Budapest (and Hungary for that matter) was yet another one day, two night stop on our push to Greece (I - Jen - was desperately in need of an island getaway and some serious downtime at this point!). We arrived by train from Vienna (an easy 6 hours - I love European travel), and immediately found our way to the Malev Hungarian Airline office to sort out our flight from Budapest to Athens. Although we had confirmed our plans over the phone a week earlier, it wasn't as simple as we had thought... but thanks to a very nice ticket agent [View Full Entry]

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Our trip to Austria was just a quick stop in Vienna....loved the city. We happened to be there for a 'bank holiday', so we were in luck with everything but the weather. The wind and rain didn't stop everyone from getting out into the streets and touring through the military display that was presented in the main square. Given the world war two history of Austria, we were pretty surprised to see the military propaganda machine out in force, with no hint of shame.... We only had time to spend a little while in Vienna, as it was only a quick [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Germany after three weeks in Scandinavia. We'd had a bit of a break in Copenhagen, two nights alone after spending six weeks with family. We were so touristed out, we didn't even take one blog worthy picture in Denmark. Our first stop in Germany was Hamburg. We were meeting up with Laura, who worked with Andrew last summer in Ottawa. We toured around Hamburg for the day and then stayed at Laura's place in the little town of Hildesheim. After three very relaxing nights, we had to head south, continuing to head in the direction of Budapest, our [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Norway by riding the Swedish train all the way to the end of the line in Narvik, Norway. We spent the next 10 days working our way south before saying goodbye to Jen's brother Chris in Oslo. Highlights: - Our first snowfall of the trip as we hiked up the ski hill above Narvik with views of the fjord surrounded by snow-capped mountains - The Lofoten islands....we headed for the end of the lines...as far as the train, ferry and bus would take us, to the tiny fishing village of Å. The plan was to camp out for [View Full Entry]

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Oooops - we found this blog in the archive, and realised that it hadn't been uploaded....so here it is, only a few months out of date. As many of you know, we are now (March 2008) safely home, settled in a new apartment and have decided to finish our blog, starting with this one! More to come soon....and now back to the middle of October in Scandanavia We only spent a few days in Sweden....we had decided to make it a short visit so that we could have time to head further north into Norway. Jen's brother Chris is travelling with [View Full Entry]

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Andrew's Highlights of Finland: Getting our first piece of real bread in three months on the Finnair flight from Beijing - it's surprising how good it was after three months of rice and noodles Seeing Chris (Jen's brother) and having a partner in crime for a little while Crashing in a great pad...we stayed right downtown in Helsinki at the apartment of a friend of Jen's family...it was perfect (and left us a lot more money for beer)...thanks Eric! The girls here are really, really ugly. And fat. (I'm happily married, but I'm not blind) Reindeer sausage with lingonberry sauce....Rudolph is [View Full Entry]

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Since Andrew gave a good overview of China, I´ll write a quick recap of the places we visited along the way: Our GAP tour started in Shanghai, where we met our tour leader, Tina, and our group. We were very fortunate to have a small group, with another Canadian couple (Lesley & Paul from Guelph ) and a Brit (Lloyd from Manchester) joining us for the 2 weeks. Our hotel was close to Nanjing Road, a bustling shopping street, and the Bund, a riverside area that was once the British section of Shanghai and is lined with old colonial buildings. The [View Full Entry]

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Written by Andrew Jen and I were looking forward to our time in China, and not knowing exactly what we would be getting ourselves into. We were on a 14 day group tour with Jen's parents that covered a lot of ground. The tour was a wedding present from Jen's folks and a great excuse for them to see the world with us. We weren't too sure about how we would like being on a group tour, but it was a welcome relief from organizing...after being on the road for almost eight months, spending a couple of weeks on a guided [View Full Entry]

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By Jen: Our visit to Japan was only a week long, and we spent it in Tokyo, with an overnight trip to the mountains in Nikko. Our week in Tokyo was made all the better by our friend Scott (Scott and Andrew played together on the same ultimate team in Ottawa a couple of years ago) who sent us a fantastic email with "Scott's Top 10 Things To See & Do Around Tokyo". Scott has previously lived in Tokyo, and his advise was invaluable - thank you Scott! (We had met up with Scott while we were in Sydney, where he [View Full Entry]

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We spent a week in Hong Kong before our 2 week "Highlights of China" tour. My (Jen's) cousin Mike and his girlfriend Nancy very generously put us up for the week in their very tiny HK apartment (which they share with a roommate, Andrew). Last year, Mike and Nancy lived just across the boarder, in Shenzhen, China, where they taught English. In September, they moved to HK to teach for one more year before going back to Ontario. We had a fantastic time hanging out with them, got very little sleep, and couldn't believe how fast the week flew by! Half [View Full Entry]

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