Chongqing to Chengdu Matt and Ed Matt: After four days of singing, dancing and drinking our way down the Yangtze, we were woken for the final time by the chimes of our cabin tannoy followed by a couple of lines of Chinese and (apparently) an English translation. Ed (who has become an expert in Chinglish), explained that the message had announced our arrival in the city of Chongqing and told us that we were being booted off the MV Emperor. I groaned, and through a half opened eye, peered out of our porthole only to be depresse [View Full Entry]

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Shanghai to Yichang, Fendu and Chongqing Matt and Ed[url='/Videos/2636.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/2636.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Matt doing the Time Warp Ed: I’m turning 30 this year. So you would think in that time I would have learnt a thing or two about responsible drinking. Alas, our last night in Shanghai proved me wrong. By the time we had bonded with some expats over a few (and I don’t use the term lightly) vodka, lime and sodas over five hours into the late evening (or mor [View Full Entry]

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London to Shanghai Matt and Ed Matt: I’m not sure where my desire to visit China really came from. It may have been images of Great Walls, Giant Pandas, Terrocotta Warriors or Communist Dictators. More likely though, it was probably just the opportunity to taste duck in any flavour that was the clincher. Either way, Ed and I now find ourselves travelling around this enormous country on our way back home to Australia. Our flight from Heathrow to Shanghai was surprising comfortable. This was thanks in large part to my [View Full Entry]

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Matt: Don’t you find it annoying when you go out for a drink with a few mates and the conversation turns to something you can’t contribute to? Whether it is a movie you haven’t been to, a song you haven’t heard or a current event that you haven’t read up on, I always find myself sitting back, sighing obviously and waiting for the conversation to turn to something a little more to my tastes (like Brangelina or Lost or Daniel Craig). Over the past year for Ed and me, two subjects have stood out as complete tune-outs: the Ashes (I try, [View Full Entry]

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Ed: Having not spent nearly enough time with Annette and Paul gallivanting across Scotland and the Greek islands, we decided to go back for more and meet them for the weekend in Lucerne (have I mentioned how much I love living in London?) We almost made a major blunder when booking the flights - for some reason we thought Lausanne was the same place as Lucerne. Before you rush to judge, note that the Swiss have like 28 official languages so we’d assumed it was the same place just written in different languages. It’s a simple mistake - try saying them [View Full Entry]

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Annette: Like Christopher, I have been delegated to write about our Greek Odyssey with the boys. Everybody who’s anybody knows that Greece has always been like the Holy Grail to me. Finally, with Ed, Matt and Paul in tow we set out on this journey of self discovery! After a semi teary goodbye to Christopher, we set out for the train ride to Luton airport which was pretty uneventful. That all changed when we arrived and our Easyjet flight had been replaced with Air Finland. The plane looked like something left over from WWII, with broken seats and threadbare carpet! Not [View Full Entry]

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Christopher: After having visited so many places, it should come as no surprise that Ed and Matt are finding it hard to find the time to write their blogs. So they’ve delegated the task of writing about Scotland to me. After spending 2 weeks staying with the boys (see Brighton and Bath entries) I spent 5 weeks travelling around the continent and returned just in time to join them on a Scottish odyssey. Two other friends of ours from Sydney, Annette and Paul, had also just arrived in London so it was something of a reunion. Back home we all spent [View Full Entry]

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Matt: After a two day entrée of gorgeous panoramas, cute villages and (of course) amazing pizza and pasta, mum, Ed and I had arranged to gorge ourselves stupid on a main course of four days in Tuscany and Rome. After shedding a tear for Steve Irwin on the streets of Montorosso (thank you mum!), we caught a train to La Spezia - the nearest main city - to pick up our car. From there, we drove directly to Lucca, an old walled city on the edge of the rolling Tuscan hills. There we introduced mum to our patented hour long town [View Full Entry]

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Matt: One of the most important lessons my mother ever taught me as a child was to be persistent: if I didn’t succeed at something at first, I should try again until I did. It’s not without irony then that this valuable advice should come back to bite my mother as I launched a second attempt at wiping her out, this time in Italy. My reattempt started with the familiar Friday afternoon dash home from work for some last minute packing and dash off to a London airport. Knowing how my mother hates to rush, I had checked with BA and [View Full Entry]

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Matt: I guess there comes a point in every parent-child relationship when the roles are reversed and the parent becomes dependent on their dependent. Although for most, this is a gradual process that happens over a period of years, for me I can now give the exact time and location that this change happened for my mum and me. Thank you Paris! Mum had arrived in London about a week earlier. Being the dutiful son, I had planned the greeting to perfection: despite her flight arriving at 6am in the morning, I would wake up at 5am and make my way [View Full Entry]

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