Dave and Loz

Final day and its a bit sad to say that however it's been such a great trip that we can't have any complaints. I'm not sure what the reason is but again it was another terrible night sleep for me as I was awake from 3am until 7am and then back asleep for a couple of hours while Lauren had some breakfast. We had planned to take a taxi to Times Square to have a look around and do some last minute shopping. We almost didn't make it as we had the world's worst taxi driver, for the whole trip which was about 30 minutes we drove as if he was driving a manual car and it was stuck in the wrong gear for the whole trip, we just kangaroo hopped the whole way. Probably not ... read more

Got off to a strange start today. I'm not sure if it's jet lag or whether I am still not feeling 100% but I woke up at 1am and it took me about 3 1/2 hours to get back to sleep. The funny thing was that we were planning to get up at about 8am and do some shopping before the races however once I got back to sleep at 4.30am, neither of us woke up until 1.30pm! The races started at 1pm so obviously no shopping today and we didn't get there until race 5. I think since we have got to Hong Kong and slowed down, our bodies have also decided to get some rest. So we eventually made our way down to the train which only needed to go one stop before the ... read more

We both had a rough night last night as we were finally stung by jetlag for the first time on the trip. We both went to bed at about 9.30pm and for some reason I was back awake at 12.30am and couldn't get back to sleep until about 6ish... Lauren was a little bit the same although managed to get a little more than me. So after a lack of sleep, we both decided that a late start was in order and didn't leave the hotel until after midday as we headed across the Chinese border to Shenzhen. I had also started to attract what Lauren had last week and wasn't feeling 100% so wasn't moving too quickly. We arrived at the border and had to go through customs, which all up cost us about $80 ... read more

Well we left the hotel in Paris to get to the airport after a very cruisy morning which is something that we hadn't been able to have for a while. We were nice and relaxed until we reached the train station to head to the airport where everything turned to shit, people everywhere, couldn't buy tickets and then missed the first and second trains which was a major issue as they only went every 30 minutes. Eventually we said enough was enough and into a taxi and I think that's the end of catching trains with luggage! We had to fly back through London and endure a seven hour stop over before our flight to Hong Kong, we were dreading this as we weren't sure whether we could leave the airport or not however the our ... read more

Clearly our earliest start this morning as we decided at the last minute that we would get on a train to go and have a look at a horse training complex at Chantilly. It was probably about a 30 minute train ride towards the south and this is the best training facility in the country with the trainers of the last two Melbourne cup winners Dunaden and Americain both being based here. We were on a bit of a tight schedule so we could only spend an hour however we were shown around by a friend of Jeff's who also trains there, he is a lovely British guy who has been here for 18 years. It was amazing to see how they train here and the facilities that they have, it was very different compared to ... read more

Had one of our earlier starts of the trip this morning although it still really wasn't that early as we took the train to Versailles. It was peak hour and probably slightly less hectic than London's trains but still very busy. The train ride to Versailles took about 40 minutes with a changeover in between. As far as I could understand, Versailles is basically a town on the outskirts of Paris that basically exists around this enormous Palace and without the Palace there would be no reason going there. The palace itself was built about 500 years ago by King Louis XIV and became the centre of Paris after he moved away from the royal family in Paris. It is probably more famous for when King Louis XVI lived there and his wife Marie Antoinette as ... read more

Woke up to another sunny day and took off to the bus stop for the hop on hop off tour. Like New York, the Paris system had a few different lines so you needed to choose which one you wanted. We were going to get the Green line which had all of the main sights however accidentally took the Yellow line. Of the four lines, the yellow was next best and we had plenty of time so we stayed on for the whole round trip and then took the green one. We got to see the Moulin Rouge, Madeleine church and some other landmarks so it was worth the trip. We later tried to get tickets to a Moulin Rouge show for later in the week but unfortunately they are all booked out. Now onto the ... read more

Was really happy that we stayed so close to the airport last night as it gave us a chance to have a better sleep than we would have in the city. We wouldn't have arrived into the city until at least 1am and would've been playing catch up all week. Lauren woke up feeling better and so we packed up and headed downstairs to catch the hotel shuttle back to the airport. The shuttle would take us to the airport where we would catch the train to our new hotel where we would spend the next four days. The shuttle experience was an interesting one, not only was the driver 10 minutes late because he was sitting there talking on the phone, he then had a dig at me as we got onto the bus. He ... read more

Woke up for our last day and Lauren still wasn't feeling the best so we decided to have a quiet day which worked out well as we had done everything we'd wanted to and the weather was pretty ordinary with on and off rain. Our check out time wasn't until midday so we stayed in bed until 11am and then showered and packed. We had a few hours to kill so we took the tube back to Piccadilly Circus and then walked along Oxford Street towards Carnaby Street which is one of their famous shopping strips. I think it's probably been overtaken by a few others now as they don't have many popular shops anymore however that didn't stop us from taking a look inside. After this we grabbed some lunch and saw it started to ... read more

We woke up at about 8 this morning and it seems that we are finding it harder and harder to wake up every day. We're still getting long enough to sleep but we're doing so much during the day that it's starting to take its toll. I was thinking only yesterday that we're lucky that neither of us have been sick so far, and that made sure that one of us was going to be sick soon. Sure enough, I had jinxed Lauren and she woke up with a sore throat that started to get worse as the day went on. It's nothing serious but I think it's a combination of being tired and the change in weather all the time, especially from outside to inside which is always so hot. Today had to be well ... read more