Day 107 – 23rd December. Home, sweet home…

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Today we fly home. Our 12 hr flight back to London was pleasant but long. However, the excitement of getting home kept us going. London was not as busy as we expected for 2 days before Xmas. As we drove through central London, we were indulging ourselves at the sights of Xmas London- real Xmas trees, really nice decorations – and loads of them, Oxford street lights, boastful glitter of Harrods. Old buildings, plenty of atmosphere ad character, Natural History Museum, the ice-rink…We missed it. We were looking for the signs of the changed new London, signs of financial downturn, the way it has affected the people on the streets. All we saw was the festive busy London streets with people doing last minute Xmas shopping. Maybe we will notice the change later on?

Even though we are strictly speaking home, we don’t start work until 12^th January. So we are planning to stretch out our time off. London with my family until Xmas eve, than Yorkshire for Xmas and Boxing day – seeing Paul’s family, then quick stop in Nottingham – long enough to get a change of clothes, and back to London for few days.

Good to be back. Many new exciting things to look forward to. Many good old friends to catch us with. And we get our free internet, proper washing machine with hot water, clean tea towels, cutlery and pans we don’t need to fight for, and comfy bed. Not much to ask for.

Those who have followed our journey with this blog – thank you – it meant a lot to us. We very much enjoyed it – for our own sake. As a reminder of all our adventures. Plus it will make the job of catching us with everyone a little easier. Talk to you all later face-to-face.

Day 106 – 22nd December. Dedicated to Harold and Vivien. Victoria Peak. Harbour Cruise.

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This morning was our last chance to get a god view of HK from the height of Victoria Peaks – a very tall hill above HK island. The journey there was quite cool too – we decided to take a tram which proved rather challenging: the first one didn’t go to where we thought it would, then we had to miss a few as they were too full to get on and eventually made our way through the city centre, across the financial district to the bottom of Victoria Peak. It was quite entertaining to watch the transformation from the busy shopping streets, through to loads of little alley ways with tiny shops, street stalls and hundreds of people, to the spacious glamorous financial area. Big wide streets, tall all-glass sky scrapers, greenery , small parks, smart people in suits, no chaos, minimalistic style of the streets – no silly shops or eateries, but tidy signs for western outlets like Starbucks or Pizza Express pointing to inside the glass sky scrapers. Glamorous, stylish and serious. The residential buildings were different too: some actually looked old with Victorian architecture, walled off with private gardens, big spacious rooms seen through French windows, and not as tall as the buildings in the city centre. Expensive. The kind of HK we had imagined.

We got to the tram stop to get us up to the top: even though it was called a tram, it was actually a cable car which went along a monorail up the very steep hill. The cable car was built in the early 19^th century. Even back then the European settlers realized the lack of land and demand for premium spots. So they developed the area at the top of Victoria hill as the elite place to live – spacious buildings amazing views, away from the crowds and separated from the rest of HK by the tram ride. It still retains its exclusive status today with very expensive exclusive accommodation, a shopping mall, very swanky restaurants and a great tourist attraction. Once on the top, however, we felt a bit of anti-climax. There was no view!!! All we could see was a blanket of haze, fletching as far as you could see to the horizon. Grey mushroom cloud making the outline of the island virtually invisible, let alone the outlying islands and the sky rises. You could just about make out the harbour and the biggest skyscrapers. Incredible pollution – worse than Santiago! We felt that as the major tourist attraction it did not show the best side of HK. It is not something a city could be proud of. We took as many photos as we could but not a lot came out. For lunch we went for one of th restaurants in the complex with what potentially could be great views of HK underneath us. We went for Italian – it was almost empty so we got the best seats by the windows and drugged the meal out to make the most of the spot. After the Victoria Peak we made our way slowly back to Kowloon – we had to pick up Paul’s new suit. It took a while as we walked through the financial district, went past a big building project – which is going to be an expansion of waterfront promenade and some greenery to create some open space in this otherwise over-crowded city. We took the ferry over – even though we’ve done the ferry quite a few times, it was still very special. ow in the sunset, the city had a different appearance. Once in Kowloon, we split our forces as we were determined to catch the harbour cruise to see the symphony of lights from the ship. Paul went to pick his suit and also a pair of shirts we ordered from the tailor for Paul’s dad, and I went to the official Chinese arts and crafts centre to pick up the remaining Xmas presents. As the results, we were done in time. Our harbour cruise was leaving from HK side so we had to cross the water again. We got our tickets for the ship which was leaving at 7:20 pm, with just enough time to have a drink beforehand. We went for the Watermarks restaurant on the central HK pier. We sat on the outdoor terrace, just the two of us, watching Kowloon lights in th dark and watching the ships come and go.

The harbour cruise was the highlight of our trip. We got on the star ferry cruise ship – with plenty of space inside and both front and back deck space open – perfect to watch the light show. Th ship went around the Victoria harbour – for an hour – with a running commentary in English. We had stunning night views of the HK island and Kowloon side, and then as an icing on the cake we went for the last lights show at 8 pm – being on the boat, we got to see the lights on both sides of the harbour. Brilliant.

For our last meal in HK we decided to follow our guide book advice – we went for a traditional Cantonese place that is meant to be popular with the locals. It certainly was! When we got there, the name of the restaurant was different to the one in the guidebook, but it was heaving, looked nice so we went in. By pure co-incidence, they also had a wedding reception – a big party of the Chinese, with the bride in the traditional big white dress, and the veil, plus a couple of bridesmaids in matching dresses. It was really interesting to watch bits of the reception – but they were in a private part of the restaurant, walled off from the the rest of us. We heard some speeches in Chinese, music, dancing and we got a peak at the room – the bride and groom plus the families all sat at the high table with hundreds of guests at the round, well decorated tables. We weren’t sure if they had the actual ceremony bit in the same restaurant before we got there, or if they had it in a church – that will remain the mystery. The food was really impressive – the best we’ve had in HK. We started off with roasted 1/2 duck, followed by scallop hot pot – essentially clear soup with boiled vegetables, mushrooms and seafood, plus a separate seafood Chinese dish. It was interesting that nowhere on the menu did they have the kind of dishes we invariably get in UK – like the stir fries with the usual sauces. Their dishes seemed more variable and exciting, and tasted better too. We also had a dandelion herbal tea. It was interesting to notice the locals behavior during the meal – it seemed that nobody would be ordering separate dishes – all the food was ordered for the whole table and it was all shared out. They were also very loud – the whole place was buzzing and you had to shout too to have any chance of being heard. It seemed quite normal to raise your arm and click fingers to attract the waitresses. All the food that arrived to the tables was carefully inspected by the Chinese and some dishes were sent back after some heated discussions. They obviously take their food very seriously.

So, before we knew it, our “early” night turned into our latest yet – we left the restaurant at 11pm, with a task to buy a new luggage bag. We got so carried away with buying presents that we couldn’t fit into our existing bags. After some hunting, we managed to find a nice bag – possible as many shops were open till midnight, and some till 1am. And they were busy! There were as many people around at midnight as they were in the day time.

By the time we packed, we had 3 hrs left to catch some sleep, before our alarm going off at 4:30am.

We went to bed with mixed feelings. On one hand, we were very excited to be back home, for Christmas, to see all our families, friend, catch up on all the gossip and tell everyone about our travels. On the other hand, we were sad, as this meant the end of our exciting travels – for some time, at least. We promised to each other a while ago, that coming back to UK was not going to be the end of our adventures, or honeymoon altitude to life. We have had a amazing start to our married life – the best we could ever have. And we intend to preserve as much of it as possible no matter where we are or what jobs we do.

At this point of our journey we would also like to express our gratitude to Paul’s parents – Harold and Vivien. They totally took over our lives back in UK and managed everything we left behind – starting from our post to sorting out our cars, tax discs, facilitating us getting the jibs, our bank accounts, all our bills – the list goes on and on. Plus, in my absence, also helping with my families’ house on London. There was not day when we didn’t remember them and their help. Our travels would not be possible without all their help. So, in all honesty, we can say that we owe our amazing honeymoon to Harold and Vivien. It is a gift we would never be able to pay back – it is truly priceless. But we can say “thank you”. Thank you so much!!!!

Day 105 – 21st December. More shopping! The symphony of lights

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This morning was even more hazy and cloudy than before so we used it as excuse to skip the Victoria Peak and went straight for shopping. That is after a breakfast inn Starbucks – there are hundreds of them everywhere and that was our little treat – we weren’t u for noodle for breakfast yet!

The streets were really busy with shoppers, loads of Xmas decorations,everyone buying loads of presents so we got in the Xmas presents mood and joined the shopping frenzie. Sadly, we found that electronic stuff was not any cheaper than in UK and some items – like digital frames were even quite a bit more than in UK. Other stuff, like designer clothes etc seemed to be a little cheaper – mostly as HK has no VAT – so we made the most of it. Clothes shopping was somewhat depressing though – I was asking for their biggest sizes they had and the clothes was still far too small for me! So I bought nothing whereas Paul did manage to fit into XL. After browse through fancy shops in the fashion walk, we went to a massive 15 storey shopping centre in Times Square. We stalked up on some travel gadgets from Eagle Creek, nearly bought ourselves a pair of waterproof winter jackets from NorthFace – but when we had a cheeky look at similar jackets prices in UK we were surprised to find them at least 70 pounds cheaper in UK! Good job we didn’t. The lunch was brilliant. We went for a traditional Chinese restaurant inside the shopping centre. And had our best dim sum ever. The best were steamed ones with prawns and also doughy balls with pork – we are now on a mission to find something as good in London. By now we are also quite experts in chop sticks as well as Chinese tea.

We still had a mission of finding some photo products – to see if we can could get some bargain gadgets for our cameras. We found on internet that a place called Stanley street was meant to be good for camera shops. So, we get there and find the whole place shut! Sunday! they open tomorrow.. annoying.

Our next stop on our tourists itinerary is the Fish and birds market. We get there in time to catch the beautiful flower market with loads of orchids and real Xmas trees. We had to abort our plan to go to the birds market though: Paul managed to step on my foot ad as the result I broke my Teever shoe, in such a way that I couldn’t really walk wearing it. And I didn’t fancy hopping around barefoot. So instead we went to the nearby clothes street market hoping to a replacement. After few stalls I was just asking for ANY shoes that would be my size – pink, trainers – don’t care. No luck. The biggest size anyone had was 39 – but that felt so small I couldn’t even put any of them on ( I am 38 back in UK). So, I found a nice Chinese lady who was selling flowers and begged her for a piece of string and sticky tape to mend my shoe to get me through the evening. We still wanted to catch the symphony of lights at 8pm so had no time to get back to the hotel. On the way back though we went via the fish market. We saw some really impressive aquariums with beautiful corals and tropical fishes – not as good as Galapagos, of course, but nevertheless, very pretty to watch.

Back to Kowloon harbour, we were running to the Avenue of Stars – equivalent of Hollywood in HK, and also is a good place to watch the symphony of lights. This is daily light show, which consists of loads of laser lights all lighting up simultaneously off the major tallest buildings in HK. Plus, the existing lights on both sides of the harbour, all to the music and running commentary. This show is actually in the Guinness book of records as the biggest outdoor laser light show in the world. We got a bit stuck fighting through the crowds, cars, subway, shops and so didn’t quite make it but managed to see some of it from the gardens of Intercontinental hotel. So we decided to see it properly the next evening.

Our dinner plan was going to be a safe choice of Jimmy’s Kitchen – supposed to be one of the oldest restaurants in Kowloon. When we got there however the place was deserted so we opted for a dodgy Japanese place down in basement. It was quite easy – everything on the menu was 10 dollars ( a pound) and you just ordered as many items as you wanted – like a tapas bar – a good way to try different things. Even the beer was 10 dollars/bottle so we stayed there for quite a bit…Eventually we staggered back to the tube and got ourselves back to HK island.

By now we were quite used to the crazy pace of the place, the weird foods, the noise and pollution. It almost felt energizing to be part of this buzzing crowd, and rather than watching it all as outsiders we were joining in. However, the knowledge that we only had few days there and then we could escape to the less overwhelming environment was quite comforting.

We couldn’t ever imagine living in one of these cramped flats above a busy shopping street, having a wet room instead of a toilet with a bath, no escape from the crowds and the crazy 24 hr lifestyle. Truly a city that never sleeps or rests. Too much.

Day 104 – 20th December. Kowloon. Nathan street. Ladies Market.

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We woke with the intension to follow our guide book suggestion and see Hong Kong from the top of Victoria Peak. It also advised to to do it on a clear day for better views. It was hard to judge the weather as even with my head stuck against the window I could just see the grey blocks of flats with a tiny patch of sky of unknown colour far in the distance. Once on the street it seemed a bit hazy even though the sky had no clouds – so we decided to do it tomorrow. The streets were a little less hectic compared to last night, but still already full of shoppers and noise and traffic. We took a tube to Central from where you can get a Star ferry across from Hong Kong island to Kowloon. Kowloon is meant to be more down to earth, with more Chinese pop-n (as opposed to Hong Kong locals on the island), with loads of shopping, hotels etc. Hong Kong island in turn is meant to be more upmarket, more touristy, also is where the financial district is, some of the remaining temples and old houses.

The ferry across the Victoria harbour which only takes 10-15min was really interesting. You could see both banks with its incredibly high sky rises – offices, hotels and so on – and they just kept going climbing up the mountain slopes, disappearing somewhere in the haze. We got a good idea of Honk Kong outline from the plane yesterday and we could see some of its mountains and hills from the ferry. Hong Kong territory actually consists of over 160 islands, and a bulk of whats known as Hong Kong is on the mainland of China – Kowloon and the New Territories. Its hard to believe the guide book, but apparently 80% of Hong Kong is a national park with forests, loads of walks, beaches, wetlands and so on. When Hong Kong was given back to China by the Brits in1997, the Hong Kong became the Special Administrative Region- SAR of China. This means that a person from the Republic of China needs a special permit/?visa to come to SAR. The main industry of Hong Kong now is finances, service industry, and tourism- a lot from the Chinese themselves.

Anyhow, we were on a mission. We were after making Paul a made-to-measure suit to take home with us. Paul’s parents found a good tailor when they visited Hong Kong – so we had his address in Kowloon. However, on our way there we were approached by at least 20 tailors all offering custom-made suits. Plus everyone seemed to think that we needed copy-made “designer” watches. We wanted to do some”market research” before ordering the suit so we popped in to see a couple of random tailors. They all promise to do you the best suit from genuine Italian or English wool/cashmere in 48 – for a good quality material for about $HK1800 (just under 180 pounds), plus shirts/ties etc. Although you could get a wool/polyester suit for under 1000. So we were quite surprised when the tailor recommended by Paul’s dad was going to charge us more than twice the price for everything. He did have more staff hanging around the place and his office was bigger and he looked more affluent – ?was it because he had higher overheads, or because he was actually much better than the others? Paul decided to make the decision over lunch. We eventually decided to conduct an experiment and order a suit from each tailor – i.e. 2xsuits, compare them and decide if the “posher” tailor was twice as good. They also do postal orders back to UK – so they keep your measurements and next time you want another suit you just get one made from their catalog. I can tell you now that by the time we managed to come back to the same street, the posh tailor was already closed so we had no choice but go with the other guy. In between we went to explore Nathan street – also called the golden mile due to the number of shops/businesses etc and expensive land. We tried to follow our guide book for shopping suggestions, and somehow ended up on the back streets with shops selling scrap metal, raw meats hanging off hooks right on the streets, some spare parts of all kind etc. We were also desperate for some food and some rest for our feet. We decided to be brave and walked to a food court of some sort which seemed busy enough with the locals. there were different stalls cooking food right there. We figured out if we ordered hot food it would at least be sterile, and at 1.50 pounds per meal we could leave it if it was nasty. We pointed to some pictures and I got fried fish with rice and Paul got beef noddles. It was only after we finished eating I saw them doing the dishes. Good job it was after – as the food actually tasted really good but I wouldn’t have eaten it had I known about the dish washing. A woman had a bucket full of dirty dishes and stuff from the kitchen – all on the floor by the stall. There was a bucket with brown soapy water and a bucket of less browny and less soapy water for rinsing. No running water. No hot water. God knows what was happening behind the counter where they cooked the food. I can tell now that we got away with it – no D or V.

After lunch we continued our walk – it was really interesting seeing many different little random shops, big department stores, many side streets with busy street food. Very few white tourists,until we got to a smart looking area called Knight’s steps. It had several European restaurants, bars, a couple of pubs, some designer shops, a couple of expensive hotels and that seemed the epicenter for the white tourists. But we didn’t mind going ff the beaten track – after Solomons this seemed like a walk in the park.

Before we knew it, it was late afternoon and we needing another break. Surprisingly, very few places to sit down and have a drink on the streets – its either some fast food places like McDonald’s or Chinese eateries. We spotted some neon signs for coffee bars along the buildings – somewhere above the ground- so we decided to try them out out. That turned into a task by itself. First of all, we had to find a way to get inside this tall building to go up several floors to the cafes. After walking around the building in circles we did find the entrance door. And the lift. We got into the lift with a Chinese man, pressed our floor – 6th. Nothing happened. The Chinese man then started pressing all the buttons randomly – different floors, open/close doors etc, the lift moved up and we came to arrest on the 16^th floor. But the doors weren’t opening. The mad Chinese man started pressing all the buttons again like a maniac, I was trying to stop him and call out emergency team to get us out. After very long 5 min the doors opened and we were out. Surprise, surprise, we went by stairs! We managed to find the coffee shop on the 6^th floor, and pointed to something on the menu that looked like tea and coffee. Paul was successful, and I only managed to get a glass of hot water on a 3^rd attempt. Never mind. We kept going. Our next stop was the Ladies market – outdoors street market which sells pretty much anything but especially womens clothes. We browsed through the stalls, more for comedy value as the stuff there was very hideous, plastic and generally crap. It was quite amusing though and it was quite late by the time we left it. After our adventurous lunch we went for the safe option of Pizza Hut. We haven’t been to pizza Hut for ages so were pleasantly surprised, and the view was pretty good too: we were watching the busy streets underneath us from the safety of our comfy table. And, we knew what we ordered – always a bonus!

After dinner we kept walking along Nathan street in our search of Broadway shop: in our guide book it was listed as one of the biggest amongst this chain which sells all th electronic goods. We walked the length of Nathan street and found the address for the shop as in our book- to find nothing even vaguely electrical. The shop must have moved or the book was wrong. So we gave and went back to the tailors but Paul’s dad’s one was already shut. So the other guy got the business. We chose the material for the suit, two shirts and Paul got measured. We just managed to get the last ferry back to Hong Kong island. Quite spectacular.

Day 103 – 19th December. Bye Bye Australia. Welcome Hong Kong.

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This morning was a reasonably early start – unexpectedly 2 hrs later than we thought as of last night: Paul was under impression we had 8am flight so we arranged airport transfer etc appropriately. However, quite by chance we looked at the print out of the ticket the night before and discovered the actual time 2hrs later – good job we found out- saved us more time in bed!

The plane journey was really cool: we flew with Qantas and the service/food/entertainment was just brilliant. We had good seats and a TV screen each with remote control and movies on demand. They had over 20 films to choose from plus the games etc. That together with two hot meals and loads of drink rounds made the 9 hr flight go very quickly. We watched 3xfilms each: I watched the Brideshead re-visited – pleasant enough, Miss Petitgrew lives for a day- very light-hearted, and the Ghost town with Ricky Gervais – very good, funny and feel -good film. Paul watched the boys’ films – Hancock, Wanted and Trophic Thunder – the latter was very daft even though it had Tom Cruise in it. Flights like this make you want to fly just for the sake of flying.

We arrived to Hong Kong early evening – only 1 hr time difference from Perth. We decided to travel from the airport in a backpacker style – ie. the good old public transport. The airport express train to the Central Station was quite straight forward. We then got fully engulfed into the Friday evening Hong Kong rash-hour/the last week-end before Xmas madness. The underground was bursting, everyone running around like crazy chickens so we with our big backpacks like snails got on the way of Hong Kong flow. Navigation was quite easy – unlike the Moscow underground they had English names for each station as well as the Chinese characters. Our hostel was near the Causeway bay tube – in the area well known for its high-end designer shops and classy shopping centres, as well as restaurants, cinemas, bars etc. In fact, the street we stayed on (Patterson str) is called the Fashion Walk. We emerged from the underground looking forward to a breath of fresh air and escape from the tube grounds…. I almost wanted to get back under the surface as soon as we got out. I have never seen anything like it: there were rivers of people all moving in different directions but each individual one very determined, very focused trying to get from A to B in the most direct and efficient way. They were all making some form of loud noises too – most on mobile phones, or talking to each other trying to over-come the overall hum. In between there were cars trying to fight their ways through the human traffic. Plus various street sellers pushing their goods trolleys. Plus the buses. Plus the trams. People aside, the whole place from the ground level to high up somewhere in the sky was lit up in a quite a crazy way: hundreds of different signs, pictures,adverts – all trying to be the brightest, the flushest, the most colourful, the biggest. and you can’t quite tell where one sign stops and next one begins – they all merge into one big neon bubble. As the result, we even felt like it was day time – it was so light. And the smell…. It was quite remarkable too. Even though we were totally outside, it seemed that we were inside some huge kitchen – so big that fitted tens of different cuisines all generating its own aroma – mixed into one heavy cloud. The smell was so strong I almost wanted to touch it. And, did it stink! I can’t describe it, but it was bad. Stale, like gone-off food that was re-heated with extra smelly spices thrown in for extra strength. We were quite hungry while on the tube but this certainly put us off any dinner. I must make it clear: we were in the top end of town. on one of the most fashionable streets of Honk Kong! We fought our way through the crowds, smell, dazzle of lights to our hostel. Or the address of where the hostel is supposed to be. We found this hostel in our guide book as the best value for money in Hong Kong. Paul’s parents recommended a nice international hotel to us – Marco Polo, but it was fully booked when we inquired. So we decided to be adventurous. The location was very good – central, in the busy area of Hong Island itself, as opposed to most other budget hostels which tend to be far inland in Kowloon – the tip of the mainland of China. Our hostel was on the 3^rd floor of a massive blocks of flats above the ground floor of designer shops. As we got to the lift, we noticed a big sign on the main wall, and few other places around the place later. In big letters in Chinese and English it read on the line of: The hostel in this building is illegal. The hostel does not have the legal license and the residents association of this building are in process of trying to close it down. Any injury to guests or property within the hostel premises are the guest’s responsibility. Great! So, we managed to find some dodgy illegal hostel and we are the subject of the building’s hater and misery. We thought we’ll just keep quiet and pretend we haven’t seen the signs. I attempted to ask the girl who gave us the key about the current situation from a legal point of view – she just shook her head as she spoke not a word of English. Neither could she use the credit card machine – so we were trusted not to run away overnight without paying. The hostel itself was essentially two floors of flats that been converted to tiny tiny rooms – some dorms, some private. We had our own room. This included enough floor space to fit a double bed and a tiny wardrobe which was also a shelf for a small TV. plus a wall mirror with a shelf. The rest of the floor space was required to be empty so that we could actually the room’s door. It was en-suite. This meant a tiny tiny tiny space or a wardrobe, walled off the room with a sliding plastic door. On the other side of of it there was a western style toilet with a tiny sink, altogether enough space to be able to sit on the toilet without getting your elbows or knees sticking into the walls or the plastic door. In the book this was described as en-suite bathroom. In reality, Paul identified it as a wet room. This meant a shower had suspended from the wall right over the toilet seat. The ting to do when you want a shower is to close the toilet seat (otherwise the water from the shower will go straight into the toilet bowl and might splash out etc…:-) ), remove items such as toilet paper, towel etc and not move our arms too much or you catch on the walls. Ad try to dry within that space afterwards otherwise the whole room floor – all that big space – will be covered in water. The tiny tiny window was facing the main shopping street and its bars /restaurants. Even with the best efforts you couldn’t quite close it so we got the street noise as a little extra too. It was clean though and somebody emptied our bin daily.

We damped our bags, had a quick shower in our wet room and ventured back outside for some food – by then we were so hungry that even the smell didn’t put us off.

Back on the streets there was chaos. It felt more like inside some sort of movie than reality – like some part of a movie set – this cannot be their everyday life?! Maybe it was especially busy because of Friday night, or because of Xmas or both. The shops we full to the rim with everyone loaded up with tonnes of designer bags. It really made Oxford street on the last w/e before Xmas look tame and empty. Hundreds of restaurants with big neon signs, bars etc and people queuing outside on the streets to get in. We had to walk along the streets very slow due to the sheer number of people trying to squeeze onto the pavements. Dinner-wise, we weren’t sure what to go for – all the places we walked past just had Chinese characters, some had pictures of food or plastic models in the windows – which all looked unrecognizable. And many more signs for food places were suggesting going up the floors so you couldn’t see from the street what it looked like. We took a gamble and went for a big shiny sign of Seafood Restaurant – it was in English as well as Chinese and it was only on the 1^st floor. When we went upstairs there were at least a dozen of people waiting to get in – but we figured out it would be the same everywhere. So we waited too. Once seated, they did produce a menu in English – it looked like the core staples of the restaurant rather than the full translation of every dish available. Probably a good thing – we weren’t in the mood for duck webs or intestines or sea cucumbers or chicken cartilage etc. Reading the menu it also said they won many awards for their cuisine- and we did see many certificates on the walls. In retrospect, that was reflected in the prices. However, since we ordered quite “safe” dishes like fried rice with fish etc it was nothing different to an average Chinese. We got a feeling that to appreciate the difference we would have to order the very expensive signature dishes- like abalone, or birds nests, or whole duck or chicken. We were the only white people in the whole place and got a few looks from the locals.

We made our way – it was nearly midnight by then, but the streets were still just as busy and the new customers were still coming in for dinner as we were leaving.

Day 102 – 18th December. Rottnest Island

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In one sentence: a brilliant day!

Rottnest island is a little island just off the Perth coastline. It is very famous for its beautiful beaches, unusual wildlife with the the whole island being a nature reserve, and for it historical sites. It only has a pop-n of 400 but many more visit it for a day or stay in one of the holiday homes longer. It has no private cars – just a public bus that takes 45 min to go around the island, plus there is a train and a small airport. The journey itself to get there was really interesting: we took a ferry from the central Perth pier to Fremantle. On the way we got a sightseeing commentary from the captain ho told us about many sights we went past on our ship on the Swan River. It wasn’t as impressive as Sydney Harbour and a lot more spread out. When we got to Fremantle we had to change to another ship that took us to Rottnest island. It was midday when we arrived. after going to the visitors centre we decided to rent a couple of bikes rather than seeing the island on the bus – more fun and more flexible that way. And as we discovered later, more challenging: it was+30, not a cloud in the sky and not a patch of shadow on the island, with many hills and single gear bikes… But we managed. Our first stop on our bikes was Salmon Bay – supposed to be one of the most stunning bays in the island. We based ourselves under a hanging rock right on the beach for a bit of shadow and had the whole bay (3km) to ourselves. We sat there in the rock shadow eating our Subway sandwiches we got from the main settlement before setting of – great! We didn’t go swimming there as the shore lines was full of rocks and the surf was quite rough. So after our picnic lunch we pressed on across the island. With no buildings, or cars or hardly any other cyclists around we felt pretty isolated. Yet we could see the sky rises of Perth in the distance. We cycled past several saltwater lakes – some of them bright pink in colour with a white ridge around. Pink because they are 4-6xtime saltier than the sea and so the special algae and bacteria which survive this salt make the water look pink. these lakes are home to many birds and other animals. The other interesting creatures we saw on our way are qoukes. They look like very big rats with long tails. They walk on the back feet like kangaroos and make really loud whistling noises. They were the first living things that the Dutch explorers saw when they found Rottnest Island back in 17^th century and numerous egg nests of quokes. They thought they were rats and called the island the Rottnest – in Dutch rat nest. They didn’t like the look of the Rottnest so they left Rottnest. It wasn’t till the Europeans colonized Australia in 19^th century and used Rottnest as damping ground for Aborigines prisoners that it became populated. they built barracks for the prisoners as we as the army base – all these historical buildings are preserved and are now used as holiday accommodation.

We also had our 3^rd Australian encounter with a snake. We were cycling on tarmac road when I saw it – the tiger brown snake stretched across the road. I was so!!! scared and worried that Paul might cycle across it – so I started screaming “Snake, snake!”. Instead of stopping, Paul turned around to me thinking the snake was near me – fortunately the snake disappeared in the bushes just as Paul was about to run over it. 3 snakes is more than enough for one trip.

Eventually we got to a beautiful bay with a white sandy beach and crystal clear blue waters. There were several people on the beach – mostly all from the mooring yachts nearby. We dropped our clothes as soon as we got to the beach and run into the water – nice and cool after the hot cycle ride. Perfect swimming spot. We could have easily stayed there all day but sadly we had to give our bikes back in the settlements by 3:30PM. So, refreshed, we cycled back. The last ferry wasn’t till 6 pm so we decided to hang around Rottnest for as lon a possible: bikeless, we took the free bus shuttle to the nearest beach at Kingstown. Again very beautiful bay and hardly any people around. We got straight into the water again enjoying still clear waters. This idyllic atmosphere was broken when I suddenly felt something jelly like touching my hand. No sting. But I immediately recognized it as a stinger jelly fish, also called as boxed jelly fish. I screamed and swam back to the shore as fast as I could, grubbing Paul on the way out too. Once out, I approached a local family who looked like they have been there for while to ask if they have across and jelly fish. The woman was just answering me back as her son in the water suddenly started screaming and rubbing his face: I got stung by jelly fish! He got the stinger right on his face. So, the answer to my question was a Yes. We spent the rest of our time on the beach on the land,admiring the deceptively inviting waters from a safe distance. I felt very lucky that I managed to get away lightly.

An hour an half later, we got the shuttle bus back to the ferry terminal. We had enough time for quick drink before getting the ferry. It was quite a special spot: we sat in Australian chain cafe Dome, outside on the terrace, overlooking the harbour and a the jetty. Still very warm outside, with beautiful beaches right in front of us and faint city buildings far in distance just highlighted the get-away paradise location.

The ferry back was a lot more rocky – quite expected as they normally get the “fresh breeze” after lunch on the coast. In fact, the waves were so high that many on the outside deck were soaked wet – price to pay for the good views.

Once in Fremantle, we got the train back to Perth on the usual train. As it was our last night in Australia we decided to go out for quick dinner rather than fluffing with cooking in the hostel. We went for a very busy Vietnamese place – we figured that queues of customers trying to get in was a good recommendation. Plus it was BYO place too. There are loads of BYO places in Oz and it seems very popular with the locals. The queues were justified – we got really good food for next to nothing prices. Even so, we felt some sense of occasion as this was our last night in Australia. We reminisced over last few weeks here – the best places we’ve seen, what we thought about Oz and the people here. We both agreed that WA was great to see and it left quite an impression on us: the remoteness, lack people, the vastness, the climate, the true desert, the red soil, and of course some real germs in the midst of nothing – like the Gorges in Karijini, the Pinnacles etc. If we ever went back to Oz we would probably do Melbourne as a city and see more of WA – go up to Kimberley, which is North of Broome. It is meant to be quite stunning during the dry season, and it is also the place where they filmed Australia. But plenty more other places to see before we would contemplate re-visiting Oz. People-wise, we found the locals very, very lay back – ?almost too much?, very down to earth – bordering on the line of simple, with quite a lack of sophistication, mystery, diplomacy of Brits. Paul called it “rough edges”. Things in Australia somehow are almost too loud, too big, too obvious, too straight. But we can certainly see the appeal of “no-nonsense”, live to surf and sun worship lifestyle.

the last night in our hostel was literally quite painful – we became a feast for an army of mosquitoes. There are loads of them here, together with flies. Ad the closer to the coast, the worse it is. Every country has its own annoying living creature – for Oz it definitely the flies(I don’t count the most venomous snakes, spider, crocks etc as hopefully you don’t see these every minute of the day). NZ had its sand flies. Solomons – malaria. We are about to find out what it is in Hong Kong.

Day 101 – 17th December. Fremantle.

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After quite a lazy late start with a bit of a hang-over from the night before, we eventually faced the sunny hot day – to catch a train to Fremantle. It is a town with pop-n of 25,000 about 20 km South of Perth. Despite the short distance, it had a very different feel and atmosphere compared to Perth. For starters, it has many old historical buildings back to 1829. This is unlike Perth, where most of the historical architecture was demolished to clear space for offices, modern blocks of flats and big roads back in 1960s when Perth boomed with the iron ore industry. Shame. Fremantle is also the major port and has a really nine harbor with seaside esplanade many cafes, restaurants, bars and so on. It is also famous for its big w/e markets, many independent shops, arts crafts. And the relaxed, trendy but friendly atmosphere – it felt more cozy and welcoming than Perth.

We wandered through the central streets just browsing at the shop windows, and then headed for the seafront. We found a great spot for lunch – The Mussel Bar – located in all-glass building over-hanging the harbor water with great view of the ships coming in/out. They are quite formal and up-market but we took advantage of their great “lunch special” – a big bowl of mussels (which come in 5 different sauces), freshly baked still warm bread and a glass of wine for just $20 (about 9 pounds). Not bad for superb service, great atmosphere and fab views. After lunch we found the harbor beach – quite small but secluded by the harbor jetties – and we had the whole beach to ourselves! It was quite hot +28 according to weather report but here in harbor the winds were very strong and cold and the water was freezing – so we just enjoyed the sun. In moderation. The sun here is very very strong. We routinely use factor 30 suncream – even then it is possible to burn. The other day I missed a couple of centimetres in places – and by the end of the day I had raw red burn marks shaped of fingerprints. You can see how 50% of Australians will have some form of skin cancer in their lifetime.

After the beach where Paul managed to get his siesta while I stayed awake to make sure we don’t sleep there all afternoon and cook ourselves like red prawns, we went to check out The Little Creatures. It is one of the most famous and awarded brewery in Australia and their brewery is actually based in Fremantle. It is located in the old boat shed right on the harbour, with a great massive funky open-space/glass bar/restaurant. It is right next to the actual brewery and behind the glass wall you can actually see the huge cereal barrels and the rest of the brewing machinery. Paul managed to taste all of their beers for free at the bar before choosing a pint of his favourite – The Amber ale – closest to the non-fizzy British ales.

Before we knew it, it was gone 4 – just enough time to pop to the Maritime Museum Shipwreck Galleries. The museum’s highlights are several old shipwrecks, the most famous one from Batavia. The Dutch ship with 300 passengers wrecked on the reefs North of Perth in 1629. It has quite a sad story attached. Even though most of the passengers and crew made it to the shores, a mutiny plot by one of the crew members meant that over 200 people were murdered – the wicked plan was to take over the new boat which was coming back for the survivors. Fortunately, the bad guys were executed by the captain and the few good guys who survived the massacre were saved. The museum divers managed to rescue a huge chunk of the wooden boat – very rare for such a big part to survive in such good condition. They had loads of other things they rescued from their ancient shipwrecks, including a steam engine dating back to early 19^th century.

Back in our hostel, we made the most out of good weather and Australian food – once again, BBQ kangaroo and calamari.

16th December. Perth. Cottesloe beach. Our 100th!!! day of honeymoon

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It was nice to wake up without alarm clock and being in a hurry to pack our bags and check out by 10am. The morning weather wasn’t so promising overcast, almost threatening to rain. However, we decided to take our chances and head for the beach – we had our car till afternoon so we wanted to make the most out of it. We drove to the suburb of Perth called Cottesloe. A very ice leafy expensive area with many holiday/2^nd homes right on the Indian Ocean front. And kilometres of white sandy beaches. We settled on the Cottesloe beach with our rented boogie board. It was fairly busy as th school holidays started this week – so loads of youngsters enjoying the sun and the sea. By now the weather miraculously cleared – blue skies and very hot sun. We spent loads of time in the water – just swimming in the waves and playing with our board – it was SO much fun! We could have easily stayed there for days. It felt like a proper beach holiday. We had to leave eventually – to grub a late lunch and get back into Perth to give back our car. Lunch was from a really nice fish/chips shop – they were upmarket enough to offer grilled fish too. If we lived in Perth I could easily see Cottesloe as a perfect place to have a house.

Speaking of living in Australia, both of us and the expat nurse Emily (the girl we met at Margaret River YHA) noted the very obvious lack of communities in most Australian towns/cities/suburbs. When we were driving up to to Perth city centre, we drove through many suburban areas (for the info, Perth is 3x bigger i.e. more spread out than Greater London but only has 1/8 of London pop-n). There were many shopping areas – all very practical, more looking like warehouses than smart shops, many supermarkets, loads of DIY/home&garden shops etc – so all one needs for living. And every other shop there would be some sort of fast food place – they love Red Rooster (chicken place), Hungry Jacks, McDonald’s, KFC etc. What you won’t find is any pubs, or non-KFC restaurants – just take-aways, no cafes, no local clubs or anything that might encourage going out and socializing. It seems that most locals tend to stay at home and have dinner parties/BBQ for entertaining. We were driving through at around 7pm – so after working hrs. All the street were totally dead – all the shops/malls shut, not a soul out and about, few cars driving to the drive-through McDonald’s or parking outside the take-away places. and rows and rows of houses – presumably with people in them, keeping themselves to themselves. Lonely. Having said that, there are obviously loads of places to go out in the city centre – but it is easily an hour drive without traffic jams from the suburbs and it is not exactly like popping for a drink to your local pub – it is for more special events.

After we handed in our car we just wondered into the city centre – quite busy – it seemed that Ozies were doing their Xmas shopping. We are still not quite in a festive swing – the few Xmas decorations the street are so! hideous – like a giant plastic Xmas tree made of green spirals suspended on cables above the main street. Also, none of the shops have their own decorations in the windows or inside – it was true in other cities we’ve been to as well.

On the way back to our hostel we went to a dodgy Chinese internet cafe. One of the things we miss the most is free internet. So many times we have been frustrated with it: for starters having to pay for it, and often far too much, the bad slow computers in internet cafes which infected our memory sticks with viruses, too many times running out of pre-paid vouchers and so on. But having our little ASUS laptop certainly made our life much easier – we can type our emails/blog off line and then upload once on-line.

Today is a big day for us: it is 100 days! sine we have been traveling. So, now that Paul has a job to come back to, we treated ourselves to a nice dinner out to celebrate the occasion. We went to a place called MUST – recommended by Lonely Planet and our hostel boss. It is the best and the most famous wine bar in Western Australia – they have hundreds and hundreds of different wines on their wine list, and quite a lot of them are available to taste, plus they change their wine collection regularly too. They are also famous for their food – modern European with specials from their rotisserie. The atmosphere was really pleasant too – even though they were very busy (we got the last table as someone didn’t not turn up), it was intimate with spaced out tables, starched linen, candles etc. We had a great night, and it was nice to draw some conclusions about the last 100 days – things we have learnt about ourselves and how our travels will change us when we are back. For instance, we are determined to hold on to th “chilled-out” and fun spirit of our travels. And we toasted to continuous honey moon eve when we are back to work. Also, fun things and having good time does not need to cost much – it is about the company and the altitude. We are also very keen to see our friends and relatives as much as possible – the distances we traveled in WA make couple of hrs journeys in UK insignificant. Apart from having amazing time traveling, this journey also certainly brought us even closer together and bonded us even more. There has not been a day when we didn’t feel so lucky and happy to travel together. Overall, we feel that taking these months off was the best thing we’ve ever done – that is, apart from our wedding! Sorry if this paragraph is a bit cheesy – if anything, it will be nice for us to re-read this in the future.

We staggered back to our bed gone midnight– quite merry and with unsteady gait.

Day 99, 15th December. Long drive from Albany to Perth

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This morning we were determined to get to the beach at any cost. The sky wasn’t looking very promising with loads of grey clouds. We first went to see the Gap and the Natural Bridge – both unusual rock formations from millions years ago – massive granite stones, some with really deep cracks all the way to the sea – hence the Gap, and some forming natural arches over the sea – hence the natural bridge name.

We then headed to the Two peoples Bay – about 30 km from Albany – again famous for the beautiful bay, picturesque coast line and some really nice beaches.

when we got there we were the only people in the whole bay – it was quite bizarre – they had a massive car park and visitors centre that was shut – so they clearly get big crowds. The bay was very pretty and we had a walk around the beach. We couldn’t sit down or stop though because there were hundreds of flies that bite you – attacking all over as soon as you stop. We then drove to a nearby secluded beautiful beach called Little Beach. White fine sand, surrounded on both sides by big fancy rocks, crystal clear waters with some surf. Again, the only other creatures that shared the beach with us were a couple of seagulls and a dead sea lion! It was quite cold (I had my denim jacket) and clouded but we settled on the beach with our books. Even though we couldn’t swim or sunbath it was still really nice to listen to the waves and watch the world go by. After about an hour we were finally evicted by the rain – and it kept on raining pretty much all day.

From then on we had over 400km of driving on Albany highway – across the agricultural lands – mostly wheat fields, some bush and not a lot more. There were occasional townships with petrol stations – typically consisting of several houses and if lucky, they would also have a small grocery shop – otherwise the petrol station is the lot. We also came across some very big lizards crawling right across the road – some nearly a metre long. No snakes this time, and no live kangaroos – just a few dead ones by the side of the road.

The drive was more fun with our ipod – we sang and danced as much as you ca in the car to Paul’s dad’s The Best 500 songs album from Rolling Stones magazine – this made the journey go quicker. As we drove towards Perth, North, the weather was also changing visibly – the rain stopped, then we had blue skies and the temp became 10+ higher! The landscape was changing too – less greenery and less trees.

Once we got to Perth it took us a while to get to our hostel – Perth has an unbelievable number of one-way streets or no turnings streets. Our hostel for the next 4 nights is nice enough – much smaller than the 250 beds YHA, has more of a character but less communal space – no TV or living room with a very small kitchen. This is fine for us but t would probably be quite a lonely place for single travelers.

Day 98, 14th December – Paul has a job offer! Denmark to Albany.

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The summer has arrived!!! Hot, hot day right from the start – not a cloud in the sky, a fresh breeze, the perfect day for the beach. So we headed off to the beach we found yesterday – Greens pool and elephant rocks. It was a lot busier today – Sunday – so there were many Australians about with the their boogie boards in the waters, secluded in this peaceful bay by the elephant rocks were still like a mirror, white fine sandy beach. The water was really cold though – few of the those who did go into the water were wearing the wet suits. We were determined to get our first beach swim in Australia. So we went for it – really nice swim but you wouldn’t stay out there for long. We spent all morning on the beach, just catching the sun and reading the books with a couple more swims. We escaped the afternoon sun by having lunch in Denmark and then drove on towards Albany. With the first heat of the summer we wanted to make the most out if so e found another nice beach once in Albany – Middleton beach, which is just 5 min walk from our overnight hostel. The wind was too cold to swim here but we still made the most out of the beach – that is Paul slept and I read a book.

Our evening meal was a bit spontaneous – we were still in our swim wear when we decided to drive up to another beach to “Squid Shack”. It was recommended to us as the best fish and chips place in town – no frills, food served on plastic plates with BYO but fresh from the sea. It was very popular with loads of locals – we were in the queue for a while and as soon as we ordered they had to close the place as they sold out. This was more than a quick dinner fix – we had a very good reason to celebrate our great news: Paul’s job offer.

A few days ago Paul got an unexpected vague email about a possibility of doing some work for the Nottingham Primary Care Trust (PCT). Yesterday the PCT came back to Paul with some more concrete details: Paul has been “head-hunted” via a GP he worked with before leaving Nottingham, who also works part-time for the PCT. The job entitles a 5-months fixed term contract as a GP locum to work in a very under-preforming inner city practice. Paul’s role would be to work as a clinical doctor 50% of the time, and the other 50% would be administrative work – as a lead GP. They are hoping that Paul would “sort-out”: the practice, on the behalf of the PCT. It sounds like an amazing opportunity for Paul: to get some experience in running a practice, make new useful contacts and get himself known in the area. Plus, it is a guaranteed income as soon as we come back – much appreciated after our travels! Most of all, it is very flattering and complimentary to be offered the job over email while away in Australia! We aren’t entirely sure yet where the Practice is – it is somewhere in St Ann’s which meas that Paul could potentially walk to work, or at least cycle. There are some unanswered questions, of course, which will need clarifying when we come back – such as what would happen to the practice after 5 months, who would Paul be responsible to, how will they classify his responsibilities, will there be another doctor to look after the patients when Paul will be doing “admin” work etc. We are both very excited about this job offer and hope it will turn out as great as it looks on the paper.