mr wind up bird
James Taylor Joined: January 3rd 2006
Logged in: December 18th 2006
Logged in: December 18th 2006
Travel Blog Posts
I'm sitting in Bula internet, at the heart if Nadi, Fiji. It's roasting and humid outside, but thankfully it's air conditioned in here. Nothing except church happens on a Sunday in Fiji. All that shops are shut and I've spent most of the day here. Tomorrow I travel to Levuka, the old colonial capital, off the east of Viti Levu the mainland. I'm not entirely sure how I'm getting there yet. I've been told I need to get a bus, then a minibus then a boat then a bus. All of that sounds complicated and of course everything runs on Fiji time, so one of them is bound to be late. Fiji's a tiny country though, I'm sure it can't be that hard. As some of you may or may not have heard, there is a ... read more
L.A Saturday night.
The best thing about So Cal is the sunsets. For some reason the precise natural (humidity) and human (pollution) factors combine to turn the skies brilliant shades of orange and pink almost every evening. I was in L.A for a bit of a reunion. My friend Matt had just moved out there about a year ago, and as luck would have it two more of my friends from University, Rob and Leo would be there at the same time. Now technically Matt doesn’t live in L.A, he lives in Huntington Beach (officially Surf City, USA) a medium sized town over thirty miles from L.A city itself. But it doesn’t matter really because L.A as a city with a coherent center doesn’t really exist. Huntington Beach borders Seal Beach and Long Beach to the north, Westminster to ... read more
New York by Day
New York for all intents and purposes is the centre of the Universe. I suppose I'm reasonably well traveled for someone my age, but stepping out of the Brooklyn Bridge subway station into an overcast, Wednesday afternoon, was still an awe inspiring experience. To put it bluntly everything is just so tall, and busy. Hundreds and hundreds of iconic yellow cabs speed past, you are jostled by sharply attired businessmen, hysterical Japanese tourists and overweight shoppers. Steam rises from the subway air vents, the air tastes of pizza, noodles, donuts or one of the millions of different varieties of foodstuffs on offer; combined with dust, gasoline and the salty air. You incline your head as far back as it will go and you the tops of skyscraper in all directions, like standing at the bottom of ... read more
Varna Port
Not much to report here I'm afraid. Bulgaria's Black Sea coast is a bit like an action film. It's fun but not very interesting. Trying to escape from some zealous American missionaries (Missionaries? Bulgaria is almost entirely orthodox Christian) I had met on the Bus from Velika, I jumped into a taxi that drove me to the hostel I had planned on staying in. Up three flights of stairs later, and it was clear that the either 'Coast Hostel' didn't exist, or someone was making some extravagant claims on the web sight. Some wide-boy Bulgarian, who might have worked in this mythical place or not, (I never figured out whether it existed)took pity on me and lead me across town to the Flag Hostel. I was greeted by Dean, a laddish northerner who seemed like he'd ... read more
Street in the old town
I think I managed to get sick of Music in Velıka Tarnovo. Don't worry, it's not a permanent illness, But a few days I just wanted silence. The problem was that the hikers hostel where I was staying, although lovely, deemed ıt reasonable to play mind numbıng trance music from early morning to early evening. From then it got even worse, as a couple of obnoxious australians (whose major conversation topic was how much illegal substances they took) would hog the stereo and insist on playing 'a perfect circle' and every other experiemental metal band that I dont know the name of. Apart from this testing ordeal, which forced me to stay away most of the time, Velika was a charming rustic town with a spectacular setting on a ridge overlooking a river. I had travelled ... read more
Plovdiv rootops
My last day in Sofia was very lazy, I don't think I got up until midday, and so I eventually left Sofia rather later than I should have done. Sofia train station was a vast grey labryinth of Cyrillic signs and communist architecture. I had a quick flap as I couldn't find anywhere selling tickets to Plovdiv. Fortunately, I had my trusty Rough guide to hand which informed me that they could be purchased in the basement. I arrived into Plovdiv as darkness was approaching, which is never the ideal situation when trying to find some obscure address in a strange town. Most provincial cities in ex communist countries seem to have very constrastıng sectıons, but in Plovdiv the difference was more pronounced between the lovely old town which was perched on a hill and the ... read more
Government building
Riding in from the airport past scores of decaying, grey, communist-era tower blocks wasn't the best way to lift my spirits after a sleepless overnight flight, so Sofia seemed a bit miserable at first. But then what doesn't at 6:30 in the morning. My mood wasn't helped when the hungover ticket inspector declined to show any leniancy towards my unvalidated bus ticket. I was clearly a new arrival in the country who was unaware if the idyosyncrascies of the Bulgarian bus system and I didn't speak any Bulgarian. The Inspector pocketed the fine. I got off the bus by a city centre park containing an enourmous overblown communist monolith, depicting the workers struggle or something like that. The surrounding buildings were graffitied and peeling and the only signs of life were a few stray dogs and ... read more
Fishing 1
1) Portugal is definetly and defiantly not Spain. Before I arrived, I too would have been hard pressed to distinguish between Portugal and its larger Iberian cousin. Portugal does however, retain an immediate and distinct atmosphere of its own, although this atmosphere is hard to define. I suppose it seems somewhat Carribean or South American to me, although having never been to the Carribean or South America I'm not exactly an authority on the matter. But it is certainly multicultural and seems much more exotic than other european countries 2) Until I recieve conclusive evidence to the contrary I will continue to believe that all portugese people can sing very well. I mean really sing. One evening in Lisbon a group of people from my hostel and myself went to watch some Fado music. Fado ... read more
Plaza Mayor
My little travel alarm begins to play it's irritating high pitched melody. Shit, I fell asleep. Of course I knew I was going to fall asleep, otherwise I wouldn't have set the alarm. But it's 4:00 and I have a night train to catch at the insane hour of 5:00. Too late to stay up for and too early to be waking up. So I compromised, drinking too many cans of cheap lager and finally passing out around 1:00. Not such a good move. A slight hangover is knocking on the door and I have had nowhere near enough sleep. I check the shower. It's cold. I don't bother. I haphazardly search the room for forgotten items of clothing, shoulder my bag (which seems unbearably heavy after only two hours sleep) and step out into the ... read more
Plaza Mayor
Every Sunday El Rastro is a frenetic, bustling entity. Stretching down from Metro Latina to the Grand Arch of the "Ronda de Toledo", the vast mass of browsing tourists, rickety stalls and hard bargaining locals sprawls so far in every direction that it seems a disservice to label it a street market. One can get quite literally anything here; from Moleskin Notebooks, replica football shirts, various "natural" cosmetics and questionably authentic antiques. The prices are on the right side of decent, but surprisingly it isn't the place to bargain. I picked up a military surplus jacket for 15 euro and though I attempted a fairly pathetic ploy of pretending I only had a tenner (if that stapel of British slang can be successfully applied to the euro), the stallholder would accept nothing less. The central arteries ... read more
