CathyW

The decision is made to go to Japan with Oliver while he is still under two. Our accomodation is finally all booked and that was no easy feat. Japan may seem advanced in many ways but their accomodation booking is not! We will have to pay cash in Yen at two places, had a lengthy several document booking for our Tokyo place, and will be checked in by an electronic robot machine at another. Looking forward to our adventure. At last we found internet almost a week into our trip. Its not as high tech as you may think here. In fact a lot is still quite traditional and basic. But what an interesting country! So completely foreign for westerners when you arrive in Tokyo confronted with Japanese writing and minimal english. But the people are ... read more

An 11 hour flight put us over the date line minus a day in the southern hemisphere Fiji islands. Waking up on the flight to find a large Fijian man sitting next to me was a shock to say the least. Space being at a premium i later spread out to hog our precious extra seat. Stepping off the plane we breathed in the warm humid air tinged with a scent of smoke, the sugarcane. We were introduced to Fiji time straight away with a large immigration queue. How long does it take to stamp a plane full of Americans and Aussies in? Fijian guys with ukeles played to sooth the crowd. We received our obligatory shell necklace next and were shown to our booking office to receive instructions and vouchers for our holiday. It was ... read more

December 5th finally arrived. With work over and our flat packed up and cleaned we got our bond from the landlord and headed to Heathrow with glee. It was a rainy gloomy day so typical for London and we were happy to be heading onto new places. The checkin line at Icelandair at Heathrow was a first, no one there! A record to be checked in within two minutes. Lanzarote looked busy...heheh. The flight to Iceland took 2.5 hours and was rather pleasant with an interesting meal of cold ham and potato salad. We landed at Keflavik into a treeless landscape of white snow. It was cold but not excessively so, about 0 celcius, as we boarded the bus to our complimentary hotel Loftedir. Nice little deal included with our flights was two nights in this ... read more

Untitled Untitled This is the first installment of our 'Eurotrash' tour happening in July. Mum and Dad will ditch their tour and fly from Paris to Prague where me and Nick are meeting them. Two Ellis' and two Wilsons in a hire car will then make our way to Mum's birthplace Karlovy Vary. Some 50 years after leaving it she finally returns. Itinerary: 8/7 Prague 9/7 Karlovy Vary 10/7 Stary Smokovec, Tatras Slovakia 11/7 Down to Kosice and the Toth's side Moldava nad Badou, to Tolvsca and Tokaj - phew 12/7 Tarcal Hungary 13/7 Budapest before Mum and dad fly to London to make it back for Ascot, priorities! 14/7 Me and Nick drive back to Prague Eurotrash has been years in the making and to finally do it with parents in tow was no ... read more

Slovenia, the unknown jewel of Europe. Tucked away under Austria's imposing mountains, next to Italy's Venietian coastline and above Croatia's islands, relatively mysterious to most travellers or confused with similar sounding Slovakia. We got lots of 'Slovenia? where's that?' Yet we weren't the only Aussies to have discovered this little gem, and encountered as many similar accents to our own as walking around Earls 'kangaroo valley' Court in London. Our flight from Stansted was reasonably good for an easyjet flight. It took a little less than 2 hours to get to Brnik airport flying over snow capped peaks. The Austrian Alps are very close to Slovenia's Julian Alps and all much the same, huge dominating rocky mountains. You could think that the whole of Slovenia is one giant mountain range, infact a good deal of ... read more