Owner: Funabroad URL:http://www.funabroad.co.uk Join Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:34:00 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: All about travel: deals, places to visit or not, fun stuff, fun stories. Site statistics:Click here
Stone lions und so 2008-03-02 14:01:08 1. Woke up this morning in a bed wide enough to sleep three Chinese families and assorted cattle, in a bedroom so big you have to shout across it.
A quick peep out the window – floor-to-ceiling, mind you – revealed a terrace above us and pool below [...] Read more:Stone
Fake Aussie landmarks 2008-03-02 07:32:04 About to head off Upover (if anyone has a better one-worder for leaving Downunder, please contact me urgently) so thought one last tribute to its (not so) world-famous landmarks is in order. Wait a second…are you telling me the Taj Mahal is NOT in Sydney? Melbourne’s NOT the City of Love? And it’s NOT called [...] Read more:Aussie
Rats, disease, hookers and drunkenness 2008-02-28 16:26:23 The Rocks stand as testament to Australia’s colonial heritage, minus the rats and general slumminess of the old days. Today, the suburb on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour is altogether swanky but with a still colonial flavour, preserved in the sandstone, slightly European-feel architecture that’s now thoughtfully potted with local trees.
Famous Aussie author Bryce [...] Read more:disease
Osama’s guest appearance 2008-02-26 09:44:24 Ok, so last post I was on about Darling Harbour. One thing I didn’t mention is that it was also a key location of the APEC summit in late 2007 – yes, that major world economics conference at which George Bush added to his collection of highly embarrassing and internationally televised gaffes, such as calling [...] Read more:appearance
, Osama
The Hungry Mile 2008-02-25 16:23:11 Darling Harbour is a vast watery precinct west of the city centre, named after Ralph Darling (a colonial Lieutenant-General who can’t have been too pleased about his girly name).
During the Great Depression the eastern promenade was known as the Hungry
Mile on account of the dock workers wandering about looking for work on the [...]
What time’s this riot start anyway? 2008-02-22 16:22:26 This evening we head to Fox Studios, home of film sets and red carpet movie premieres in Sydney. We’ve booked tickets to the Comedy Club, though we’re not amused by the fact that they don’t do on-the-spot student discounts. Should have indicated so when you booked, they tell us, though their online form was conspicuously [...]
Sunburnt soles 2008-02-18 16:20:58 The Coogee to Bondi walk is well known on the backpacker trail in Sydney for being the sort of stunning landscape experience that even locals will get out of bed for. Granted, not before lunch though. And today, dog-tired form all the recent festivities, we can’t manage the full two hour walk and settle instead [...]
Pedestrian impatience 2008-02-15 16:19:56 Getting on the bus out to Sydney’s eastern suburbs today, I realise I’d forgotten just how irritating it is to be able to understand the conversations of all your fellow commuters (something I can easily tune out in the Netherlands).
But in the act of kindness of the day, the bus driver tells me to just [...] Read more:Pedestrian
Bare legs on a vinyl bus seat 2008-02-09 16:19:06 Arrived alive! On the bus into downtown Sydney on this first day, I have the flicker of an inkling that I could live here again. It’s the bustling vibe in Sydney on a hot, busy day; the place is thriving. Street performers on every corner, tourists taking happy snaps of Martin Place and Circular Quay [...]
Are we there yet? 2008-02-05 16:18:28 Stopover in Tokyo. We all bundle off and those of us with onward trips wait dutifully at the connecting flight counter. No-ones there. We wait. No-one comes.
The Kiwis start to panic: their connection leaves in an hour. The Aussies start to doze, since we’ve got a leisurely nine hours to kill. Eventually an airport crewman [...]
Merry minions with solid posture 2008-03-10 15:01:07 1. There are programmes waiting on our seats at the Guangzhou ballet hall when we get there, but they are all in Chinese. This is somewhat inconsiderate, we feel, because we have grown partial to comical Engrish translations that say things like “offer the seats to the sick, crippie [...] Read more:Merry
World of swank 2008-03-09 06:53:18 The French delegation has hired out the ballroom in a swanky hotel for a swanky, invite-only soiree, and is making everyone who’s anyone in Guangzhou as well as assorted hangers-on (clearly the category I fall into) dress up, eats lots of free food and drink champagne.
Now, though the Germans traditionally have never been friendly [...] Read more:World
Chinese prisons: don’t go there 2008-03-14 06:58:45 We are at the cloth market in downtown Guangzhou. In exchange for me putting on a thousand and one pashminas but not buying any because the patterns ‘aren’t quite right’, we stop off at the electronics market so Wilken can browse the, um, electronics. For ‘a minute or two’.
Six hours and twelve (Mandarin) magazines later [...] Read more:Chinese
, prisons
The Happy Chinese Hair House 2008-03-18 07:02:43 Today, after a nap and a lazy lap in the pool, I front up to the Chinese
hairdresser who mans a tiny salon called the Happy
Chinese Hair House
. Or, at least, I bang on his street window till he wakes up from his nap under the hot dryer and ask if he would possibly [...]
Defying the history of Chinese flight 2008-03-22 07:09:51 1. On account of Wilken packing like a girl, we were frantic that we’d miss our flight to Guilin but we needn’t have worried. We were flying with China Southern airlines and reliable sources have indicated that never in the history of flight has a CSA plane left on [...] Read more:Defying
, Chinese
Bejewelled oxen in lakes 2008-03-26 07:14:26 At night we decide to go to the highly recommended light show in the nearby town of Yangshuo.
Perhaps because I’ve heard nothing but good about it and am looking forward to it very much, torrential rain floods the area the minute we try to set off. Our receptionist, a dwarf named Angel (seriously), assures [...]
Spindly legs and prominent foreheads 2008-04-04 06:25:39 Before leaving Guilin we toyed part seriously with the idea of staying and working in the hotel there for a time. We have a lot to offer, we thought, what with Wilken’s hospitality experience and my unmatched bed-making skills.
But we didn’t, on account of him not wanting his folks to be jailed for killing [...]
Arrestingly pinkish 2008-04-07 06:25:39 Berlin. Sunshine. Bits of it, anyway.
I drag Wilken out of bed at 11.30 (luckily I packed the cattle prod) to visit the Berlin flea market, or one of the many, anyway. Turns out everyone else in Berlin has the same idea, and we all have a merry time of treading on each other’s heels. [...]
Day of domesticity, Berlin 2008-04-12 06:26:06 As I discovered after having folded all my knickers up out of sheer boredom, the day had been far more eventful than I’d thought. Wilken had spent his day diligently handling a number of taxing issues that had, unbeknownst to me, arisen in the kitchen.
The first incident had to do with the stash of [...] Read more:Berlin
Stingy nerd mission 2008-04-16 06:26:31 I’m about to make an announcement, so sit down, please. Really – it’s for your own safety. Here goes: I do believe I enjoy book shopping more than clothes shopping. There, I’ve said it.
Today I spent five and a half blissful hours traipsing around Berlin trying to find a bookshop that would knock a [...]
Finders keepers in Berlin 2008-04-20 06:27:09 My Berlin
obsession has been rekindled by my sister’s visit to the capital. I’m now sidling up to random people on the street and begging them to give me a job or a place to live here.
Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but I am genuinely obsessed with Berlin. Today we took the same guided walking [...] Read more:Finders
Cheesecake avengers 2008-04-23 06:27:33 Today we stumbled across an Aussie bar, ‘Corroborree’, in Berlin, with Fosters flags proudly flying above the tables and the menu boasting specialties such as cheese on damper, macadamia bruschetta and baked potato with kangaroo fillet. The back leaf of the menu even explained ‘the word corroborree is still today a synonym for celebrations and [...] Read more:Cheesecake
What Italians do 2008-04-24 07:38:50 As they say, a pic speaks a thousand words, and who can best express the differences between European cultures better than a bunch of cartoon pac-men looking things. I was after one of these about all those little ‘dearly-loved’ German things that Germans do – you know, that whole up at dawn to spread a [...]
Harried travellers 2008-04-26 06:27:59 Goodbye Berlin. Hello Deutsche Bahn and a marathon cross-country train ride.
The phenomenon of reserving train seats in Germany is a curious one. Because we are happy to pay inflated prices for fast train connections but not willing to part with the required €1.50 to reserve seats, Wilken and I tend to join the throngs of [...]
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