehearsals are pretty much the real thing, minus the costumes. The sound of the music was just amazing - it really got the heart thumping!

After Rio, Jesse and I escaped the city to a sleepy surf town called Saquarema not far from Rio. Jesse hired a board and we chilled out at our hostel, which was right on the beach for a few days - very relaxing.

20-Jan-2009: New Zealand

2009-01-20T21:38:00.000-08:00

It's always great to visit Jesse's relatives in NZ. This time round we had time to go up to Matapouri, where Jesse's family has tribal land, so we hired a car and drove up to the batch to meet Jesse's grandparents there and stay for a few days. It was such a relaxing time in such a beautiful place and fantastic to be able to spend it with Jesse's nana and pop.

15-Jan-2009: Back in Oz

2009-01-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

It was great catching up with our family and friends back in Oz for the festive season. Between Wollongong, Canberra, Moruya and Sydney, the four weeks didn´t seem enough! Below are some pics from what seemed like a flying visit.

15-Dec-2008: Bali

2008-12-18T03:22:00.000-08:00

Our last 5 days in Indonesia were spent in Bali. Jesse's uncle in Jakarta teed us up with some free accommodation there - a beautiful private villa with our own private pool!

For $5 aud a day we hired a scooter to get around. Some would call us brave! The pollution in the traffic made it a little difficult to handle - after riding around in shorts and t-shirts for a few hours, we could understand why the locals get around in long pants and jackets even in over 30 degree heat. It was nice to get out of the bustle of the city and ride out to Ubud.

In Ubud, did an 10km walk through the surrounding villages starting at the Monkey Forest park. The monkeys were very tame and not afraid of humans - they may have looked cute and cuddly but something about them, maybe the look in their eyes, that made me quite scared of them!

We walked through the green and endless sawahs and stopped along the way at some the workshops of some local artists, many who paint the sawah landscapes in their works. There are many many artists in Bali and particularly in Ubud, where it seemed anything constructed was made aesthically pleasing - from elaborate temples to simple pieces of furniture.

Walking down the street in Ubud, we had one of those chance meetings that spun us out completely. We ran into Glen, one of Jesse's ex-work colleagues from London, who was travelling through south east Asia for a few months after getting a redundancy payout. Glen originally wasn't even planning on travelling to Indonesia, but Jesse put the idea in Glen's head to try and get there at some stage. And so with a few weeks to spare, Glen last minute decided to head there - but what were the chances that he'd run into Jesse there - freaky!!

We checked out the surf beaches on the southern peninsula, although there wasn't enough of a swell to entice Jesse to hire a board and head out. We watched the sunset over Uluwatu beach and it was one of the most beautiful I have seen. Afterwards, we headed out to Jimbaran for a huge seafood feast on the beach. Many of the tables at the restaurants there were empty, which was sad to see. There weren't many tourists around in Bali while we were there, and we could definitely see that the community is still suffering from the bombings who are so dependent on tourism.

We were horrified at the state of Kuta beach first thing in the morning - more rubbish than sand! We weren't sure if it is like this every morning in the wet season but it sure was an eye opener.

10-Dec-2008: Central Java

2008-12-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

We caught the train from Jakarta across to Central Java. It was 7 hours of beautiful green sawah after sawah (rice paddy after rice paddy) before we reached our destination, Yogjakarta. I guess with a massive population of over 200 million in Indonesia, that would be a lot of rice to feed everyone, especially being the country's staple!

We were met at the train station by my cousins, Eng Ing and Bwee and their families, for our first taste of hanging out with family who could not speak a word of english! I was so glad I made the effort to brush up on my bahasa Indonesia before our trip. After spending 5 days with family who could not speak english, my bahasa improved over tenfold!

We visited Borobudur, a Buddhist temple built during the 9th century and Indonesia's most visited tourist attraction. We experienced our first day of wet season heavy rain of while we were in Indonesia and luckily enough, one of the only really wet days we had during our 3 week stay.

My cousins drove us out to a village resort in the mountains called Kaliurang where my parents once holidayed when they first started dating. They showed us the losmen (guesthouse) where they stayed, and suggested that Jesse and I should pose for a photo in the front of the building for my parents to bring back some memories for them :-)

In Central Java, we met my dad's three older sisters, as well as cousins and their children who still live in the area. We were very well looked after as they made sure we sampled as much of the local cuisine as possible, which meant pretty much eating all day! After a few days, Jesse and I were out-eaten.... we really didn't think that was possible!!!

We stayed with my mum's sister, Rita (Tante King), and her husband at their house in a small city called Purworejo which is a couple of hours drive from Yogjakarta. It was my first time as an adult spending time with my mum's sister - it amazed me how much she and my mum are similar. Even many of the places we went to, they asked my aunt whether I was her daughter!

Tante King took us to a place in a mountain village called Bandungang where they make tofu as a speciality and you could buy fresh tofu cooked or soy milk to drink. It was the most devinely delicious tofu and soy milk that Jesse and I have ever tasted!

We visted Krematorium Ambarrawa, the site where my grand parents ashes are held along with many other relatives on my mum's side. it was amazing to hear all the stories. My aunt showed us a photo of my grandfather as a body builder in his younger days - and realised that this probably where my brother Adrian gets his genes for body building :-)

1-Dec-2008: Jakarta, Indonesia

2008-12-01T15:38:00.000-08:00

Both Jesse and I have relatives in Jakarta so our 8 days there were packed with spending time with everyone there. Aside from being born there and leaving when I was 3, I had only spent 2 weeks in Indonesia as a teenager, so I was keen to make the most of it. It was Jesse¨s first time there, so a real eye opener for him. For both of us, it was an amazing experience to be able to spend time to get to know our families over there.

Jesse has one uncle and one aunty on his dad¨s side who have both married Indonesians and settled there with families. I have relatives on both my mum and dad¨s sides so there were lots of relatives to visit!

We quickly found out that there isn¨t much to do in Jakarta city itself except to go shopping! The shopping malls there are phenomonal... levels and levels of bargains to be found!

On our last day in Jakarta, we managed to get all the families together - Jesse¨s, my dad¨s and my mum¨s side for lunch - almost 30 people! It was great to have our families meet.

It was an eating fest in Indonesia, everyday there'd be something different for us to try. Although we did strike a some misfortune during our visit - both Jesse and I came down with bad belly which knocked both of us out each for a day and caused us to lose our appetites for a few days (it was then that Jesse and I knew we were both really sick :-)

27-Nov-2008: Singapore and KL, not Bangkok!

2008-11-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

Our first planned stop for the trip was to spend 4 days in Bangkok, although plans were quickly thrown into disarray when our flight was diverted mid journey to Singapore! We received a letter upon boarding the flight notifying us of the unrest at Bangkok airport and if there were any safety concerns, our flight would not land there. Our flight attendants said this was probably unlikely as yesterday´s flight landed without any problems.

Although an hour before we were due to land in Bangkok, it was announced that the airport had been blockaded and closed by the protesters so there was no way the aircraft could land there! Our flight was diverted to Singapore airport instead. As compensation, QANTAS provided us with 2 nights accommodation and meal vouchers at the fancy Crowne Plaza hotel in Singapore, to give us some time to re-organise our trip. We felt sorry for some people on our flight who already had tours pre-arranged with immediate start dates in Bangkok they couldnt meet!

We already had purchased a flight from Bangkok to Jakarta with Air Asia and since they did not do the Singapore to Jakarta route, we decided to take the overnight train to Kuala Lumpur and take the KL to Jakarta flight so we would not lose our tickets we had already paid for. Although this involved us having to line up at the Air Asia offie in KL for over 3 hours! Despite this, it ended up working out well as this allowed us to spend a couple of days in KL looking around as neither Jesse or I had been there before.

The airport in Bangkok ended up being closed for 8 days so it was actually really lucky that we were diverted, as had we flown the day earlier and landed, we would have been stranded in Bangkok along with the many hundreds of thousands tourists sleeping at the airport waiting for it to open!

21 Nov 2008: London Farewell

2008-11-21T03:37:00.000-08:00

Our last weekend in London before the big trip quickly came around and it was time to say goodbye to all the great people we have met during our stay in London. For my work, we had drinks and dinner in Putney. It sure was sad to be leaving the mob at Inghams - I couldn't have asked for a better place to work at during our stay.

On the Saturday night, after some nibblies and drinks at our place in Greenwich, we hit the new club "matter" at the O2. It was a fab night.....

15 Nov 2008: Visiting Kat in Denmark

2008-11-15T02:53:00.000-08:00

Even though it was one of our last free weekends before our big trip and there was still so much to get done, I couldn't say no to the opportunity of visiting one of my best mates from high school, Kat, while she was in Denmark visiting her relatives.

Kat's relatives live in a sleepy little town out of Arhus called Hornslet. We spent the weekend hanging out with Kat's cousin Morten and his little son Nicolas, as well as dropping by to visit other relatives in the same town. It was a really great weekend catching up with Kat and a nice relaxing break from the rush of organising everything for our the trip.

11 Nov 2008: A trip to Pompeii with mum and dad

2008-11-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

My mum and dad were in Italy for a few days in between cruises so I met up with them for a trip to Pompeii - a place I have always wanted to visit. We travelled from Rome for the day, so it was a long day on the bus travelling 3 hours each way to get there and back.

The city of Pompeii was founded during the 6th century, but was completely buried under many meters of ash in 79AD when Mt Vesuvius erupted. The city was lost for nearly 1700 years before it was accidently discovered again in 1748 and since then has been excavated, providing a very detailed insight into the life in a city at the height of the Roman Empire.

Pompeii is definitely one of the most amazing ruins site I've visited so far, along with Ephesus and the Forum in Rome. The city's buildings, streets, artefacts and even some bodies have been so well preserved due to the thick layer of ash that covered the city for thousands of years.

It was great to see mum and dad again and spend some time with them. They were in full holiday mode after spending 7 days on a cruise through the Mediteranean and were then due to board another ship for a 30 day cruise from Rome to Singapore via Egypt, Oman, Jordan, Dubai, India and Thailand - what an amazing itinerary!

31 Oct 2008: Amsterdam

2008-10-31T13:57:00.000-07:00

Some pics from our weekend in Amsterdam. The food in Amsterdam is amazing.... probably the best in Europe in terms of the diverse range of cuisines and quality.

Jesse and I celebrated our 10th anniversary at a lovely Indonesian restaurant for lunch and then an Argentinean steak house for dinner.

It was also Halloween while we were there!

18 Oct 2008: Budapest

2008-10-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

Budapest with Luke and Ella was a fun and relaxing trip. We could have easily spent a week in Budapest as there is so much to do and see there. We had absolutely perfect weather as we cruised around on our push bikes.

One thing about Hungarians - they are definitely hungry people!! The meal servings were huge everywhere we went, even Jesse had troubles finishing them.

We found a great nightspot with live music pumping with people on the Saturday night. A band called Baltic Beats played. Their music was a mix of traditional eastern European mixed with modern dance music - everyone was getting into boogying to it. When they finished, a 3 piece female metal band played who were great as well. Lots of fun! We also acquired two new friends there who hung out with us for the weekend, Katharina from Germany and Brian from the US, both travellers on their own.

There are many thermal baths in Budapest and a visit would not have been complete without going to one. We intended on spending a couple of hours at the Széchenyi baths, one of the biggest and most architecturally stunning although it was too easy to hang out there all day, lazing in the 37 degree water in the lovely winter sun not a cloud in the sky, with the air temperature at 14 degrees celcius. Our fingers and toes got extremely wrinkley!

20 Sept 2008: Berlin

2008-09-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

It was a fun weekend hanging out in Berlin with Seja. Just like the old days when we were kids in Templestowe riding around on our push bikes :-) Berlin is an interesting city, it was very different to other German cities we had visited. You could feel that the city had gone through changes many times through history.

It was interesting to hear that the city of Berlin is in huge debt and underpopulated by a somewhat few million people as there is just not much work to be found there in comparison to Germany's other big cities. The big German companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Bosch, SAP, Siemens etc are all based out in the other cities. Another interesting fact - Berlin has the the 3rd largest gay population in the world. So Berlin is known as "sexy but poor"!

It was amazing to hear all the escape stories at the Checkpoint Charlie museum of the people living on the eastern side of the wall trying to get to the west. It was also interesting to hear the story of the series of events that lead to the wall coming down - bascially it all started with a foul up on national tv by one of German's minsters who was not briefed properly!

21-Aug-2008: Cinque Terre

2008-08-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

Cinque Terre, situated in the Ligura region of Italy, just west of Florence is truely a lovely place to visit. There are five villages that make up the Cinque Terre: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore - all are made up of colourful buildings, perched on rugged cliffs and each have limited car access. Each village is linked up by a spectacular 14km coast track.

We stayed in Monterosso, the largest and most eastern village of the Cinque Terre. We started our walk early one morning on a 30+ degree day. The first part of the walk between Monterosso and Vernazza was probably the most challenging, so it was good to get that done and out of the way at the start of the day.

The walk took us all day to do as we stopped in each of the five villages for a swim, something to eat and something to eat before moving on to the next.

In Monterosso, we stayed at a hotel at the top of the hill overlooking the village with a spectular view of the Cinque Terre coastline from our balcony. It was a steep 1km walk to the top of the hill and we had a pretty good knack for missing the hourly shuttle bus service, so we got to know this walk pretty well by the end of our stay.

We also spent some time in Florence and Pisa during this trip. For me, visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa was a highlight as I remember learning about in one of the first projects I ever did in primary school, when I was in grade 3.

10-Aug-2008: Prague with Choc and Marni

2008-08-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

During our visit to Prague, we met with our friends Choc and Marni who live in the city of Dresden which is a few hours away from Prague, just over the border in Germany. Choc, one of Jesse's mates from uni, recently moved to Dresden to be with his girlfriend Marni who is currently studying there.

Prague reminded us very much of Paris, although everything was much cheaper. Beautiful old buildings and interesting history. Prague even has it's own version of the Eiffel tower which was built in 53 days in 1891 - although much shorter than the Eiffel tower itself, the locals love to boast that the height above sea level at the top of their tower is greater than the Eiffel tower - although the Prague TV tower is situated on the top of a hill!

The castle in Prague is the biggest landmark of the city and is one of the biggest castles in the world. It looks amazing lit up at the night time and the buildings inside the walls are just as impressive.

2-Aug-2008: Venice with Salma and Eddie

2008-08-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

I had already visited Venice once before, but loved it so much that I jumped at the chance of going again - especially to be able to bring Jesse this time round, and also to meet up with Salma and meet her boyfriend Eddy for the first time.

Jesse and I got along with Salma and Eddy like a house on fire - they both love eating as much as we do!! In between getting lost exploring the streets and canals of the city, the days were spent enjoying the wonderful Italian cuisine and then planning what we would eat for our next meal!

25-Jul-2008: My penpal Claudia visits London

2008-07-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

My German penpal Claudia and her husband Sven finally made it to visit us in London. It was great to be able to return their hospitality from when we visited them in their hometown Stuttgart the year before. And even better when they arrived in London with the fantastic news that they are expecting their first baby!

We spent the first day doing the usual sights around London, and then headed down to the seaside town of Brighton on our second day. The weather was marvellous for their visit - probably the best weekend we had over the summer here in London this year!

20-Jul-2008: Oui oui Paris!

2008-07-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

We organised a trip to Paris, one of the destinations on the top of my list that I wanted to visit in Europe before going back to Australia. Taking the Eurostar was dead easy and a nice change from flying - we only had to be at the station 20 minutes before departure and it was only just over a 2 hour trip to get to Paris. Also, the train station in Paris is close to the centre of the city which makes it even more convenient than arriving by plane.

Salma was also in Paris, after having spent a few weeks travelling around Spain. On our first morning, we arranged to meet at the base of the Eiffel tower nice and early to try and avoid the crowds. We were happy to avoid the long queue at the base of the tower by making the trek up to the first observation deck by walking the 700+ steps. However to our dismay, after making it up all those steps, we discovered that the ticket booth to purchase lift tickets to get to the top of the tower was closed due to overcrowding. The line just to get to the lift was crazy - it snailed around the entire observation level and was at least an hour's wait to get to the front. We were informed that the ticket booth would re-open sometime during the next hour and since we'd gone that far already, we persisted and waited. It truely was the longest time I've queued up for anything.

It was a lovely view from the top of the tower and almost well worth the wait. By the time we got back down to the base again, the day was already mostly over! So much for trying to avoid the crowds!

We met up with Brad, a friend of mine from uni, who was also in town on holidays. We joined a bike tour that would take us to view the major sights in Paris. Cycling is definitely one of the best ways to get around the city - you get to ride on flat and wide streets that are surrounded by some of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

There is so much to do in Paris - I could see how easy it would be to want come back time and time again. Not to mention the fantastic food you can get there. In our few days, we managed to fit in a visit to the Lourve museum, Notre Dam church, Champs de E'lysee, Arc de Triomphe and also do a cruise on the river Seine.

See photo of Jesse below running through the madness of the traffic at the Arc de Triumph roundabout after getting fed up with trying to find the tunnel entrance.

7-Jul-2008: San Fermin Festival, Pamplona

2008-07-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

We camped at El Molino campground just outside of Pamplona during the Running of the Bulls festival. So many Aussies and Kiwis everywhere - it was a non stop party! We had a lot of fun just hanging out at the campsite.

We watched as some Aussies at the campsite nearby downed double beer bongs. Our new mate Squid ended up pretty wrecked after doing 3 in a row. He passed out in Elaine and Eoin's tent to get away from his mates, but Elaine painted his toenails pink while he was asleep. He was not very happy with that! Nor was he happy when Elaine snuck behind him when he first came over to talk to us girls, and then she dacked him... he was full commando! I had now idea Elaine was so cheeky :-)

It was my birthday and the boys went mia so Ryah and I enjoyed a romantic dinner for two drinking Sangria from super-sized Coca-Cola cups - very classy.....

I have never felt so close to being crushed to death as we were at the Opening Ceremony of the festival. It was actually quite a scary experience. There was no crowd control what so ever. Us, the naive bunch rocked along wearing thongs. I have no idea how I mananged not too lose mine, but a few of the others did and ended up getting their feet all cut up from broken bottles scattered everywhere. For this reason we were so glad to have premium balcony spots pre-organised to watch the first bull run of the festival.

Watching the bull run really was an amazing experience. The anticipation waiting for the start of run was electric, festival atmosphere at it's best. It really was an adrenline rush, even as an spectator! The run starts and it finishes all so quickly but so much happens in such a short time, especially when you are viewing it from a birds eye perspective. As we watched the runners running for their lives, some were crushed and thrown into the air. I didn't know whether to be excited or shocked or horrified at what we were witnessing.

From where we were watching, there was one fairly serious looking injury. A dude was hit head on by one of the bulls (you can see from the photos just below) and we could not tell if he was okay by the way he was lying on the ground after he was hit. He didn't get up for a while and the runners quickly formed a human barrier to protect him from the last bull and the steers who had yet gone past. He regained conciousness after he was stretchered off so all was okay.

In the end I just felt sorry for the bulls - it really did look like they were tormented and frankly just running for their lives! I did not feel a sorry for any of the injured runners - they were there by choice. What I did not know is that each of the 6 bulls that run each morning are killed in a slow and torturous death in the bull ring infront of the crowd that night. This happens every day for the 10 days of the festival. Some may argue that it is tradition and therefore justified, but I don't believe that it is at all necessary for so many of them to be killed in such an inhumane way purely for the purpose of entertainment. I'm glad we decided not to watch any of the evening bull fights.

The rest of the day was a blast hanging out in the city of Pamplona - watching the San Fermin procession, drinking Sangria, eating Tapas and dancing.

Jesse and I awoke early the next morning to get seats in the bull ring for the 2nd day's bull run. It was a long and cold wait for the bulls to run through.... quite an anti-climax as it was totally uneventful and over in less than 5 seconds. Watching the baby bulls let out to play was funny to watch though.

5-Jul-2008: Fun in the Sun in Biarritz and San Sebastian

2008-07-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

It was supposed to be a fun in the sun holiday, although when we arrived in Biarritz, it was pouring down rain and freezing - even colder and more miserable than it was in London when we left. We were met at the airport met by Elaine and Eoin who had arrived earlier in the week - they said the clouds started coming over that morning and it literally started raining 10 minutes before we walked out of the departure gates.... sounded like we bought the crap weather to France with us!

We relaxed at the holiday house in Ondres on our first arvo there, but on the second day we ventured out to a surf beach and hired some gear to go out for a few hours. Biarritz and area is well known for it's good surf beaches so we were pretty well spoilt for choice where to go. It was still pouring down by the time we hired our gear and put on our wetsuits. No problem for Jesse and Eoin, but Elaine and I were wondering what the hell we were doing walking down the street in the pouring rain wearing full steamer wetsuits, about to dive into the rough ocean with surfboards. I suppose we just wanted the make the most of our holiday! We really didn't need to get in the ocean to get wet as we were fully drenched by the rain by the time we reached the water's edge to go in with our boards! Still we had a good go in the surf, it was a bit rough though so we got over it pretty quickly and not before long were we keen to get out and grab a warm drink and put on some dry clothes.

We then headed over the border to San Sebastian for the afternoon, where the sun finally came out and gave us a glorious afternoon. We enjoyed some tapas there and strolled the city streets taking in the sights, then snoozed on the beach during the afternoon before driving back over the France-Spain border to Ondres.

Mick and Ryah arrived a few days later and we picked them up from Biarritz airport and took them straight to Biarritz main beach where Elaine, Eoin, Jesse and I had already spent the morning. Finally, a piercing hot day at a beach which reminded me like a beach we would have back home like Bronte or Bondi... it was the recipe for a good day out. It was cool to think that Mick and Ryah were in London earlier that morning, and just a few hours they were lazing on beautiful beach in southern France.

At the end of the day, we all packed into our people mover, Picasso, and stopped by the massive supermarket Carefourrs - wish we had these back home! All the french gourmet food under one roof, a fraction of the price we would pay in London or at home. We shopped up big and between the 6 of us, whipped up a feast for dinner back at the holiday house. We stayed up to see the clock strike midnight, to wish me a happy 29th Birthday!