TravelStream™ news feed for member robsons on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/robsons en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:23:05 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/4/1252555883/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/4/1252555883/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/4/1252555883/tpod.html Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:23:05 -0400 Sticky & Steamy in FNQ

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Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Another early start (are we on holiday or not???) and at the Reef Fleet terminal by 8:15 for our day trip to Green island on "Big Cat Cruises".
Pleasantly surprised that there were not huge crowds here. Thought it may be packed as it's the most hyped and closest island to Cairns, being only a 45min ferry trip away.

Went for a walk around the island first. It's quite tiny - only 1.6km around so this didn't take too long. Nice clear water sparkling in the sun. Lots of photos along the way of course. : )

Time for our seawalker experience - basically like an old-style diving suit where you have a bell over your head with tubes to the surface and you walk along the sea floor. Unfortunately we didn't end up doing this as they had issues with Jeff having asthma. A bit peeved as his asthma is so minimal and this is probably the tamest underwater activity possible! Anyway, we got a refund and scored free wetsuit hire as compensation for being stuffed around. The water is not freezing but the wetsuits offer good protection from the sun (esp for Jeff) and makes it more comfortable to stay in the water for longer. Actually getting into the wetsuit was a huge amount of fun too! And I so loved walked around in it in front of people. Thank goodness I didn't know anyone there! It does act like an all over body girdle though. ha ha ha

We spent a couple of hours snorkeling and went quite a long way out. We'd hired an underwater camera so were able to take lots of pics. Saw HEAPS of different fish and coral. The diversity is quite astonishing. Even very close to the shore there are so many fish. A different world. While we were further out we also fortunate enough to come across a couple of green turtles! Phenomenal experience to be swimming alongside these beautiful creatures. Later found out this was a very lucky encounter. One of the staff at Big Cat had been snorkeling at Green island innumerable times and had not seen a turtle once, so for us to come across two in one outing was very fortunate indeed!

About 3.30pm we headed to shore, struggled out of our super glue wetsuits and back into landlubber clothes. Quickly inhaled a burger between us while being amused by the local banded rails (similar to a quail) swimming in the resort pool before boarding our boat for the return trip to Cairns. It was me & Jeff boarding the boat - not the banded rails....

Pretty knackered tonight so had showers and ordered room service for dinner.
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Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Delivered to Perth airport by our handy and free taxi (thanks Kandy!).
First jump was to Alice Springs, on the hottest day they have had for yonks - 35 degrees!! A big change from the frigid temps in Perth.
Not much happening at the Alice Springs airport.
Glad they clearly labeled the "Toilet Truck" though, you wouldn't want to confuse that with the "Water Truck".... and Virgin thought they had trouble with their dodgy chicken wraps....hmmmm.
Toilets are very low to the ground in Alice Springs... we suspect a pygmy race lives here...

On to our final jump to Cairns.
Discovered the absolute joy of flying with blocked ears and now understand why babies cry so much on takeoff and landing!
Checked into our room at Novotel and then went for a wander around the Cairns foreshore. It's festival time in Cairns so heaps going on. Street stalls, music, performers. A really great, relaxed vibe in the air. New lagoon area along the foreshore is magic. Much nicer than just grass and mudflats!
Had a wander through the permanent night markets where we had some yummy Japanese style crepes - complete with cornflake sprinkles for some strange reason. Lots of high quality kak here for your purchasing pleasure.... "Hello Titty" tee-shirts, crocodile claw backscratchers, splattered cane toad postcards, kangaroo scrotum coin purses and flower brooches made from fur. Yeee-uck!
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Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Up early (for us) and ready for our Skyrail pickup @ 8:40am.
Yeah I know, doesn't "sound" that early but at this stage it still felt like 6:40am. bleurrrggh.

Skyrail cable car was very good. Nice and smooth, included two stops with boardwalks through the forest at each stop, and a lookout over the magnificent Baron falls at the second stop.
In fact, the cable car was much more impressive than Kuranda itself which is mainly a succession of market after market after market - all selling the same cheap imported crap that unfortunately infects markets everywhere. There were still a couple of unique stalls. One selling all Scottish items was a bit of a surprise. The other interesting 'stall' was a lady with a couple of baby prams containing kangaroo and wallaby joeys. She was just set-up at a sidewalk bench and was raising money to help support abandoned and injured wildlife. I was lucky enough to have a cuddle with a 7 month old wallaby baby. It was very cute... until it started trying to chew the buttons off my shirt. Pervy wallaby!
After navigating through the multitude of kak stalls we headed over to the Kuranda Butterfly Sanctuary. Lots of really pretty butterflies in here, including the bright blue Ulysees butterfly. They are gorgeous but have such erratic flight paths that trying to take a photo of one is really a mission impossible! They close their wings when they rest on plants too - only showing the dull grey underside. Shame they are not more obliging like many of the other butterflies which leave their wings open when resting. After about 1 1/2 hours here Jeff managed to obtain a half recognisable photo of one!

Had a late lunch at a cafe overlooking the rainforest (aka someone's backyard) and then had a quick walk along the Baron river. Spotted a few brush turkeys along here but we soon realised they are everywhere!

Hopped on the train for our ride back to Cairns on the Kuranda scenic railway. Lots of nice scenery on the way and pretty amazing that the line - including 15 tunnels - was hacked out by hand over 100 years ago!

Had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant in Cairns then walked around the foreshore some more and took some shots of the Lagoon at Dusk. Tonight we noticed for the first time just how many bats are around! They especially like fig trees... including the ones near our hotel. Luckily we are on the other side so not so much screeching to contend with. Well... not from bats anyway!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1217432100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1217432100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1217432100/tpod.html Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:58:39 -0400 A Junk(et) to Hong Kong

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Hong Kong, China

Slept in so late we ended up just having lunch instead of breakfast at Delifrance.

More shopping: this time a little suitcase (to carry all the stuff we've bought), and some shoes for both Jeff and Sherry.

Walked through the rest of the Ladies Markets, including stall-holders who chase you down the street to offer you their stuff at half the price they initially started out at.

Cooled off in the hotel for a while then power-walked to the Ferry terminal for a harbour cruise.

Highlights (and low-lights) of the cruise included: old airport, almost zero commentary, beautiful dusk lighting and sunset.

Back just in time for the Symphony of Lights, and this time we could hear the music too! Pretty cool.

Dinner at the Lava Rock Stonegrill then a bit of shopping on the way home (yes, the shops were still open at 10.30pm!) then home to the hotel.
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Hong Kong, China

Jeff's third day of training.

Today Sherry did her very best to become a molten pile of wax on the pavement by walking around in the heat and humidity for most of the day!

Decided to head up past Mongkok via the Prince Edward (no... not Prince Albert) station and check out a couple of less touristy markets that don't stay open as long.

First stop was the fresh flower market, which really was more like a street of flower shops than actual markets, but they did have lots of beautiful flowers and orchids. I was there early enough to see the picked flowers being delivered - i.e. boxes being thrown out of the back of trucks onto the road. I can see why each bloom is individually wrapped! Best part here was the nice airconditioned waft when I walked past all the open shop fronts. Ahhhh, relief from that ever present humidity! 8 )

After this I headed over to the bird market which was fairly small and mainly had fairly plain brown sparrowy looking birds. These were all cooped up in tiny cages but the shop owners would rotate the cages out into the sun and under a sprinkler etc to give the birds some respite. They also had nice bags of live crickets, locusts and millipedes for sale to spoil your favourite chirper with. hmmm, yummy!

After this I continued onto the Nan Lian Garden, or as I re-named it the "this path is also blocked" garden. Seemed that every path that went too close to the pretty pagodas etc was blocked off. Made it easier to get a picture without a hundred tourists in front of things though! This was the hotest stop of the day. Literally felt like someone had tipped a bucket of sweat over my head when I was standing in the sun framing photos.

A walkway here over the road connected to the Chi Lin Nunnery which had very inviting looking water in its lilly pools in the forecourt. Very pretty statues and altars here but unfortunately not allowed to take pictures of the inside.

After this I walked around a local shopping centre trying to cool down. Bizzarely found a Marks & Spencer store here (what the?) but sadly they didn't have mini poppadums. Had Maccas for lunch again and shared my table with an Indian lady and her two daughters. She kept looking at my beef burger while chowing down on her chicken nuggets. Not sure if she was grossed out or was wondering what "cow" tastes like.

Having managed to both cool down and collect some more kak, I hopped onto the train again and headed back to check out the Jade markets for Tracey. I seemed to be the only customer in the first place I went into - a large covered area with lots of different stalls in it. I bought a couple of pieces from one of the first stalls, took some pics and then practically ran though the rest of the market as the stall owners were all getting excited. Found a fruit & vege market nearby selling lots of nice looking food.. and the invariably smelly durian of course. Skirted past the outside of a wet market (didn't want to go in there!) and then back to Sam's tailors to collect my shirts and pants.

Was only about 4pm by this stage but I was so hot I just headed back to the hotel and had a nice cold bath and then a bit of a nap while waiting for Jeff.

After Jeff arrived, got changed and had his own little power nap we headed out again. Went back to Temple St Markets with Jeff to exchange a watch we bought the day before and ended up buying heaps of other stuff. Visited the Electronics street and Ladies markets in Mongkok. There's just so many people out shopping all the time, and it's really interesting how an entire street will be full of electronic stores. 4 blocks, both sides - chokkas with them and only broken up by the occasional deli or eatery.

Speaking of food... we found the Krispy Kreme store here and have dutifuly noted it on a map for Tracey. Also saw a ladies clothing shop with the somewhat disturbing name of "Wanko". There are a few other disturbing shop names here eg "Fook" seems very popular and is on the back of every bus, not to mention other shop names. Every time we see it, we can't help thinking of the Japanese twins from Austin Powers.

Avoided gagging over the steaming vats of mystery meat on the street corners and called it a night.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1217173680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1217173680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1217173680/tpod.html Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:50:18 -0400 A Junk(et) to Hong Kong

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Hong Kong, China

Slept in quite late but just made it downstairs in time for the end of their breakfast buffet.

Back up stairs to our room to pack then caught a cab to the airport (VERY hazy but this was only Medium pollution level - would hate to be here on a bad day!). Then caught the plane home again!

Arrived home late, unpacked, then took photos of all our kak and went to sleep. Very tired!
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Hong Kong, China

Jeff's fourth and last day of training.

Not a very successful day for Sherry today. Seemed that everything I went to look at was either not that great or I couldn't even find it!
Started off by heading over to the tourist office to pick up another couple of maps for me and Tracey as I'd lost mine somewhere or other. This was near the Start Ferry pier on Kowloon side so had fun playing "dodge the tailor tout" before heading into the MTR and over to HK island to suss out the longest outside pedestrian escalator in the world. At 800m it's nothing to sneeze at.... but it's also not the most photogenic of tourist attractions.

I exited this at Hollywood road. Sounds promising by name but was not that interesting or nice to walk along. Found a jewllery store called "Rock Candy" which sounded really unique in LP, but turned out to "meh" and not worth it (bloody pricey too!). Continued along Hollywood road to the Man Mo temple. Lots of coils of smoking incense (or were they giant mozzie coils??) hanging from the ceiling in this temple. Quite interesting to look at but the smoke soon gets to you, plus playing dodge the embers is a bit tricky.

Next stop was the Cat street market and upper Lascar row.... basically a street full of old junk, err, I mean antiques and strangely lots of what looked like car repair shops welding and grinding metal whatsit bits.
After this I tried to find the Western Market as it was nearby according to the map and numerous signs, but after going around in circles I gave up.
Lots of interesting and smelly fishy things drying on the sidewalks around here. Heaps of black things that looked like bananas but I think were actually sea cucumbers. As in the Cooks I did my best not to step on these! Also whole fish drying on the ground here. I'm sure all the truck exhaust fumes add a delicate flavour!

Off it (HK island side) after all these unsuccessful forays so back to Tsim Sha Tsui via lovely aircon train.

With Jeff, took the subway to Central then walked to the start of the Peak Tram which is actually a railway up to the top of Victoria Peak overlooking the HK Harbour. The queue took about 45 min and was full of hot pushing and shoving people (including an actual stampede to get into the tram itself!). Sherry elbowed a kid here because he kept whacking into her while jigging around with his sister and he actually looked shocked that she did this! Although pushing is a natural way of life here agression doesn't seem to be so I was probably quite rude doing this. But hey, the little bugger stopped!
There was a great view from the Peak plus a nice cool breeze so it was very pleasant up there. Had dinner in a Western-style restaurant and decided to avoid the crowds by walking back down the side of the mountain, much to Sherry's initial resistance (yet another crazy Jeffrey idea)!

However, it was nice to get away from the crowds and the light of Jeff's mobile was enough to see the steps and make it down without falling into any gushing streams. Took about an hour to do the walk, so not too much longer than waiting for the tram, plus we had the benefit of getting away from the crowds.

Took the midnight subway, which was the first time we've actually seen a train with less than 5m people on it (so took photos to prove it does happen sometimes!).
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1216736460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1216736460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1216736460/tpod.html Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:32:57 -0400 A Junk(et) to Hong Kong

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Hong Kong, China

Jeff's first day of training so off to work for him and off to play for Sherry!

After booking a tour to Lantau island for the next day and attempting to book one to Shezhen for Saturday, I headed off in search of the famous Sam's tailor on Nathan Road. Found this very easily and had soon signed up for 2 pairs of trousers and 5 shirts. Took in one of my favourite shirts to be copied so hopefully they'll manage to do that ok. Shop is tiny but walls are plastered with pics of famous clients - Kylie Minogue amongst them!

After this I visited Kowloon Park just up the road. A nice slightly hilly park with gardens, lakes, fountains and a small aviary. The aviary had white cockys and pink & greys in it. They looked pretty knackered by the heat and I could sure empathise with them also being an Aussie out of her natural climate! Also saw a few people practicing Tai Chi in the park during their lunch hour... as you do.

Followed a sign to the Harbour View observation point which although not a tower as expected still had a good view over the Kowloon side of the harbour and towards the container docks.

Around 2pm and had a craving for Maccas which I eventually found after wandering past an Emily the Strange store and the Hard Rock cafe. Very cheap Maccas here. Only about $3 or $4 for a double cheeseburger meal.
Later when I went back to Sams for my first fitting there was a Maccas practically next door. Argh! Typical.

I also checked out Granville Rd - a smaller shopping area off Nathan Road - where there's a good selection of shops minus the agressive touts standing outside on the pavement. Bought a nice bracelet and also some hair products that were about 1/3 the price they are in Australia. Would have bought more but was sick of being followed around the store by the superglue salesgirl.

After my first fitting at Sams I rushed back to the hotel via the nice aircon underground train walkways, showered and went with Jeff to have tea with Fiona and Vincent from Ethan Hathaway (the company Jeff is doing the training for in HK).

Fiona took us to a Chinese restaurant called "1 Peking" (I think) which had an excellent view over Victoria Harbou so we were able to see some of the nightly light show during dinner.

Dinner included some fluoro green spinach soup, which despite appearances was very nice. Saw Chunking Mansions on the way back.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1216648680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1216648680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/robsons/2/1216648680/tpod.html Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:07:51 -0400 A Junk(et) to Hong Kong

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Hong Kong, China

Breakfast at the Charlie Brown café - the food range was a bit limited, but they made up for this with a very extensive range of Snoopy merchandise!

We took the subway and then a bus to Ocean Park on the Southern side of HK island.

We thought it was going to be good - in fact, we were contemplating not going to Disneyland and just visiting Ocean Park instead as Disneyland looked like it might have been a bit too "kiddie" and "Cutsie-pie". However, we soon found that the Americans are much better at theme parks!

Ocean Park has a lot more rides including about 4 different rollercoasters and they are more exciting. It also has quite a few animals and fish so it's a bit more like Seaworld than Disneyworld. But on the day we went, the temp was about 34C plus humidity was 99% ... so it felt like the inside of the sun.

On top of this, it's also school holidays so it seemed like about half of China had descended on the park hence waiting times for most of the good rides were 45-60 minutes. Then because there were so many people there, the volume of everyone calling to ("screeching at") their kids increased.

Even at the best of times, Asian people don't have much concept of waiting in line or letting you go first just because you were there first. If you stand back, they'll just stand in front of you - but you can't get too upset ... that's just how it is in Asia. But when you have thousands of people all trying desperately to get to see the same things, it's hotter than hell itself, and everyone is pushing past you to get to the front, it's more than a little annoying and after a very short time you generally feel like strangling anyone and everyone around you!

So after making the gigantic mistake of crowding into a tropical aquarium full to overflowing of screeching, pushing, shoving Chinese we gave up before either of us went completely mental.

We escaped by jumping on the cable car that goes across the top of the mountain and the tranquillity and cool(ish) breeze were both a breath of fresh air.

We made our way down to see the Pandas, which was fantastic for many reasons, the two most important being that they look like big teddy bears and they love cold climates so the building was VERY air-conditioned. Sherry nearly got shoved out of the way by a Chinese guy trying to buy some Panda kak and even the cashier was embarrassed!

To be fair, Ocean Park might actually be really good on a cooler day if there were less people there so maybe we just picked the wrong day to go.

However, we left as quickly as we could, found a mini-bus headed for Stanley and jumped on. Had some nice lunch in a quiet restaurant overlooking the harbour then bought lots of stuff in the Stanley Markets since the prices seem to be about half what you'd pay in Australia.

Took a nice air-con tax back to HK city for Jeff to do his first fitting, then took the subway back to our hotel. Sherry fell asleep while Jeff went out to find some headache tablets (the Chinese medicine guy tried to sell him some weird Chinese stuff that according to the box would make you harder and longer than you've ever been before ... hmmm) & snacks. Accosted by a little Chinese lady offering "massage" for 200HKD (about AUD30) ... we think this was a genuine massage however as she wasn't dressed "properly" for the other type of massage.
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Hong Kong, China

Flew overnight from Perth to HK & arrived here at 8am. We both slept a little during the flight but feeling very tired!

At HK airport, we bumped into Peter Oldham, a guy we used to work with at BankWest Belmont & hadn't seen for probably 15 years! He's now working for one of the casinos here, managing their internal banking operations.

Took a taxi to the hotel. Taxi driver was one of those crazy drivers who is either accelerating or braking all the time. When the car in front moved 50cm, he'd take off at full speed then slam the brakes on 2 milliseconds later.

We arrived at our hotel which was the main thing. Since the room wouldn't be ready for another hour or so, we went for a stroll along the harbourside walk where all the Chinese theatre stars have their stars and hand-prints in the cement (like a Chinese Hollywood Blvd).

We found a few we recognised: Bruce Lee, Jet Li and a shop selling lots of Jackie Chan stuff including a scary poster of Jackie with his shirt open. Put some clothes on please!

Jeff got accosted by an Indian would-be fortune teller who, in very difficult to understand semi-English, was telling him how lucky he'll be during the next 12-24 months ... including being lucky with his kids! He lost a little credibility right there, and Jeff was finally rescued by a combination of Sherry and the local security guard coming to stand over him.

This was a taste of things to come since throughout the day, we were accosted by primarily Indian men trying desperately to get you to come into their shop to buy either custom-made clothes or fake watches. After a few more mistakes, we eventually learned to just ignore them and keep walking like we don't even understand English. Much safer!

So hot & humid - like most tropical places during summer! Urghh! We were slowing melting away while longing for air-con comfort!

Wandered around some shops a bit then returned to the hotel and Jeff promptly fell asleep for a while, then we both had showers to become human again and had the buffet lunch at one of the hotel's restaurants about 2.30pm.

Took a look around the hotel's facilities including a pool, putting green, gym and tennis court on the roof (!) then headed off on one of the famous Star Ferrys over to HK island. Wandered around there for a bit and ended up at a tailor recommended by Lonely Planet, who (as it turns out) has also provided suits for Cliff Richard, Bob Hawke, and Bill Clinton. Impressive CV and Jeff has now signed up for a suit, 7 shirts, and a tie!

Returned to the hotel, and fell asleep relatively early.
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