Western Oz

Hello,

Well after a turbulent week in the Blue mountains (2 hours from Sydney) doing lots of walking - The Three Sisters, Wentworth Falls and the Grand Canyon - Grand Canyon was awesome but felt a bit cheated at the end as the view which was supposed to be one of the best in the mountains was blocked by cloud - this theme seems to follow me round the world! That was after doing the 1 1/2 hr hike up the hard route to get there! Lots of people smiling at me going the opposite direction on the way!

I spent the next few weeks staying with my family again as my parents were out which was cool seeing as we haven't had time together as a family for the last 4-5 years! Also it helps when your 'budget travelling' around to have your parents with you!

It was the 75th anniversary of the building of the Sydney harbour bridge on the 18th March so on the day we did the bridge walk as a family which was a laugh! They closed the whole bridge for a day and let anyone and everyone walk across it. This is what they did 75 years ago when they first built it so it felt like you were part of something! Lots of events going on like planes low flying over the bridge and a few other bits going on in the evening. The whole bridge was lit up at night which looked coooool!

So after I said goodbye to my parents, I decided to get a flight to Perth which is where I am now! It's the most isolated city of it's size in the world and you can tell! It's very quiet and kind of spooky! I've spent a day at Rottnest Island which is just off Fremantle (about 20 Min's from Perth) riding round (28km's) 62 of the best beaches I have seen (classic sandy white!) and spent yesterday down the beach again at a place called Cottlesloe which is another great beach just off Fremantle! Got a bit burnt and sun stroked and spent most of last night in bed! All good though!

Sunday (1st April) was possibly one of the best days I've had in Australia! Me and an Irish guy I met managed to score half price tickets to 'The West Coast Roots and Blues Festival' in Perth! We were gonna hike the fence but decided it wasn't worth loosing a visa over! The headliners were Ben Harper, John Mayer and Missy Higgins! All I can say is that for a festival so small it was awesome - maybe 5-10,000 if that! While we were in the festival we were talking to these girls who were queuing up for some sort of free wristband, so we decided to que seeing as if you did you got a free coke (anything free when travelling is a bonus!!). Afterwards we asked what the heckers they were for and they explained that we had just signed up for a 200 person only gig with 'Bob Evans' (ex lead singer of Jebediah, real name Kevin Mitchell) and that we were going to be on TV!! Well that just topped the day off! Had a wicked day and only had 4 beers (unlike the big day out but we won't go into that here....) all day so managed to remember all of it!

Anyway in the next few days it looks like I will probably be heading to a place called 'Donnybrook' about 200 km south - population 2000, a chicken, a couple of donkeys and a tractor! I'm gonna see if I can stick out 4-5 weeks of apple picking with about 80-90 other members of the chain gang!! Hmmm we shall see but all helps towards the next years visa....

Hope everyone is cool and speak soon! Will try and get some pics up soon..

Tay

It's been a while....

Hello!

Well it's been a long time since I updated this old thing but hey, better late than never I suppose...

Since my last update, I've managed to cross a few countries, a continent, find work, become a rescue scuba diver and start saving for the big trip round Oz...

I'm now living in Sydney with my Brothers and I've one last week of my contract then I finish work and can get back to what I love - travelling around meeting new peeps!!

I lived for 2 months in Thailand from Oct till the end of Nov living on one beach (Had Yao) in Koh Phangan, met some really cool people - Vic, Kim, Philo and of course the Rasta boys! I completed my rescue diver cert and basically chilled the hell out for a bit. I got to the point where I didn't really want to travel around anymore (yes it's fun but tiring) and after meeting my mate Robio and being introduced to the Lotus Diving crew decided I would rent a house near the beach (100 a month - bargain!!) and kick back and enjoy myself by doing well not very much apart from drinking a fair amount, playing loads of Frisbee, diving, eating good food and well thats about it really!

I haven't really got much to report in the way of stories but I'm sure they will come very soon when I get back on the road...

Sydney has been a great place to live and work! I've been to the cricket a few times (if you get the chance then go as it's a great day out even if you don't like cricket!!), 'The Big Day Out' festival (very messy - email me for details!), Carl Cox harbour party under the Harbour Bridge on New Year (cheers Robio for sorting out guest list to possibly one of the best NY bashes I have been to!) and a few other bits and bobs but other than that not a great deal as been saving up for my trip!

Anyway sorry I've been a bit slack with the emails etc but hopefully that will change very soon...

Hope everyone is all good and well and let me know what you've been up to!

Richard

China + Hong Kong

Hello,

We reached Beijing and as much fun as the train journey was, we were happy to finish and get back to normality and eat proper food other than instant noodles and crisps. We had a hectic start trying to get a taxi from Beijing train station but luckily we worked out that the hostel was only about 1km up the road so we walked! We met some French guys who paid 10 dollars and got a tour of the city before getting the same hostel!

Beijing is really cool! We spent a few days going round on bikes which was funny, the whole city is flat so it's easy to get around but you have to careful not to get run over by the taxis, buses, cars and the other 10 millions cyclists hurtling around! We did the usual sights like Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Great Wall and the Summer Palace (It has a large marble boat in it's lake!) . The Great Wall was awesome, we did a 10km walk on the wall from a place called Jinshanling to Simatai with a guy we met from Germany called Thom who was going to be our business partner (mail me for an explanation!) and it was pretty impressive! After that we spent the next few days just chilling, shopping and riding our rusty bikes! My mate Rob had a bit of a nightmare, he went to Tiananmen Square to watch the changing of the guard, he locked his bike up, came back about an hour later and it was gone! Apparently this happens all the time though and I've heard that some people have had at least 3 bikes nicked while in Beijing!!

After spending about a week in Beijing we left on the train (again) to go to Xi'an which is where the Terracotta Warriors are, the place itself is an absolute dive but you only go there to see the warriors and that's about it. The Terracotta warriors are a lot more impressive in the pictures than they are in real life! I think we were expecting something a bit more grand but really they are not all that, they are in a massive hanger type building and they kind of look like they've been placed there by the tourist board for the masses. It was cool to see them but I don't think I'll ever go back.....tick that box!

Shanghai was the next stop on our list and again we boarded a train for the uptenth time and also did the usual pot noodle and crisps shopping before getting on! The train was really nice apart from the fact we had the top bunks (they are cheaper!!) and you really don't have much room to move. I had to get off my bunk just to drink a bottle of water! I don't think they were made for western guys! They also turn the lights off at about 10pm and then on again at 6am in the morning automatically along with the TV that you get in each cabin which didn't work properly and played the strangest TV shows / adverts. I don't even think the Chinese got the programmes?? All very funny though!

Shanghai was a nice place but really it's for shopping and that's about it. The Bund is pretty cool at night and we got a boat along the river with these guys (Kev and Rob) that we met in our guest house - I'm still traveling with them now! Across the water from the bund is the CBD of Shanghai, at night all the buildings light up with big screens and it looks awesome! On one of the days I managed to get ripped off with a Tea House scam (will explain another time.....was not happy!!) and we didn't really do much in Shanghai as there isn't much to do apart from shop!

Hong Kong is another shopping heaven but with beaches! We stayed in this big old bulding called Chungking Mansions which is pretty famous in HK. It's basically a maze of about 20-30 guest houses with lots of indians and africans roaming about generally snarling at each other and selling whatever they can. It's got a good atmosphere downstairs, the indians don't change wherever they go and you can also get a great curry which was a nice change from noodles! One of the nights was a bit weird, after trying to find my guest house (took about 45 mins!!) I noticed lots of police walking round the building, suddenly at about 4.30am we got a loud knock at the door, 3 police were standing there and demanding passports! We crapped it and thought we were in trouble but luckily they were only looking for illegal immigrints and had done this to everyone staying in Chungking Mansions!! We heard the next day that they caught about 15 people that night! The weather wasn't so great in HK (as it hasn't been for the rest of the trip either) and we had 3 days of typhoon!! Bit of a bugger as we had planned to spend some time at the beach! We did get one day at a place called Repulse Bay but the weather was pretty dire and it started to rain again at the end of the afternoon so we had a little dip and that was it!

All in all China was great! I just wish I had more time to explore the more remote parts of the country but it's such a big place you need lots of time to see it all!

Laters and speak soon!

Richard

Reading to Beijing

Well its been a bit of a tiring week or so but it feels like I've been away for 3 months already as so much as happened! I'll try and keep this short though!

After saying goodbye and getting the 10.12 (Sat) train to London I met the guys at Waterloo, in typical fashion we had a few leaving beers and almost missed the first train. We had left the pub at 12.30 and the train was leaving at 12.40 but we forgot we had to check in and also queue. Luckily we just pushed straight to the front (a few grunts and groans from other passengers as we did) and were quickly rushed through customs. This then happened for the next 2 connections, we had to run for each train at Brussels and Cologne. It was all a bit tight but we made it and after going through Belgium, Germany, Poland and Belarus we finally made it to Moscow on Monday morning about 9.30am!

When we arrived in Moscow we were a bit lost. None of the signs were in English, nobody spoke English and to be honest there was not an English thing in sight! I think we had 5 Euros between us and no way of changing money so we walked until we found something that looked like a bank. Turns out it wasn't but we met this guy did the usual shout in English very load, point and hold up the note. 20 mins later he pointed us to a door in the street, we changed our money and we got on our way to the travel agents.

Moscow was not really what we expected. I think we thought we were going into an 'Eastern block' type of place (queues for bread etc) but its actually pretty modern and well stocked with all the things you get at home if not a not of a mission to get around (nyet speaky Engliski). We spent 2 days touring the Kremlin, Red Square and generally getting lost! It's a nice place for a weekend but I doubt we will go back in a hurry...

On Tuesday night we boarded the 004 21.35 train to Beijing! When we got on the train we were a bit apprehensive as the cabin had 4 berths and there were 3 of us! Expecting some random weirdo we were happy when this crazy French guy called Cyril popped his head round the corner. Cyril can only be described as a French Mr Bean impersonator, he looks exactly like him and acts almost the same - very amusing! He was on his was to Shanghai to study for 10 months, he also spoke fluent Chinese which helped us and the guards learn some new words! We were pretty chuffed as some passengers had screaming kids + families, some weren't in the same rooms or even the same carriage as their friends and others had some really moody old boots who hated everyone and everything (basically this woman who stayed next to us - funny that?). Anyway so the next 6 days were spent eating Russian pot noodles (really depressing food), getting drunk on cheap nasty beer and generally doing the job of chief entertainers and chief annoyers to the rest of the carriage! We went through Russia, Mongolia and then into China. Russia was pretty much the same all the way through, green fields, lots of trees, more trees and then some more trees with some funny looking houses thrown in - the scenery was really boring until we hit lake Baikal (the worlds largest fresh water lake). Mongolia was pretty awesome as we had to go through the mountains and the Gobi desert where we saw camels and a lot of Nomads in the middle of nowhere digging for little gophers! It's a pretty desolate place but rewarding on the eye! Finally we reached the Chinese border, It was so nice getting back to Asia as Russia and Mongolia were a bit of a struggle! At the border the first thing we did was hit the supermarket and buy all the things we couldn't get on the way, basically anything apart from noodles! We then got back on the train and were happy to know that the following morning we would arrive in Beijing - we had lived like scum for the previous 6 days! On the way into Beijing we caught sight of the great wall and it was pretty cool if not a little hot and humid! So after 9 days and 8 countries we finally made it to China! Thank god for that!

Camp Malta

Your mission if you choose to accept it? Graduate from Camp Malta...

Once a year all Quantum EMEA sales and marketing staff are invited to the annual sales conference held somewhere in Europe. This year it was held at the Radisson SAS Golden Sands Resort & Spa in Malta.

The theme for the weekend was 'Quantum Commandos' and we were instructed to graduate from 'Camp Malta'. As you can see we were kitted out in military gear for a weekend full of sun, sea, sand, assignments and much merriment!

We were placed in platoons and this was the 'deadly' blue Platoon ready to do battle! Abu Ghraib Steve, Rich 'the sun tan kid', Joe Dietl the 5th 'German sausage eating' Beatle and 'Give em Hell'-gado providing some great evening entertainment on the decks. Don't we look scary? Whooo...!!

One of the assignments on Friday was sailing and the weather was awesome! A little too awesome as I got really sun burnt! I looked like a traffic cone for the next 3 days and then like Parmesan cheese for the next week as it all peeled off....nice!

On Saturday we had product training all day (yawn) and a big gala 'graduation' dinner in the evening to celebrate the weekend! I'm pretty sure everyone had a good time at the dinner as nobody remembered much of it the next day!!

All in all it was a great weekend (if a little short) and I'm sure I'll go back again one day as Malta and the Maltese were all good....