After persuading the people I am working with in Beijing that I didn't want to work the weekend, I got the 2 days off to do a bit more looking around. On Saturday I took a tour to the Great Wall, it was a tour and it had a guide, but other than telling us to hurry up because we were taking our time, the guide didn't do anymore than buy our tickets, so it was more of a slightly overpriced but convenient bus ride to the wall. Rather than going to the popular Badaling section which is only about an [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately I had to take a work trip to Beijing for 2.5 weeks in December. Sometimes life is just plain hard! So I am sitting in Beijing now trying to take in as much as I can when I am not at work. I only have 4 spare days in Beijing but then will be taking 5 days off at the end and will go to Shanghai for a look around. Anna couldn't get time off work to come which is a pity but a free trip to China for me is still a free trip to China so I wasn't [View Full Entry]

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We have done a bit of driving since our last blog, through southern Oregon, the Sierra Nevadas in California, the national parks of Utah and finally up to Jackson Hole Wyoming. All in all we clocked up 10500ks in the US! an here a few photos of the last few weeks. So thats it, our holiday is finally over and we are back in New Zealand. Well really our trip is over but perhaps our holiday is not quite, we still have a few dollars in the bank and are not rushing off to get back into working life! For all [View Full Entry]

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From New York we flew into LA, picked up our rental car (a 3.5L V6 Chevy!) and headed up the coast to Eureka. We had a day poking around LA, Hollywood, Beverly Hills and the beaches. The beaches were super nice but it was a bit cold for swimming. After LA we drove up the coast, sticking to Highway 1 or 101 along the coast. We took a week to get up the coast and it was really nice the whole way. The first thing we noticed was the lack of people, coming from crowded Europe, camping in the US was [View Full Entry]

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Well I think I can confidently say that New York would have to be our favourite city that we've visited so far. Apart from the bloody cold temperatures, it was really easy to get around (having the streets numbered might not be too imaginative, but it makes it virtually impossible to get lost!), people were friendly (we didnt get gunned down in Harlem), and there was just so much to see. We actually stayed out of New York in Stamford, Connecticut, with a friend of ours from UNI, Megan. From Connecticut it was only a 45 minute commute on the local [View Full Entry]

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Well London was a bit colder than Santorini! We saved a lot of money by staying with Annas uncles family in the little village of Colney Heath. So each day we commuted via the subway into the city. Our first day we decided to jump on one of the big double-decker red bus tours to get a bit of an overview. It was well worth it! Apart from being a little chilly, we got to see all the main sights.....Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palance, London Bridge, London Tower, Hyde Park and lots of other little bits of info too like [View Full Entry]

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We spent just over a week in Greece, we had planned 2 days in Rome, 3 on the island of Naxos and 4 in Santorini. After the overly touristy, pickpocket friendly Rome, it was a nice change to go to Athens. While there were still plenty of tourists the city felt a lot more comfortable. We were staying in a cheap hotel in what was supposed to be a dodgy part of town but it felt safe and clean although it did feel more like Japan did than other parts of Europe. One thing we did notice in Greece were the [View Full Entry]

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We have just left Italy and are writing this blog in Athens. We were on our way to the Acropolis but is is bucketing down outside! Italy was a mixed bag for us. The roads were rubbish (well coming from Germany anyway) and the driving was bad, although not as bad as we had expected. Still the road rules hardly apply, if you need to get across a road you go and hope someone will stop! We also found Italians to be a touch 'horn happy' with a beep for just about everything! Best of all was how italians stop there [View Full Entry]

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After Switzerland we drove back to Germany and the Barvarian Alps. We went to the castle Neuschwanstein which looked amazing but you will have to take our word for it as our photos of it have since dissappeared into the world of 0s and 1s! We drove through Munich (stopping in at octoberfest for a beer) to Berchtesgaden, a little part of Germany on the border with Austria and once home to members of the Nazi party and the famous kehlsteinhaus "Eagles Nest". The scenery around there was amazing although Anna would like to mention that the bus ride up to [View Full Entry]

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We have been in Switzerland for 2 weeks now and have been around much of the country so this blog will be more of a summary of the best bits. From France we drove into Switzerland, Through Martingny, across to Zermatt at the base of the Matterhorn, across the Grimselpass to Interlaken, up to Grindelwald at the base of the Eiger, then out of Switzerland via Bern and Basel (on our way to the Black forrest in Germany). Back into Switzerland at Kreuzlingen (at lake Constance) through St Gallen to briefly pop into the 6th smallest country in the world (Liechtenstein) [View Full Entry]

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