TravelStream™ news feed for member christina_sam on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/christina_sam en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:48:08 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1217849400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1217849400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1217849400/tpod.html Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:48:08 -0400 6 months in the waiting and finally time to go!

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San Francisco, California, United States

Monday 4th Aug

We managed to get the greyhound overnight from down town LA to San Francisco. We arrived into S.F at 07:30 and booked into our hostel. We then helped ourselves to a free breakfast of bagels, fruit and coffee courtesy of the Green Tortoise before setting out for what we thought would be a short walk along broadway street to the piers. We ended up going the wrong way along broadway (4 months away and we still cant read a map) and spent the day near the golden gate bridge instead. On returning to the hostel we helped ourselves to the free spag bol, which ended up being the best free meal we'd had all trip. Not a bad hostel to end the trip in :)

Tues 5th

Today we woke early and again helped ourselves to the free breakfast before deciding to venture into town to union square where all the big high street shops are located. We did some window shopping before heading down through china town, which we later learnt is the biggest china town in america at 14 blocks long and 7 blocks wide. We ended the evening with a thai meal impressing the waitress with our knowledge of the thai language and telling her about where we had visited in thailand.

Wed 6th

We started the day early again having booked onto the Nappa Valley wine tour, which picked us up at 08:30 outside our hostel. The tour started with a trip over the golden gate bridge and a stop off at the other side to view San Francisco, covered in fog. We then had a 40 minute journey before we reached our first winery named Madonna Winery (Not named after the singer, which they strongly pointed out when we first arrived). To Christinas massive disappointment there was no white zinferdale to be found here, which according to the tour guide is a wine for the uneducated wine drinker. However, there were a number of other wines all of which went down very nicely. Pinot Gricco stood out as one of the best in this winery (I wasn't there just to get smashed initially, we did learn a bit from the first winery however the next 2 winerys were a bit of a blur). After learning about growing grapes and releasing wine from being trapped inside the bottle we then moved on to the next winery 20 minutes down the road. It was now getting close to mid day and although we were only an hour out of S.F the temperature was 10 degrees higher than in the city. Something to do with S.F being surrounded by water. Anyway enough of that lets get back to the drinking. Our next winery, to Christinas delight, did do zinfendale but not white. We managed to enjoy 8 different wines here including a muscat dessert wine, a merlot and another pinot greccio. We then stopped for lunch in Sennoma Valley at Sennoma Square, which had some lovely shops where you could taste cheese, fudge and salami for free. Our final winery was an italian winery, which gave away generous helpings of wine followed by italian bread and a number of different dips. The tour ended around 5pm and we managed to make it back to the hostel in time for a free mexican meal. Great day :)

Thurs 7th

For our final day in the city of San Francisco we chose to go on a tour of the city organised by the green tortoise and run by a nice bloke called ellie, who definately knew all you needed to know about the history of S.F. His tour lasted for 8 hours and we did china town, little italy, golden gate bridge, seven sisters (Beautiful victorian houses), lands end amongst others. Once we had finished the tour of S.F we headed down to pier 33 ready for our tour of Alcatraz, which started at 6pm. Before leaving on the ferry to Alcatraz we arranged to meet Danni and Abi, 2 NZ women we met in LA, for a few drinks after the tour. The tour of Alcatraz lasted 3 hours and was an amazing tour well worth doing. We learnt about how Alcatraz started off as a fort before becoming a military prison in the late 1800's and then becoming a civilian prison in 1934. It was then closed in 1963 apparently due to the high costs of running the place although others recon it was because of the famous escape in 1962, that showed Alcatraz was escapable, that lead to the closure. After it closed it became famous again in the 1970's when native indians camped out on the desserted island for 2 years in protest of how they were being treated.
After the tour we met Danni and Abi for cocktails in a bar near pier 33 before moving on to a jazz bar. Another great day :)

Friday 8th

We woke early and packed our bags having spent our last night in a hostel and preparing ourselves for two nights of luxury in a hotel not far from the airport. We spent the morning checking out and visiting china town one last time and then got the underground and a shuttle bus to the hotel. We booked in to the Grosvenor hotel and spent the rest of the day watching movies before going down for diner. For diner I had clam chowder soup followed by swordfish with ginger sauce (Amazing!!!). Christina had salmon. We then spent the night in amazing comfort of a king size bed with a 40" screen tv.

Sat 9th

Today was a lazy day that started off with a free continental breakfast followed by watching tv, swimming in the heated swimming pool and then having diner. Diner was a nice chicken curry for me and an amazing chicken salad for Christina washed down with champers :)

Sun 10th

After 16 weeks on the road we ended our trip by spending the morning packing and helping ourselves to yet another free breakfast before heading to the airport at 12:30. We then did some last minute shopping at the airport before boarding the plane for the 9 and a half hour flight HOME :) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1217050200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1217050200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1217050200/tpod.html Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:04:18 -0400 6 months in the waiting and finally time to go!

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Los Angeles, California, United States

Sat 26th July 2008

We've relived a day of our life, having left Auckland 7pm and landed L.A. 11am. We found our way and checked into USA Hostel Hollywood, just off Hollywood Blvd., and jet lag set in. We awoke a few hours later to our new room mate Murry checking in, a lovely gentleman, who'd also flown in from NZ. Together, the 3 of us ventured down Hollywood Blvd for the 1st time to the Kodac centre, the home of the Oscars!, for a Mexican.

Sun 27th.

Sam + headed our for a smoothie, got our hte map and thought we'd take a strole dowm to the farmers marked, just a few blocks away from Hollywood Blvd. After walking for 2 hours we ralised the vast size of L.A! We also spent some time in 'The Grove', a lovely shopping area, where Sam couldn't believe there was a shop dedicated to dolls... which included a hairdressers, hospital, restaurant with hiht chairs for hte dolls to dine next to their owners, let alone the matching child-doll outfits... and the price tags.
While there we watched 'Hancock' (Will Smith) after which we had a lovely meal in a nice restaurant in the Grove, before the 2hr strole home.

Mon 28th.
It had to be done... we walked up to the Hollywood Sign, and enjoyed a meal in a Russian restaurant in the evening... very tasty... I ended up carrying Sam home as the 'vey generous' Russian diners insisted Sam joined the tradition of a generous glass of strong russian vodka with his meal! Hmmm :-s

Tue 29th.

We went to the Beverly Shopping Centre and had a lovely Chineese.

Wed 30th.
Universal Studios!! We joined James, our lovely room mate, and caught the metro train to the park, where we got soaked on Jurasic park, thrilled on the Mummy, had a laugh on the Simpsons simulator new ride, were stunned by the stunts in 'Water World' show... and washed it all down with a 'Hard Rock Cafe' meal in Universal City walk, and watched auditions for 'Wicked' musical with a starbucks :-) A great day!

Thurs 31st.

We got the free shuttle to Venice Beach then walked the 2 miles to Santa Monica beach via 'muscle beach'. We got hte bus back, stopping for a Wendy's on hte way home.

Fri 1st August.

Today we went of the tour of Bel Air and Bevery Hills, to see the houses (which we'll never have, lol, of the rich and famous. See pic's we'll hopefully be able to upload soon. Our tour left us at Rodao Drive, the shopping place of the wealthy, where we were anazed by the numerous porche's, ferrari's, chauffeur driven cars, not to mention the selevtion of shops.

Sat 2nd.
Today we just relaxed arouynd the hostel and let the characters on Hollywood Blvd, i.e. spiderman, the snake charmer, the transformer, captain Jack Sparrow ect, entertain us while having an frozen youghurt. We fou8nd a lovely Lebonese restaurant where we had chicken, hummus and rice before having a night out in on Sunset Strip, starting @ Rainbow's then to The Viper Room- owned by Johnny Depp with Danni and Abby, our room mates, Fraser and Rob, who were also staying @ our hostel. A fun night, despite rock not being our kinda music :-)

Sunday 3rd.

We spent another day relaxing + reading at the hostel before walking down to hte famous 'Pinks Hot Dog' joint for lunch... so famous people que for over an hour for a chilli hot dog (personally tho, we didn't think it wa worth the hour que.)
We'd booked the overnight bus to San Francisco which departed at 10 and got us here for 7.30.... the last leg of our travels before heading home!

Love to everyone at home

XxXxXxX
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216703220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216703220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216703220/tpod.html Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:22:24 -0400 6 months in the waiting and finally time to go!

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Auckland, North Island, New Zealand

Tues 22nd

Our last journey on Magic Bus took us to Auckland. The busiest town in NZ, though not the capital, where around 1/4 of the whole NZ population live... but still not as busy as UK towns.
Sam and Alex were sooooo excited about the new batman movie being in the IMAX theatre they went straight out to book their tickets for thurs showing and to do a bit of souveneer shopping. Meanwhile, Amira + I went for a bit of a girly shop, hot chocolate and carrot cake.
As it was Steve's lat night we all headed down the hostel bar for the NZ$7 cabonara meal with a glass of wine... which escilated into a box of goon, hitting the town... and thus Steve failing to catch his flight - oops!

Wed 23rd.

We spent an extra day with Steve - result - but nursing our sore heads. Recovering intime for free spag bol in the hostel for dinner.

Thurs 24th.

Amira + I went for a last girly shop while Sam + Alex went off to the All Blacks shop, before having lunch back @ the hostel and saying good by to Amira ('who reminds you of a west side story...').
Finally the time had come... Sam + Alex excitedly ran down to the IMAX with their panda pop and 'pick n mix' (big kids).
In the evening we met up with Jacque and John, a lovely couple we met while on the tea plantation tour of the Cameron Highlands. It was great to exchange travel stories as we've done practically the same route, and a lovely evening that flew by.

Fri 25th

Alex left today, so we were only 2 left of our great group we'd made in the north island. After spending the morning around town we caught the ferry over to Devonport hoping to watch the sun set over Auckland and bought some Sushi for tea. But as it was going, we went to the hostel bar for free fish n chips, where Christina got the NZ$7 upgrade meal... just for being Welsh :-)

Sat 26th
Our last day in NZ. We spend the morning around the hostel before catching the bus the airport where we flew to L.A at 7pm.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1217307600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1217307600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1217307600/tpod.html Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:18:27 -0400 6 months in the waiting and finally time to go!

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Mount Mongonui, New Zealand

Mon 21

Today we travelled up to Mount Mongonui and re-bumped into Steve who we shared a dorm with along with
Alex and Amira.
We went 4 a walk around the lovely town, loved by the rich and famous before making the most delicious chilli-con-carni, washed down with a bit of Jim Beam.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216468800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216468800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216468800/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:30:15 -0400 6 months in the waiting and finally time to go!

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Taupo, North Island, New Zealand

Saturday 19th July

Today we woke early to more wet weather and had an early breakfast. During breakfast I recieved a massive shock seeing 2 of my old school teachers come through the dining room doors with their young kids. We caught up on a few stories and swapped details, hoping to meet up with them in Auckland where they now live. After breakfast we packed and got on the Magic bus heading for Rotarua. On arriving we booked ourselves into Nomad backpackers and booked onto Tamaki Maori village tour. We checked into our room then got onto a bus destined for the Maori village. on the bus the maori driver asked for a male to nominate himself chief. Sam stepped up to the challange and his first job was to chant Tia Una as everyone else grabbed their ores and began to row up to the village. Sams second challenge as Chief was to recieve a war dance from the village warriors. They did this challange to see if we were worthy enough to enter the village. Thankfully we were :). They demonstrated Maori carvings and did talks on Maori tattoos before we then had a massive hangi feast of lamb, chicken, rice, potatoes and veg followed by chocolate steam pudding and pavlova, awsome. Sam also had to join a Japanese rugby team towards the end of the night to attempt the Haka, which ended up being more like the chicken dance in Sams case but the Japanese were impressive. Hoping to download the video of this at some stage :)

Sunday 20th July

Today we woke early with the intention of doing white water rafting. However we were disappointed to find, due to poor weather, they had to cancel it today but were hoping to run it tomorrow so fingers crossed. Instead Christina and I went for breakfast in town then did some souvenier shopping before crashing out in front of some DVDs for the day :).

Love to everyone back home xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216296000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216296000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216296000/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:03:40 -0400 6 months in the waiting and finally time to go!

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Napier, North Island, New Zealand

Thursday 17th July

We woke early and got the Magic bus from Wellington up to Napier. We met Harriet, Alex and Ameria (Another unemployed physio) on the bus and thanks to the Magic bus schedule we stopped off at Tui's Brewery en route. 4 pints of Tui's finest for $2, result. After 1h45 (as apposed to the scheduled 30 min stop) we moved onto Napier with some very happy light headed people and some not so happy sober people who stayed on the bus throughout the tour. Needless to say we were part of the happy bunch :). Once arriving in Napier we booked ourselves into Archie's and cooked sausage and chili mash for 5 people, nice meal. We then spent the evening relaxing watching DVDs.

Friday 18th July

Today we moved onto Taupo catching the same magic bus with Alex, Harriet and Amera but leaving Harriet who was moving further up to Mount Monganui. On arriving in Taupo we booked ourselves into the YHA and were disappointed to learn we could not do a skydive due to the poor weather conditions :(. We spent the evening eating beef stir fry, watching DVDs and being storked by a fellow backpacker (Sam & Alex were storked by a young female admirer).
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216038600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216038600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1216038600/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:40:13 -0400 6 months in the waiting and finally time to go!

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Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand

Monday 13th July

We woke at a reasonable hour and by chance found out we had arrived in Dunedin on chocolate festival week. We were told by the cleaner that there was a famous race taking part today on the steepest street in the world, Baldwin street. On arriving we joined the mass gathering to watch 30,000 cadburys jaffas (See pic) being rolled down Baldwin street, great entertainment (See video clip).
We then spent the afternoon relaxing before card games and drinks in the evening with Josh, Valarie and Sebastian.

Tuesday 14th July

We set off early to visit the free museum in Dunedin, which had plenty of information on the history of Otago. Including a gem of info about how to see the yellow eyed penguins (the rarest penguin in the world) for free. Luckily Sebastian had a car and kindly offered us a lift to see these penguins in Sand Fly beach.
We set off for the beach mid afternoon and arrived the same time as Graeme (Volunteer who looks after the penguins welfare) who was able to give us loads of useful info on the penguins and the sea lions on the beach. We left the beach after watching the penguins and sea lions for an hour and headed straight for our evening tour of Speights Brewery. During the tour we were informed on how James Speight started the company and of course how they make the beer. We were then given permission to drink as much Speights as we could in 20 minutes out of tiny sample size glasses, as the pic shows Sam was expecting a bigger glass. Leaving a little worse for wear we headed to a proper pub and got the pints in :)

Wednesday 15th July

Today we got a shuttle bus to the airport and caught our flight up to Wellington. We then stayed the night in Wellington at Nomads hostel, which included a free meal of chips and spring rolls,
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1215516600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1215516600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1215516600/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:21:40 -0400 6 months in the waiting and finally time to go!

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Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand

Tuesday 8th July

We woke early again and managed to do breakfast before departing for Queenstown at some ungodly hour, but we're in NZ so I can do early mornings :). The journey to Queenstown took 11 hours in total but we stopped off at Wanaka to do some sight seeing (See photos of lake Matheson and a waterfall) and also stopped off at a bridge for Bungy jumping, which neither me or Christina plucked up the courage to do but 3 people on our coach decided to do it. $160 to chuck yourself off a bridge, I don't see the sense :).
We finally arrived into Queenstown at 6pm and booked ourselves into Pinewood to find they didn't have enough beds. After a quick chat with reception we left them to sort it out and went for a really tastey indian. We arrived back later to find we had beds for the night, result.

Wednesday 9th July

We woke early and headed into the centre of Queenstown to sort out what we needed to do for skiing. After chatting to the guys in the shop we were put on a ski shuttle bus and driven to the Coronet Peak for a days skiing. We both decided to book ourselves lessons for the day to get the basics before chucking ourselves down a mountain. After a day of skiing we got the bus back to our accomodation and were completely energyless so decided to get an early night.

Thursday 10th July

Another day of skiing ahead. We decided to go back to the Coronet Peak and try out the skills we had learnt the previous day before doing a green slope. Todays skiing was much more enjoyable and we also managed to get some photos.

Fri 11th

Our last day of skiing already - such a shame as it's so much fun! We got the earliest bus to the Remarkables mountains, an hrs bus ride to the slopes. We headed straight out to the green sloped, there's much more slopes suitable for our skiing ability here. After Sam impressed me with his one legged skiing down the hill, so he almost fell over the side of the mountain landing in a mound of fresh soft snow... very entertaining. I decided to book myself in for a 2hr intermediate lesson to learn hocky stops and proper paralell skiing while Sam continued practising what he had learned. We then had time for 1 last ski right from hte top of hte mountain before it was time to reluctantly return the gear we'd hired and get the bus back to the hostel.

Sat 12th

Having booked another night in the hostel, as we sadly couldn't get any accommodation in Dunedin , out next destination and where the All Blacks were playing South Africa this evening, we checked out of our dorm, put our bags in storage and headed down to Queenstown - a 2 min walk from the hostel - for a proper look around the harbour, small market and town in the crisp cold. After a warming mulled wine ( that went straight to our heads beging early afternoon) we headed to the supermarket to get some well needed lunch and enjoyed a lovely stir fry.
In the evening we headed down the local sports bar to watch a very good game of rugby, which All Blacks sadly lost due to a fab try by South African No9.

Sun 13th

An early start as we got the magic bus to Dunedin, happy to find Harriet, Steve, Ste and Dave, which we'd met previously on hte magicbus travels were also on the same bus :-)
We checked into Dunedin Central Backpackers, one of the nicest hostel we've stayed in!! Very cosy, nicely decorated, big, spacious kitchen + dining room, cosy living room with a fire + sky t.v. I think we'll enjoy the next few days here :-).
We spent sunday night invading a private party in a night club with Steve and Harriet. We ended up recieving cheap drinks and free prawns, bonus.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1215324840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1215324840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/christina_sam/1/1215324840/tpod.html Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:38:42 -0400 6 months in the waiting and finally time to go!

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Franz Joseph, New Zealand

Sun 6th.

As we wanted to head straight toFranz Joseph, and not stay overnight at Greymouth as we would have to if travelling on the Magicbus, we booked onto a local travel bus taking us direct. We did however stop of at Pancake Rocks for some stunning views of the sea crashing into them, and the water being pushed out of natural blow holes. We arrived at Franz at 5 pm, just in time to make some tea and chat so other travellers in the kitchen and our room in 'the stables'.

Mon 7th - The Glacier Walk!!
We arrived at the glacier centre 9.15 in plenty of layers all prepared for the cold to be kitted our with our gear for the day - hiking boots, crampers, jackets + trousers and gloves.
Along with around 40 other people we were shuttled to the glacier's terminal face, which is 5km from the town. After a short walk through the national park Sam and I put ourselves into the 1st of the 5 groups climbing determined to see as much of the blue ice at the top of the glacier as possible.
Climbing the glacier was breath taking! The views and scenery stunning, and by chance, we chose to clime on a beautiful sunny day as well... which was suprisingly warm and we ended up removing all but 2 of our many layers.
The pictures speak for themselves. A fab day :-)

XxX
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Nelson, South Island, New Zealand

Saturday 5th July

We left Kaikoura early Saturday morning after helping ourselves to plenty of free breakfast. We got back onto the Magic bus and headed for Nelson stopping off in Picton to pick up backpackers who had ferried across from the North Island. The journey to Nelson took 4 hours and once we had arrived we checked into the backpackers and helped ourselves to yet another free meal of vegetable soup, NZ is great for free meals when you're a backpacker :).
After food 12 of us headed to a local sports bar where we watched the AB's beat the Springboks in the tri nations rugby match. After the game we all headed to the local nightclub and used up our free drinks tokens :). Tomorrow we have decided to skip Greymouth and head to Franz Josef, which unfortunately the Magic bus does not allow us to do so we've booked with another company. Love to everyone back home.

xxxxxxxxxx
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