Travel Blog Posts
July 20th 2009
I thought I would let the pictures of Norway mostly speak for themselves, but here is a brief bit on where I went in Norway. I was able to spend about 10 days in Norway at the beginning of July. It is a beautiful country !! I was in Oslo, perhaps not a beautiful as Stockholm, but certainly a great city with an excellent atmosphere, I enjoyed it the most of the Scandanavian cities that I visited. After Oslo it was up to Lillehammer for a couple of days, some great hiking up there. Then to the most spectacular part of Norway, Oslo-Bergen and the fiords. I took the train about half way to Bergen and got off at Myrdal, from there is was a local train out to my hostel, which basically has it own ... read more
June 30th 2009
I have gotten a bit of a slap on the wrist for not keeping up to date with where I have been and what I've been up to. So here we go ... my adventures for the past month. I'll have to start with my ride into France from London ... I think I may have to get a motorbike licence. It may not be the most practical form of transportation (luggage, risk of injury and so on), but ... on a beautiful sunny day with the world to see, you can't beat it!! Matt and I left his flat in London , I had about a 5 minute trip on local streets while we fueled up to get used to being a passenger, then off we go onto the M4 (or was it M 25??) ... read more
June 7th 2009
When I was in Turkey back in May it was Anzac day (Australia NZ Army Corps) all the Aussies come over and go to Gallipoli to recognize this day. It got me thinking that I should go to some of the famous Canadian war sites ie. Vimy and Ypres (Ieper). So, enroute to Denmark I made a stop at Vimy in France and Ypres in Belgium. My friend Matt happened to be travelling to France at the same time, so I hitched a ride with him to Vimy. The site on Vimy ridge is owned and maintained by the Canadian government. The memorial at Vimy is beautiful - 2 stone columns representing France and Canada - it sits at the top of the ridge and can be seen for miles as you approach from Lens. They ... read more
June 1st 2009
In my last blog entry I mentioned my love for London - now you get to hear about my love of the English country side. there is beautiful scenery, neat little towns and villages, lots of pubs, lots of history, and public footpaths or bridleways (for walkers, horses, and mountain bikes) that connect you to everything - what is not to love!. I decided to explore one of the National Trials (the Souths Downs Way) this is a trail covering 100 miles of East and West Sussex from Winchester to Eastbourne. I started my journey at the half way point in Amberley and was heading towards the coast at Eastbourne. I covered about 40 miles on foot over 3 days. You walk along the top of the south downs with views out to the English channel ... read more
June 1st 2009
I've been in England for 2 weeks now, and have managed to do a fair bit, despite sleeping in every day of the first week !! In London I've been staying with friends (Matt and Viktoria) - they are awesome hosts and make it really easy to just keep staying - I have an air matress set up in the living room, a cell phone, Oyster card (to load up and use on the tube and buses - about half price to paying cash), a key to their apartment, wireless internet I can get on my ipod, and use of their home computer (a travellers dream set up!!). We even had champagne with dinner last night, just because it was Sunday ! I still love London and it remains my favorite city, I am happy to ... read more
May 8th 2009
I just finished the whirlwind 1 week tour of Egypt. Fabulous place to visit - there is so much here !! my favorite day is still the first full day we had in Cairo, visiting the Egyptian Museum to see King Tut's treasures, then to the Pyramids (and inside the Great Pyramid), camel rides in the desert - it was awesome. We spent the next 3 days on a boat on the nile - beautiful, especially at sunset. Abu Simbel is very neat, especially considering they cut up the mountain and move it to avoid submerging the temple when they built the dam. Valley of the Kings - an other highlight (if you haven't noticed everything here is a highlight!!) - massive excavation site, and they are still working on it, and relocating thousands of people ... read more
April 30th 2009
I added one week ın Turkey to my trıp - defınıtely a good ıdea. Istanbul ıs a fabulous cıty, wıth so much hıstory and so much to see, the maın attractıons there are the Aya Sofıa, Blue mosque, Tokpakı Palace, Spıce market and Grand Bızzare. The Aya Sofıa was my favorıte - ıt was a Chrıstıan basılıca buılt around 500-600, then ın the 1400's was converted to a mosque, and ıt now a museum - ıt ıs massıve, wıth beautıful mosaıcs that they are stıll workıng to uncover as most had been plastered over when ıt was made a mosque. Besıdes the sıtes ın Istanbul, ıt took me a couple of days to really get ınto Turkey and the culture here (I thınk there was a bıt of culture shock comıng from the order ın Japan, ... read more
April 23rd 2009
I haven't had a lot of computer access throughout Japan (lots of wireless that I can get from my ipod which is great, but not helpful for writing blog entries). The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy, usually only staying in places 1 or 2 nights and then moving on. I hit Takeyama for their spring festival. The centre of the festival is the floats, this is the only time of year that they are brought out - and unfortunately it rained that day, but it was cool because you would walk around the old part of town looking for the warehouses where they were stored. The floats are very elaborate, most of them built 200-300 years ago. Festival food was great, lots of soba noodle stands and octopus balls. I spent a couple ... read more
April 11th 2009
There was a lot to cover in Kyoto in a short time - the city is filled with temples, shrines, a castle, Imperial palace, loads of cherry blossoms, and lots of cool little streets with shops and restaurants. It:s a great city! I have been to the Golden Temple - Kinkakuji Temple - it is a beautiful spot, and a very eye catching temple, as you can see in the photo!! From there, it was down the street (about a mile) to the Ryoanji temple - it is actually most famous for its rock garden. 13 rocks in 5 groupings, surrounded by perfectly groomed (you can see the lines) white pebbles - you are suppose to find your 'zen' and come up with your own interpretation of the rock layout - I don't think I had ... read more
April 5th 2009
Tokyo is a very interesting place - so many different things, it's kinda nice to really feel like a tourist / foreigner. So much is different and I hardly understand anything, so I find I am paying much more attention. Although I don't understand a lot, Tokyo is very kind to us English only speaking folks (most places of interest have signs in English and people are very good to speak English to me (my Japanese is currently limited to Hello-konnichiwa, goodbye-sayonnara, and yes- hai). I keep forgetting please and thank you - I need to pull out my phrase book and work on those. The toilets here definitely catch your attention - you get both ends of the spectrum - the high end electronic toilets with heated seats, bidet and the option of flushing noises ... read more
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