Matts' Blog!

Day 4 - 10th January

2012-01-11T02:16:00.000+13:00

Today we got up, showered and all that business, went for the complementary breakfast that the hotel provides then we for a walk back west where, the night before the markets had been. Most of them were now gone. Packed up as if they were christians being run out of town by the romans. So anyhow we wandered around some more, several blocks here and several blocks there with Ethan trying to sit on the ground at every possible chance he could haha. We seriously need to bring a fold out chair for him (Mental note to keep eye out for one).

We went into the Pantheon which was built about 25BC (Give or take a few years) and at the time it was a pagan temple, but now is one of the cornerstone temples for Christianity. I wont go into the history of the place - you can just wiki it for the good stuff, but the pictures you see will not do it justice, it's a big marble-centric big ole room with sacred this and that's all over the place inside. We spent quite some time in there and much to Ethan's dismay he was not allow to sit on the floor as it was 'forbidden' (So the signs said). I chuckled to myself on that one. hehe.

After that we wandered (actually I think I was following Jo's orders) in a different direction and we went over to the Trevi Fountain, which I am ashamed to say I had never heard of (but now have), and it too was not something you'd see every day (unless you had to go past it to get to work). It was massive with flowing sculptures and water (and seagulls) everywhere. I made a mental note at the time to google it and read about it. I still haven't done that yet (too busy writing blogs). There was this amazing shop behind the Trevi Fountain called Benetton where I spent a fe hundred Euro and am happy to say I am not wearing a blue jersey anymore. In fact I am almost indistinguishable now as a tourist. A bit more of a tan and I would have to do something very wrong to be noticied as a white boy from New Zealand. :)

After I got good looking, I mentally twisted Jo's arm to get us on a tour bus that went around Rome and it seems I was that good, that she had actually organised one several weeks beforehand. So we found a place to jump on the bus and we did some sights around Rome with a little earpiece that told me all about the history of the locations that we were driving past at the time. I have not pretty much forgotten everything I was told and will have to Google it in the future.

Later that night, I decided that since I had done such a good job of picking the first restaurant I would pick another. Oh my god, we picked, like, the worst restaurant in Roma. Holy crap, what a story for someone elses grandkids for me to tell. In fact we jumped on TripAdvisor.com and we found that it ranked 3035th out of 3500 restaurants in Rome. HAHA! It was all quite bad really. I didn't think you could ruin Roast potatoes but I think they must have boiled them in Sunlight Soap or something... blech. I only ate about 7 of them hehe. The rest of our main was pretty forgettable as well. Anyhow, I will now dwell on it. For a real good laugh you should read the TripAdvisor comments about the restaurant.

Here is the link -->>> L'Arcano (die die die)

Here endth our day, bit of a shame but we lived and learnt and I figure we might get a free bread or something about it if we tell another restaurant about it :-)

Day 3 - 9th January

2012-01-11T02:12:00.003+13:00

So we caught the 1 hour 45 minute flight form Paris to Roma (Rome for you less smarty people), we disembarked and were sitting in the airport, about to leave, thinking about how to catch a taxi (the place was swarming with foreigners) and we were greeted by a man who looked like an elderly cousin/uncle. His name was Claudio and offered us the services of his taxi. He seemed cheerful enough so we took him up on his offer and after a quick chat of locations, we were on our way into Hotel Abruzzi right outside the Pantheon in Roma (Rome, remember?).

I watch a lot of History channel and the last half of the trip form the airport into the hotel was almost like living on channel 73.... amazing! So we disembarked from our taxi, we were standing directly outside the front door of the hotel and look at what we were in front of...

From our Hotel Window (WTF!)

Crazy! And look at what our room view is like!

So we unpacked, looked out the window several more times and went out for a little food (we hadn't eaten since very early morning and it was now late afternoon. I randomly picked a little restaurant close to the hotel, hoping that it wasn't a tourist trap restaurant, but we were very happy with the outcome. Friendly service, lovely pasta, and a nice main (of which I can no longer remember). It probably had something to do with the bottle of wine we washed down with it. We left there in high spirits, thinking that if all the places where like that then this part of the trip was going to be hot stuff! Later that night we wandered a few block west of our hotel around to were the Christmas markets were being held. It was the last night of the year they were being held and it was more like a carnival/festival than some dreary old markets. We wandered around the stalls avoiding the people trying to sell us their local goods/junk and generally had a top time! Got back to the Hotel room and promptly fell asleep - about 8:30pm - haha! (we are so hardcore).

Day 2

2012-01-11T02:11:00.002+13:00

Woke up today at 3:30am Paris time due to me falling asleep 12 hours earlier, and decided to lie there until 6 or 7am when I thought it might be cool to get up and not have Jo telling me off :-) However, as fate would have it I fell asleep again at 10 minutes to 6. Then slept another 2 hours for good measure. Felt a lot better than I had for the past 2-3 days due to the flying, but still decided I need an extra supply of Panadols just in case.
Rocked downstairs and found the local cafe/restaurant and let Jo order (I let Jo order/talk for everything, because if the local thinks we can speak french we don't get a slap - you know those storied of grumpy frenchies) and we had a delightful meal of coffee, omelettes and orange Juice. However my cover was blown when I went to pay the bill when the waiter asked if I speak french and I had to say 'Non'. Needless to say the conversation stopped there and we left the cafe - not sure if we are allowed back haha.

After that we decided to go for a walk (pretty much over to Starbucks for our second coffee in 30 minutes - to blast our bodies into wakeup mode) and about 20 minutes into the walk Jo decided we would stick to her schedule and go find the Museum of Paleontology. It was quite a walk along the river Seine to find it, but I very much enjoyed it, as I quite enjoy walking anywhere new and looking at things I have never seen before (whether they be interesting or not). Once we got to the museum we realised is was basically several museums all lumped together in one district. There was even a museum of Scientific Documents! Egad... that one would have to be saved for a rainy day. ;-)

Anyhow we found the Museum National D'Historie Naturalle, Grand Galerie De L'Evolution. (Say the seven times real quick!) We went inside this and bought ticket for the main museum and it's two exhibitions which were something about learning for kids (not bad for adults either) and the other was about spiders. Anyhow, we went through there and that must have taken a good 5-6 hours. We sat down a lot near the end of it and still missed approx one quarted of the exhibits I'd guess, plus you know how you do get tired and skip past a lot of things without reading them properly. There was a rather large exhibit on the Narwhal which was very interesting due to the fact that it is the basis of the Unicorn legend. I spent 15-20 minutes reading everything and Jo was extremely (not) interested when I tried to recite some of the best points to her... haha! Oh well... maybe another time.

The walk back from the Museum was interesting as we got a bit lost and poor Jo was struggling to walk back due to her choice of footwear... luckily for her though there is a footwear specialist in ur next stop (Rome)... I mean how could there not be.... you know, the leather goods captial of the world and all! :-) Anyhow, off for dinner in a hour or two... not sure where we are going but everywhere has been awesome so far! Will update in a bit!

Europe Trip! -- Day 1/Trip Proglogue

2012-01-08T05:05:00.000+13:00

Before I start writing my small literary entry into the adventures of Matt, Jo and Ethan, I would just like to preface it with the information to the dear reader that we have had a lot to do to get us to this point (Day 1 at time of writing).

Aside from a the fact that both of our families seem to have the majority of their birthdays in November and December, we have also had Christmas to contend with. Also to make life more busy in these months we have also both finished up our respective jobs and got new ones. Then we have packed up and shifted from the rainy traffic ridden shores of Auckland to the golden paved roads of Hamilton. So after all of that we have somehow saved and planned for a trip across several countries together in Europe of which we have just started.

About 1 weeks ago today the movers came and shifted all the contents of the house and moved them to Hamilton, where Jo and I have spent most of this week, unpacking and setting up the house. A tireless job that always seems to catch you working non stop without breaks and late into the evenings. So on Wednesday night we figured we had done about 95% of the unpacking and sorting and so piled everything we needed for our holiday into the car and drove the 1 hour and 45 minute trip to Auckland to Jo, parents for the night.

The next morning we were into the car again at 9am and drove to Auckland Airport where we caught an 11am flight to Christchurch. We then had a 4pm flight from Christchurch to Kuala Lumpur. Luckily there we no earthquakes in Christchurch for the few hours that we where there (I know it was playing Jo's mind). We got to KL at about 4am NZ time (due to the delayed departure of our Christhchurch flight because of the extra food that they needed to load onto the flight - I reckon it's because someone made a booking error and only noted that I was boarding this specific flight when I turned up on the day).

Getting to Kuala Lumpur meant that by this time we had been on the proverbial road now for 19 hours. At 6am NZTime we departed KL for Paris, and we landed in Paris at 8am NZ Time and where in our hotel by sometime between 9 and 9:30am.

Shortly after we checked in and showered (yah for getting rid of 36 hours of traveling yuckiness), we went for a quick walk which turned into several hours (Jo was rather proud of showing me around her favourite city. We went to and into Notre Dame, across the Seine river (Aka Wanganui River) and a bit of a trip across to the gates of the Louvre. On the way back we decided to cross a bridge that from a distance it looked like the sides of it where gold plated. It in fact turned out to be this bridge --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_des_Arts. It was pretty nifty, making us think it was a bit like the bridges and fences around New Zealand that get covered with other type of things (i.e. bra's/bikes). Anyhow we walked back (quite a walk for us novice walkers) and we got back to the hotel room where I typed up this little ditty. I then decided to lie down at 3pm for an hour or two's kip, and woke up at 8:30pm, to find that everyone else had fallen asleep and so we called it a day... everyone must have pretty exhausted for not sleeping for basically two days... haha!

Mid Winter Post

2010-08-09T09:14:00.000+12:00

Had another good weekend! Actually I didn't do much at all. Lazed around the house for most of it, not allowed to play WoW as have a bit of a medical condition limiting my mouse usage... Damn Razer Naga mouse has gone in the 'spare parts' bag now as it completely wrecked my hand... oh well 1 week of not using a mouse (temporariliy left handed mouse user at the moment) and i am feeling a little less pain which is a good thing.

So I downloaded a new game "High Stakes On The Vegas" and played that for several hours. It's good, only needs you to hit the x button on the controller once every 30 seconds or so :-) So many nutters playing online poker... You can tell the crazy ones, because you don't play for real money. They log into teh table and go 'all in' (bet all their money in one go) and generally lose it. But it screws up your game and concentration somewhat :-)

Anyhow got to work this morning and was doing the pre-work browse on Facebook and noticed several people updating entries with activities they did over the weekend but no pics (or very little pics) to show - boo! C'mon people updates please!

Finances are looking a bit better nowadays after the recent move, and am now saving up for another bike to commute to work with, (after my last one got stolen), but is taking a while due to paying off credit card and saving for France '11! More on that in a future post!

Cheers
Matt

Day 1 (and 36 years)

2009-02-09T16:30:00.000+13:00

So ok, I turned 36 recently. I know, I know, I'm getting old. But quite frankly I don't feel it. I've heard a few people say that they felt like a switch was turned on when they hit 40, and they just felt old all of a sudden. Well that means I've got 4 years to go before I get to prove that theory wrong! haha!

So what did you do for your birthday Mr. Scott I hear you ask. Well I actually was recovering from a headache from the night before. I Went out for a bit of poker night and thought that I wouldn't drink too much, and I would have a nice clear head the next day. Well as it turns out I was weak and someone had Jim Beam Gold label... that was all that was required. I drunk probably half the bottle and basically held consciousness long enough to lose all my chips and then pass out at the table. So yeh, Sunday was a bit rough really, but I got through ok :-)

On another note, I've also decided to change my training/exercise routine around a bit. Luckily for me, work asked us if anyone wanted to start a little later at 9am and finish at 5:30pm. I snapped this opportunity up and now I get and extra hour in the mornings to do my cardio and then I do my weights in the evening. I've now been twice so far and I am enjoying it a lot. There's always that 'dread' factor when you know you have at least 2 hours of bloody hard sweat and tears to go at the gym and the temptation to not go gets very strong sometimes. At least now in the evenings after a hard day of writing blogs, er I mean work, I know I only have an hour and a bit of weightlifting to do when I get there... no afternoon cardio - hallelujah! Also, it seems a good run in the morning is a good way to wake yourself up. At least I don't feel too bad... yet!

PS Saw another idiot on his bike the other day with half a tyre pumped up. Idiot. I felt my pulse kick up another notch as soon as I saw him. Bloody muppet.

Pump it like you should!

2009-01-29T08:29:00.003+13:00

So ok, I've been meaning to have a little blog tantrum about this for several weeks now. Cyclists with half flat tires. oh my god, just even tryign to type those words makes my blood boil... I want to capitalise the words and make the font twice as big... the idiots!

Now take it from me. I've cycled for several years (commuting about 17kms to and from work) and I think I've got a little knowledge on the subject, at least enough to have a bit of a rant! When I first started cycling, I had the odd semi-flat tyre, and I thought to myself that it was good because it made to cycle harder and would make me stronger (going by the 'what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger' theory). How stupid can you be!?! That's just crazy talk! All it does, is make you tired, wreck your bike tyres/rims and makes cycling about as fun as publicly working for Telecom... pfft it's for the birds mate, let me tell you! (Can I get an AHEM!)

But the crazy thing is that I see EASILY more than 50% of cyclists with mountain-type bikes cycling around with these half-flat tires... I swear I just want to run out and grab a hold of these people and shake them like a new born child! PUMP YOUR TIRES UP!!! 50PSI at least! Christ if I, (at a peak weight,) at over 105kg and cycle on 50 PSI tires than so can half of those skinny little cycly type people... Just sort it out and save me having a coronary... please!

Now, I've been meaning to type that up for several days now... almost several weeks. The only thing stopping me was that I had nothing else to blog about (I'm a 2 subject blog man these days) and I feel a bit inadequate if I didn't have something else to chat about.

Anyhow, so last night I was walking home, feeling rather tired and bloated from the quiz night at the pub the night before (lack of sleep and loads of salty chips will do that to you) and I was thinking about how to get out of going to the gym that night when my prayers were answered for me. 2 cars, and 2 women. That's how it started. Then we add an intersection and also a rush hour. Too good. So yeh ofcourse there was an accident and it happened about 3 metres away from me just as I was crossing the road. I was in no real danger, but I had to (I was the only pedestrian there and you know that no one else was going to get out of their cars) run over and check on the drivers. They were both ok - one was a bit shocked and the other had no insurance. The cops turned up and as I was the witness I was interviewed last and was generally made to hang around getting stared out by all the other bypassing motorists (I loved the attention!) In the end the crowd concisted of, 3 police, 2 motorists, 1 father, 1 witness (me) and a GODDAMMED mosquito?!!?!? I swear to god, a damn mosquito bit me on the leg somewhere in all that... how the hell did that happen. Jihad on mosquitos please! I mean surely there must be mossies in Iraq or some shit - and surely that West Nile Virus must have taken down a few taliban's by now, so they should declare war on those bastards! Those damn mossies... lets see them play chicken against a Boein 747 and see how tough they are then!

Anyhow, everyone was ok, and I got home late so I missed my gym night and got to relax on the couch. Life pretty good. Although I still think Obama should eradicate mosquitos and create a law for half flat bike tires and have the death penaly as the standard penaly for it :-)

Toodles.

Blinkers

2009-01-21T08:28:00.003+13:00

Blinkers. Yep - those thing that horses wear, and people too it seems. I have noticed that people seem to go at this freakishly slow speed in the supermarket when walking up and down the aisles. Actually, I've noticed it for quite some time, and I suppose many other people will be nodding their heads at these words. What the hell is wrong with people? Don't you have a list? Is there some sort of 'white noise' telling people to walk slowly, so that the supermarket can maximise their profits? (probably). But most of all these people, when combined with the fact that they seem to think they own the aisles and that they can totally block it with their trolleys/screaming kids/fat asses, and get away with it is ridiculous... Even I, the great Scotto can sometimes only just fit through these narrow gaps... and I'm damn skinny enough as it is... what about all those beer bellied fat old guys who lose it at a moments' notice on the roads? How do they manage? how come we have never heard of an incident of 'Supermarket Aisle Rage? (SAR's?) Bah, move slow and block the aisles... for crying out loud people pick your feet up, have a can of sugarless V and get the hell out of my way.

Now, that I have breifly touched on that subject, maybe I should natter about soemthing else... what can I talk about? Ahh well I went to the doctor last night. Had to get a medical form signed to allow me to do my PADI diving course this year sometime. Hehe... you should have seen me. The Doc was eyeing me up asking me how my general health was, and, in the same breath he also queried my ability in the water. I looked him straight in the eye and said, "Mate, I'm so freakishly fit right now, dolphins get worried when they see me coming." Haha Needless to say, I got my formed signed... Look out Dolphins! ;-)

Hmm Playing a few good games again lately... it's been a bit rough finding the time, in between work (walking to work and back sure does take up quite a bit of time), gym sessions and the odd excursion to the pub every week for Quiz night (Diet Cokes drunk more frequently than anything else). I generally get 2-3 hour max per night for eating, showering, and the odd game, so thing are progressing slowly. However, happy to report that I finsihed all of Neverwinter Nights and both expansion packs, and have now tee'd up Neverwinter Nights 2 (again with both expansion packs). I've been keen for this one for sometime, but had to finish the first game (for possible storyline crossover glee) and also to let the software get patched over time and my hardware on my pc to catch up to a reasonable level. Look out evil creatures of Waterdeep, here I come. Might try a playing a Cleric to start with. I'm even toying with this idea of being an evil Cleric.... ooohhhhhh sounds like fun... maybe a Necromancer... I always play the goody-good - maybe it's time to try going across to the dark side :-)

Hmm what else? Work's good. Home's good. Reading loads of books as I now catch the Devonport ferry twice a day... Good times. Just clear out the friggin supermarket (handy hint - go after 6:30pm - it's MUCH more emptier after then).

Cheers
Matt

Subway food SUCKS!

2009-01-14T11:11:00.003+13:00

I hope all the search engines in the world find this post.

Honestly, what crap they are! How low they have sunken!

This morning, I missed my daily breakfast meal, and had to get something on the way to work. I COULD have got a "One Square Meal" bar (http://www.onesquaremeal.co.nz/) - aka the food of the gods! But, alas, I was starving and my better judgement was obviously impaired, as there was a Subway store close by, and also because of the fact that it had been over a year since I had last purchased some Subway food I thought I'd give it another go. What a complete waste of my time and money.

So here's what I ordered this morning... let it be known Subway - you SUCK - as this isn't the first time I've had bad service from you... food wise and service wise... although I believe that bad service is not something really a corporation can fix... it's probably more of an individual thing (more likely a kiwi thing).

The people behind the counter are obviously trained to put as little food on my meal as possible... ask for lettuce (the most cheapest food they have probably) and you are lucky to get a small sprinkling... not even a handful... and it all goes downhill from there...

I ordered a Chicken Wrap. I asked for these things to be put on it. Lettuce, Tomato, Capsicum, Onion and a bit of pepper.

Most of the food was brown and old (at 7:30am) but that's OK, it's not always like that - I think I just got unlucky there... no biggie as it was still quite acceptable. So anyhow, back to the food amounts, that lettuce? Had to ask for more... tomatoes, 3 wheels (almost asked for more because they weren't very big wheels. Capsicum... three strands of green pepper (luckily for subway I was looking hard at the tomatoes and didn't notice the crappy amounts of these I was receiving). Onion, a couple of thin strands. I had to ask more of these as well...

When the Subway person went to wrap it, it was so small that it really did not look filling at all. They all seem to be so scared of overfilling the wraps and breaking the wrap itself that they just underfill it to the extreme. MAYBE IF SUBWAY HADN'T CHANGED THE WRAP TYPE A YEAR OR TWO AGO TO THESE THIN RUBBISHY WRAPS THEY WOULDN'T HAVE THESE PROBLEMS! And the worst thing was, was that I bought two of these quaking behemoths of nutrition... but unfortunately for Subway, they were both as bad as each other - complete rubbish.

So, I also bought a Coke Zero, when what do you think they charged me for all this? A little over $15.00 - what a crock. So I paid for my meal - really I shouldn't have but as I said earlier, I was pretty starving and need something straight away... (Should have been a OSM).

So then I get back to work and I have access to a computer... I find out that one of these wraps is actually more calories than a OSM and also - half of it is carbs and each one was over 1000mg of sodium... For crying out loud - eat you own food Subway - it used to be tasty and nutritious. about 20 years ago it seems...

Don't even bother trying to lay a complaint with Subway either, I traied that about 1.5-2 years ago... after a couple of chase ups by me I still didn't have any feedback... Bad food, bad service!

Bah - ranting finished - for now... :-)

Gametime!

2009-01-12T13:11:00.007+13:00

So OK, I'm defitnely needing to write some stuff down here.

Firstly, to those two Aussies who got crushed under the Glacier. I feel sorry for them and their families on one level. On, another though... I am not at all sympathetic (my levels are obivously skewed). I we to those Glaciers early last year... in fact you will see photo's of them in my pic links. And, if I recall correctly, there was one or two other idiots out past the safety ropes ignoring the signs and whatnot... gah!

Anyhow, I just thought I should report on my game playing status - because everyone seems to want to knwo what I am playing lately (neot really.. but I felt like writing it down for my own sanity).
26% through GTA4 on the PS3
Approx 30% through Spyro the Dragon (yes the original) on the PS1 (playing on teh PS3 though)
About 98% finished Neverwinter Nights (including both of the expansion packs).... soo close!
Almost finished Might & Magic 6 (90% I think)
About (90%) thorugh Wizardry 8
Only 10% through Tenchu 3 on the Ps2 :-(

I have finished a couple of games in my time - not nearly enough though to warrant a decent ratio though.
I have finished Arcanum, the entire Thief series (1, 2 and 3) on the pc. Also finished Tenchu 1 and 2 on the PS1/2.

I blame World of Warcraft :-) (It's a great game really!) but as I am not playing it at the moment - I'll get back to it sometime... I can attempt to finish some of these otehr games...

Matt

UPDATE (Later that afternoon).... Also remember I have finished Guitar Hero III, Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band - all on Medium levels.... can only just do a few hard songs ;-)

Oh yes and I'm playing Ratch and Clank 3 (Up your arsenal) by proxy ;-) about 25% there...

Idiots....

2008-12-19T13:48:00.001+13:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4798320a11.html

Where was the other mother.... bad parenting! ;-)

Ha!

2008-12-19T09:14:00.002+13:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4797594a11.html
So, OK, some guy walks into a shop, picks up a painting, turns around and walks out while the store person had their backs turned.

Good job!

Many times have I thought of this method... reminds me of Bill Murray doing it with the security guards in Groundhog day :-)

And as far as the shop person moaning... well tough titty I say, $5k for a 1 metre square painting? you gotta be joking... In this day an age with the world economy in recession, you still want to charge that? Good luck.

and Kudo's to that robber... you'll probably get caught... but hey nice try ;-)

Sneaky blogger!

2008-12-19T09:06:00.002+13:00

So, ok I haven't posted the last part of my trip in Canada... It was all good fun but I was jsut travelling to much and never did actaully write anything down. It was interesting to drive around Canada where I had been several months previously, where there was feet upon feet of snow. Now there was green forests and sparkling blue waters, pretty nice.

But all good things come to an end. I got home eventually and relaxed out for a few months, went to the gym and got pack into shape.

Now I have gotten another job and have been hard at it for almost 3 months now... good fun actually, dealing with servers and PABX's...

But now I've discovered a neat little thing to do with this blog. I'm going to make snarky little sarcastic posts... not many people read this and I like to write these things down so here we go... :-)

Matt

Last days in London

2008-05-24T00:29:00.005+12:00

WARNING - This post is large - even for my standards. Get a drink, some food and some shelter, because this baby could take a few days to read.

OK, well it looks like I survived London. It's Friday now and I am out of here in 2 days. I fly out to Canada for a few weeks and hopefully see some more of the countryside (among other things).
So anyhow, I've just finished putting comments on, and uploading another batch of photos. Mainly of when I went to Greenwich the other day to visit the Cutty Sark and see to GMT line, although I did do some other stuff but wasn't allowed to take pictures.

Lets see now - I went and saw Iron Man at the movies the other night with Matthew (my sister's husband). Quite a good boys flick. I like how they are making all these movies of comics that I used to read as a kid. I hope they make a Sgt. Rock movie - loved those comics :-) Anyhow the movie was good but the funniest part I liked was when we went into the cinema and we got our tickets. The plan is you give your ticket to the usher and he lets you into the main area. There were about 5 ushers and they weren't paying any attention to us, so I thought I would have a bit of a laugh and 'PRETEND' to sneak past them. Anyhow, of the 5 ushers, there were 4 black guys and one white guy. The white guy was in a head lock from one and another was jumping on him, and the other 2 were cheering the whole fight one... It was easy to see they weren't paying us any attention so I almost made it past them.... until the white guy yelled out (in a headlock and almost on the floor by now) "Tickets Please!" haha the other 4 guys, stopped what they were doing and looked at us all serious like we where about to escape Stalag 13 or something... haha too funny... after we handed in our tickets they went back to playfighting again haha twits.

So after Belgium I haven't gone anywhere out of London, although I have caught the tube a lot, it's quite good. In fact if someone asked me what was the best part I liked about London, I would have to say the tube. If it just wasn't so expensive! I suppose a monthly pass or something like that would be a lot better though, rather than just one way tickets or daily passes... The Tube rules. Wellington is the only other place that comes close to this level of public transport - and even that has nothing on Londons tube.

So whilst staying at Matthew and Michelle's house I have done quite a bit of the laundry, and cleaning (and little cooking) to pay the rent bill. I've done several supermarket shops for them and done the lawns three times (it's spring). So I hope I have not outstayed my welcome and that I have done enough to 'pay the rent'. :-) We are going out for one last 'local' dinner tonight - so that will be good - we can all have some drinks and a nice meal. My last meal with them will be tomorrow night and we are planning to go to the markets and prepare ourselves a nice big old fashioned Sunday roast (for Saturday night). Stay tuned on the roast report! And that leads me to another disturbing part of this story dear readers. Me and food. We don't mix. I love it but it doesn't love me... maybe it's because I love it too much haha. I can feel all my hard work at the gym slowly start to slip away... dammit... On one hand I want to keep traveling and seeing people and things (that's the big hand just so you know) and on the other, I want to get back home so I can hit the gym again and get back to being ultra fit Matt again.... "But, oh Matt" I hear you say, "Why don't you go for a run or the local gym while you are on holiday?". No, sorry, Matty don't play that game. It's only another 3 and a bit weeks so I will tough it out and relax until then haha (Exercising on holiday... puhlease...)

OK so the on Tuesday I was wandering around the London Bridge station with nothing much to do when I walked past the "London Dungeons" and for once, there was no queue. So I decided I would go in and check it out. Well, 20 pounds to get in, 10 pounds spent in the gift shop (more on that later) and 8 pounds for a photo of my in the stocks - almost 40 pounds for that ($100 NZ basically)... damn! But I must say it was fun, it was supposed to be scary, and there was some scary moments, and in all honesty, it was a good mix of both I think. The dungeons is all about going through different 'rooms' which depict different times or events (fictitious or not) in Londons history. On show where, The Plague (1665), The Great Fire of London (1666), Jack the Ripper, Sweeny Todd, The Jails and other creepy things like that. It was a good laugh, especially when we all had to get in boats (like the log ride at an amusement park) and there wasn't enough seats for me - so I had to go in one on my own. So then I got singled out as being by myself (everyone else - about 30 of them) had a partner/friend with them of some sort and boy, did they all laugh at me haha damn dirty dungeon staff haha. Also, they best thing I liked about the Dungeon show was that the tour guides (different ones for different rooms) were not politically correct in any way at all. It was brilliant. They were calling everyone 'scum' and 'maggots' and stuff like that - was very VERY funny, and I seemed to one of the few who thought it was funny haha. So yeh London Dungeons, good, but do it once and maybe get someone else to pay if you can haha. Oh yeah, now the bit about the gift shop. You see I historically never went into gift stores, leaving that job up to other most experienced shoppers. But lately, since I've been a bit single I've taken a bit of shine to going in there and having a bit of a poke around. So after the Dungeon I went through their gift shop and had a bit of a look... and looky what I found. Skull-Ice making thingys! Thats right, thingys! haha Fill them with water (or Jelly) and freeze them up to make you very own skull ice blocks! woohoo! How cool is that! (I'm making some ice now as we speak!).

So on Wednesday I got up nice and early and decided to go for a walk over to see the Cutty Sark (it's a big old ship for those of you naughty people who don't watch the History Channel). Recently it caught fire and almost burnt away completely, they managed to stop it, but a lot of damage was done to it. So now it is all under cover and being totally restored... god knows how many millions of pounds it will take to restore but it's a national icon and the money will be undoubtedly well spent. I heard from a lady who was in the know, that this time, they are actually going to raise it into the air so that you can actually walk under it as well and see a complete 360 degree view of the boat. Very Awesome. I didn't mind not seeing the actual boat when I went there, because I though that it was actually quite neat to be there at that particular time. I can always come back another time to see it when it is repaired - but to be there at that point in time, I thought was pretty neat. Yeh I know, sometimes I can be a bit weird.

So anyhow, just beside the Cutty Sark is Greenwich Park. This piece of land has been used for many hundreds of years because of the natural land formation around it. It was been used for Royalty lodgings and Naval things for hundreds of years and you can see that upon visiting. The Chapel and the Painted Hall are right beside each other, I went into the Chapel first, it was magnificant with glorious paintings and sculptures and memorials, but it was lucky I went there first as it paled in comparison to the Painted Hall. Hmmm - how do I talk about the Painted Hall... well I can do this --> http://www.oldroyalnavalcollege.org/the-painted-hall/ and then tell you to go have a look at some of my photos... but in all honesty - it's one of those things you hae to see to a) believe and b) appreciate. I'm glad I came to London to see it.

I also went to the Maritime museum and cruised around. I went and did the must-see, saw Nelsons coat he was wearing when he recieved his mortal wound. Now, I was in the museum and I took a photo of it - but I was fiddling with the settings and the flash went off and alerted the guards... and I got told off for taking photos... Well, bloody hell, no one told me when I came into the museum and there were no signs around telling me so I was a pit 'peeved' when I got told off.... but probably more peeved at the fact that I got caught by not checking the flash setting haha doh!

From the museum (after spending close to 2 hours in there) I went up to the British Royal Observatory. It has several bits of history going for it, several people who lived there (and entertained even more famous people) charted stars and gave great things to astronomy, but ofcourse the main thing that everyone comes there to see it the Greenwich Mean Time line. It's the line that the world time is measured from and is another one of those things you really should do, as everytime you look at a clock or a time zone, you can always think, "ahh the GMT line - been there, done that, got the T-Shirt!" haha. By this time it was close to 2:30pm - I had spent over 5 hours walking and standing looking at things, and I was carrying my day bag with me, so my back and legs where aching a bit.. (understatement). But I perservered on. Off I went to next highlight of my trip, the "Jack the Ripper" exhibition at the "Museum in Docklands". The exhibition was amazing. The ACTUAL letters and reports from the Ripper and the police at the times. Astounding. I spent over 2 hours in that exhibit alone. I tried to read a lot of a the Ripper's letter and reports, it was pretty incredible seeing the ACTUAL evidence that they had there, pretty much everything. TOTALLY worth 7 pounds and if you like a good mystery, the ripper, is probably the penultimate one for you. By the time I came out I was so sore and in pain from standing up all day I just left without seeing the rest of the museum... I had to go home and rest - the next day I was hobbling around trying recover... wowser what a day!

So yesterday was a bit of a rest day, caught the tube out to see Matt for lunch and generally bummed around. Went over to see Kathleen and Cameron for dinner, Kathleen and/or Cameron cooked a nice seafood meal, and then lol, we ordered pizza! haha I had bought a bottle of bourbon over, and I think I drank most of it by myself...whoops - Jim Beam Black single handedly? haha when the pizzas arrive I almost single handedly destroyed those too... dammit... see earlier points on getting fat... grr. So this morning I woke up with a hangover - not too bad, definitely had worse, and jumped on the tube to come home. On one of the tubes was a black guy who was giving a sermon on the carriage... oh my god, he didn't look too crazy but he certainly sounded like it... I was soo tempted to jump up and give him a rumble but crazy people have a funny habit of stabbing you, so I thought better of it and left him to his preaching to no one and everyone haha.

So yeh thank god, I've caught up with the blog - sorry for being so long winded, I seem to have done a lot over the past few days, but then I seem to have had a few quiet days too... lucky for you eh?! Anyhow, another friend from NZ is in town, Mike Lewis and his girlfriend arrived on Monday. We've been trying to catch up but things just haven't worked out. Might see if he wants to come out to dinner with us tonight, else I will just have to see him on facebook :-)

Cheers
Matt

Belgium

2008-05-19T19:24:00.002+12:00

OK so I'm back in London (Matt's Bat-base!) and we have just come back from a short visit to Belgium. Technically I went to France too, as the train had to pass through France to get to Beligum hehe - The train didn't stop there, and so I never touched down in France, but maybe that was for the best haha. (But technically I've still been there now!)

Anyhow, it's only 2 hours from London to Belgium - how crazy is that?! Imagine doing that in New Zealand - not that we have any high speed trains that travel for 2 hours straight... but it's like travel on the road for 2 hours and you seem to only just get down the road... here in England you can been in completely new and crazy countries and your last meal hasn't even digested properly haha.

So the train stopped in Brussels (I didn't see Jean-Claude though), and then we found our way to another train that was headed to the town of Gent. Michelle and Matthew are pretty seasoned travelers around Europe so I followed them around and tried to pick up a few tricks of the trade for traveling. Always get a map of your town when you get to your final destination. You may think the town is small and you can get around alright, but you will probably need a map for any real big towns or city, if nothing else then to just get your bearings from time to time. Maps are cheap and usually real easy to find (just check the local information area!) That was Matthew's tip. Michelle's tip is to make sure that the first thing out of your mouth comes out in Pigeon English, and in a French accent it seems :-) I think the idea is to blame the French for as much as possible haha. anyhow, she seems to get away with it so I suppose it's a good tip :-)

Anyhow, back to the story. We got a train to Gent, which is Belgiums 3rd biggest City (with Brussels being the 1st and I don't know what is the 2nd). We got off at the train station and found a map and checked it out. Just over a kilometer from the train station to the Hotel area. We could have walked but we decided to catch a tram. Matthew rocked straight up to a tram and asked which tram took us into town, the driver didn't seem to speak English to well but somehow a translation was made and I think tram no. 4 was what we needed to be looking for. We found the tram and got some tickets (via the ATM type machine) and jumped on board. On board the tram are little boxes (generally yellow) which you have to put you ticket into to 'validate' it. The machines print info on the tickets to show you have used it for this date or trip, so that the conducter can make sure you aren't ripping off the system. Conductors must be rare as I have seen one yet, but Michelle told me they got snapped and fined in Russia or something - so best do it as you never know when you will get thrown in prison :-)

Anyhow gawd, I better start to try and keep these blog stories a bit shorter - they are getting out of hand and showing off my penchant for typing endlessly and waffling.... So we get to the town centre and our hotel is right there, on the river/waterfront, in front of all the amazing historical buildings. We checked in and unloaded our bags into our room and went for a bit of a look around. Gent is quite a medievil looking town, cobbled paths everywhere, and on Sautrday afternoon when we got there it was very sunny, but it had a bit of a chilly wind going through it, prompting us to find a sunny beerhall (after walking a few blocks to find the best one ofcourse!) Well to cut a long story short, about 6 beers into into, we were trashed. The alcohol content of the lowest beer was about 8 percent, christ, talk about being put on your ass! haha The pub we went to was great, nice and cosy, warm with staff nearby all the time, easy to call over for more drink and nibbles when needed ;-) So after several hearty discussions, most of which were forgotten the next day, we took off around the town in search of food for dinner it was about 8:30pm by then. The good part about traveling alone is that you tend not to spend too long on deciding where to eat. With 3 people, it is always going to take a bit longer to come to an agreemnt :-) But eventually we decided on a bit of a French restaurant and I think I had one of the better steaks that I had had for a long time. And I had a 'Creme Brulet' - I think everyone has had one before, but I just never seemed to have tried one, so the one I had seemed very nice, Matthew seemed to think so too so it must have been good :-)

We stumbled back to the hotel after that, hit the Hotel's bar and got a drink each, I found a Bourbon (so hard to find bourbons in Europe - dunno why...) and we chatted a bit more. I went to bed after that and left the married couple together for some alone time at the bar but they weren't far behind me and they came up to the hotel room a few minutes later. We got a hotel room to share between the 3 of us - two king beds and it was quite good - the room was expensive, but cheap for the Marriot Hotels normal costs, so splitting the room 3 ways was quite good at the end of it all!.

The next day it turned out that Matthew and Michelle were actually quite drunk the night before. I was pretty buzzy and had gotten quite loud which means I was a bit drunk, but they had had a bit of memory loss on a few things which I found quite funny as they seemed ok to me at the time anyhow. I actually tried to sober up near the end because I thought they were sober too so I thought I had better not get too drunk.. haha I was the sober one for once haha!

Anyhow after checking out on Sunday, we did some major walking and exploration of Gent. It had several markets (like a book market, a plant market, a second hand junk market and a jewelery market) pretty neat! Most of the shops where closed on Sunday a very few where still open so we really just did some window shopping, all very nice really, such a relaxed on city, it was quite strange really. We eventually meandered back down to the train station and bought some mustard on the way (Belgium produces good hot mustard! haha!) and caught the train back to Brussels. We had decided to catch an early-ish train back to Brussels so I could have a quick look at it. They were right, it was a bit like London, hordes of people everywhere and it all seemed a bit stifling again. Gent was clearly the winner that weekend.

We got back on the Eurostar train around 8-9pm and after 2 hours we were back in London. Everyone pretty much crashed straight away, we were all very tired. We had accomplished a lot in just 48 hours. We had eaten, drunk and walked our way around the majority of Gent (it seemed) and we were all tired out. Check out the photo's I got a bit snap-happy that day so I hope they don't bore you too much :-)

Cheers
Matt

Quick bit of info...

2008-05-16T02:56:00.004+12:00

OK - so just to let you know - I have just simultaneously uploaded two rather large Blog entries. One for Florence and one for Pisa! I didn't have much internet access or computer time in Italy so I had to write it down and upload at a later time.

For someone who can't speak hardly any Italiano, and went by himself with no one else to 'lean' on - I quite enjoyed myself.

As I type this I am also in the process of uploading quite a few photo's from those two days.
They can be found at --> http://picasaweb.google.com/gscottmj/Italy

One for the ladies... ;-)

And one for me... :-)

Cheers
Matt

PS Belgium this weekend!

Pisa!

2008-05-16T02:05:00.002+12:00

Well here I am at 4:45am on a Thursday morning. I'm sitting in the Pisa airport, checked in but waiting for the departure area to open so that I can get me and my bag scanned to go through to the waiting area. So while I wait I thought I would write a few things down while they are still fresh in my mind. My day in Florence ended quite well. I found a nice open-air restaurant and ate a nice pizza, not bad but a bit price at 8 euros I think, still very nice and I shouldn't complain, it was the heart of tourist country so-to-speak. I quite enjoyed walking around Florence, it was quite large and defintely not a place to bring your girlfriend unless a) she is blind, b) you control the credit card or c) you have lots (and lots) of money! The place is full of shopping and touristy things. Although it's not as bad as say Banff or Queenstown (the 2 locations I would call 'most touristy'.

Anyhow I took a few photo's of some handbag and shoe stores, although there were heaps and I saw plenty of women checking out these shops I was glad that I was on my own. I went through markets and shops and several parks and districts all very nice, but I think I walked 20 kilometres that day, most of it, just trying to find my hotel. But Florence was very nice. I would love to come back some day, but defintely not alone... either that or I will need to know more of the language to get more out of it.

Anyhow, yesterday morning I got up early (9am) and made my way to the Train station. I caught the first train to Pisa (10:30am) and even figured out how to buy a ticket from the vending machine and then get it validated by another one. Not that anyone asked me for a ticket again... I'm wondering, was I just un/lucky? or do they jus tno bother to even check the tickets...? Who knows... anyhow the trip into Pisa was nice, another lovely day and the train was pretty empty. I got off the train and walked north, as I knew that the Duomo (Cathedral) was North and besides that was the (Leaning) Tower of Pisa. I found that with a little walk of 1-2 kilometres and then circled town just once and found the Hotel I was staying at. Checked in and relived myself of my heavy bag. I think I had the smallest room in the hotel haha a single bed and a little 12" tv. Hell my bathroom was bigger than the rest of that room haha! But hey who cares, it was just somewhere for me to put my bag down so I could get out there and explore right!? And off I went again, probably the most unfashionable looking person in Pisa haha Damn those Italians dress smartly, like REAL smart - all the time it seems... even the Students dress smartly haha. It was actually seemed quite easy to spot the Italians from everyone else (other Tourists) as they were the ones who all looked like they had important jobs interviews to go to in 5 minutes :-) Pisa was lovely, great little medieveil streets, friendly people, I don't think I heard any yelling or fighting anywhere, and people walking and cycling everywhere, cars seemed quite rare... even public buses seemed more plentiful. So I had snapped some pics of the Leaning Tower and had a bit of a nosey at it up close, lovely juvely. I found a little town square and a place to sit, so I plonked myself down and gave myself a bit of a rest. A nearby Gelato place looked the business so I popped in and got a cone with two toppings, yoghurt and Mint flavours haha - wow it was actually very nice and just 1.20 euros :-) not bad! I also walked around the Duomo and made my way thorugh the crowds and around the paths. Luckily I wasn't badgered by the street sellers like some other people were, my half-tan and slightly tidy way of dressing may have made me look slightly inconspicuous after all :-)

After walking around Pisa for several hours, I was really starting to get a bit of a sore back, hips and legs. I'm pretty fit (well I was anyhow a month or two ago) but all this walking around has really blown me away. I need a good day or two off walking, to recover and to build up those muscles I think. Even sitting here in the airport I can feel my back hurting a little. I must have really covered some k's! Anyhow, so last night at about 6:30pm, my tummy tells me it's hungry and needed to be fed, so I went for a wander. I had noticed a couple of possible nice places for dinner. The favourite spot that I had picked was this amazingly back-alley little place with about 6 tables outside. I always think what or where my sister Michelle would go (as she bought me the tickets to come here) and this looked exactly like some crazy place that she would go (I'm a bit more 'mainstream and boring' so I try to change it up once in a while). There were abotu 2 tables free so I was going to just go and plonk myself down at a table is the practice here, but I thought I would go inside and get a drink first and ask for a table while I was there. Funnily enough, my little out of the way, back alley restarant was booked! arghh! can you believe it!? crazy. So in the end I decided to go to one of the rather large restaurants that the waiters run you down off the street to get you to come to their dodgy tourist based restaurant... it's not all that bad, at least you know they have a 'tourist' menu - basically a menu that is in English, and contains words like lasagna and pizza haha. Also those restaurants have waiters that speak a bit of English so you generally can't go wrong. Again I had some pizza, not as nice as the Florence pizza but nice all the same. Quite nice to have a pizza and beer and watching all the mad poms go past :-)

So after that it was actually getting a bit late (9pm) and so I got back to the hotel rather sleepy and sore. I dove into bed (there was nothing on telly - haha probably about 400 channels) and set my alarm for 3:45am - I got a nice sleep and when I woke up, the checkout process went very smooth and the hotel had a taxi coming for me in a few minutes to take me to the airport. I could have walked to the airport form the hotel, but it was 4am, and it was a bit of a hike. You just never know when you might get mugged or something, or worse I could've got lost, so I was glad for a ride in the end. Very nice.

So here I sit at the airport, it's now about 5:15am and I might go check to see if the departure gates are open yet. All in all I would summarise my two days in Italy as "Very nice". I think it would get that rating upgraded to something a LOT higher if I wasn't by myself, or I knew a bit more of the lingo. It would really just make these places that much more accessible and enjoyable. Nether-the-less it was still very much of an eye-opener and enjoyable as it was. I shall have to return one day.

Ciao
Matteo

Florence!

2008-05-16T02:05:00.001+12:00

OK So I think I'd better write this down as it has been a classic day so far and it's only 2:30pm!

It all started last night when I was about to go to sleep nice and early around 10pm. I had organised the taxi to take me to the airport at 4am so I was gonna hit the hay early. However I made the fatal mistake of turning on the telly. A super duper awesome program was on - World greatest robberys! woohoo! Me and Matt watched it a bit and he went to bed with a bit of a passing comment asking me if I was even going to get any sleep! I laughed it off and said 'after this'. Well unfortunately, my prophetering skills were not working well and it did not go that way. After that program was an oldish 80's movie about the Kray twins Reggie and Ronnie. Very interesting. Unfortunately (again) it finished at about 1:45am eeek!! I double checked my alarm clock and went to sleep... and I think I was so tired I had trouble falling asleep for a little while... grrr.

Anyhow, the alarm went off at 3:20am and I jumped into the shower and did the bathroom stuff and then got changed and had a little brekky. I needn't have rushed as the taxi driver was 15 minutes late anyhow... but he still managed to get me to the airport by 5am so all good.
I almost missed the flight though - I'm usually so anal about planes but this time I got close to missing it. The key thing to remember here is that the budget flights I got, well, they don't call the boarding for your plane sometimes, and if they do it's sometimes in a rather hardcore accent haha. So I missed it, and I had my back to the queue, and then I started to doze off. Luckily at one point, my head drooped rather violently and I woke up to look around and see my queue almost empty, only 1 person left in that queue. I quickly got up and headed for the queue, they were roping it off when an attendent lady saw me and asked if I was going to Pisa, I said yes and she checked my passport and boarding pass and then told me to "Hurry Up!" haha I had to run outside on the tarmac and run up the ladders to the plane and then I had to take those looks form the other passengers as to "ooho you've made us late!" haha well I thought that anyhow... I don't think I made the flight late.

So I arrived in Pisa. All by myself, with no idea how to speak the lingo. I had figured out a few days ago that I would now have to catch a train into Florence (as that is where I am staying tonight). I originally thought I would just walk into Pisa and catch it. It seemed like a good idea at the time but now, in a strange place for the first time and not knowing basically how to speak any Italian I was having other thoughts. Then I got lucky and walked past a ticket counter selling tickets for the train to Florence. woohoo... and even better were 4 British women buying tickets, and they were asking all sorts of questions, to which I overheard all the answers... Sweet! So then the fun began, I went off to get a coke and when I went out to the bus (shuttle bus) those girls weren't there anymore... uh oh. So I caught the first bus, it had no really indicative markings of where it was going so I prayed like hell. I can hear you thinking... why didn't you ask someone? I'm sorry, but Matt Scott hates pretty much, more than anything, to look like a tourist! Ask for directions - not bloody likely! So I rode the bus into Pisa and it stopped outside what looked like a train station. But the bus was full of tourists who apprently had never been there before and so no one made a move. As I was in full tilt "I'm-no-tourist" mode, I jusmped up and off the bus and made a Beeline for the station. Once again I got lucky and it indeed was the station. I found an automatic ticket machine and bought one for 4.50 Euros and then went over to the platform. I had no time to dawdle as the train left about 15 seconds after I got there... once agian I prayed like hell that a) this was the right train and b) I had the right ticket and c) I didn't have to get it validated or anything. Once again I got lucky and we pulled in Florence about an hour later, no conducter in sight... woohoo!

So here I was in Florence. I had made it to 2 major international foreign cities without speaking any of the lingo and it was still only 11:30am in the morning. I was pretty damn chuffed with myself. But my luck couldn't hold out forever...

My hotel "Hotel Constantini" was (I thought) only about a block away from the station. Nice and easy - hardly any walking right? Wrong. I just found the hotel after 3 DAMN HOURS of walking around Florence! I suppose I should be grateful at all that I even found it though haha. I had marked down the wrong location on my map book for a start and was miles away from it grrr. Luckily it was right next to another huge landmark (the Duomo in Florence) and basically just down the other end of Florence CBD really. But it is not very well sign posted and it is up on the 2nd floor. But hey - it's a nice little room and cheap for 60 Euro's for the night - I am defintely not complaining. My walk basically took my all over the main parts of Florence. I have, by accident seen teh train station 3 times, the fake statue of David 4 times and all the other statues around him as well. I've seen several different sides of the Duomo a few times and several squares and markets already. Oh, and one Irish pub where they don't speak English (or Irish probably either - not that that would've helped me). Anyhow, to find the place I didn't acctually have to drop out of "hidden tourist" mode and I asked a few people where the hotel was, none of them knew. But then I hit on the bright idea of asking the staff at other hotels. It worked a treat and after the first hotel I asked at, I was in the immediate vicinity in no time. And about an hour later, after still not finding it, I asked the second hotel and I found it about 10 minutes later. Huzzah!

So here I sit. I really had to get this all down. I've eaten 1 apple at 4am this morning and had two small Coke Zero's and bugger all sleep and more exercise than I care for really. So I am going to go out and maybe buy a new shirt perhaps (to look less like a tourist and more like all these very trendy-looking Italians) and also to take a few photo's I might even grab a Gelato, since I will not care about the calories today. And then I think I might even have a bit of a snooze and maybe wake up a little later tonight and go for a nightly stroll.

Cyas!
Matt

Dublin!

2008-05-12T08:07:00.002+12:00

Oh hello there! Well I gt back from Dublin the other day and I have been lazying around enjoying the lovely weather that London is turning on for me at the moment. It's been 24 degrees now for several days and almost too damn hot!

Anyhow I must relate my story to you (and to me - for when my memory starts to fail me, these stories will be great reference!) Now lets see. Dublin... well basically I had a bit of a rush to get to Dublin, we had to return the rental car and then leg-it to Croydon train station, and then catch the next train and only just make it in time to get to the airport... Well luckily I did make it with about 10 minutes to spare before the check-in closed, so that was lucky. I've been flying the budget airline "RyanAir" and it cost about 20 pounds to get a return ticket to Dublin - it's almost unimaginable for kiwis to think of such cheap plane traveling like that! They are quite good if you can deal with a lack of luxuries. No free meals, no tv or entertainment and there are no allocated seats so you just pick whichever one you get to first. You can buy food on the plane, but obviously it costs a bit and so does everything else extra. But no biggie, the flight was only 1 hour and 20 minutes so a quick bit of a read of the local paper and we were there before I knew it.

Upon disembarking the plane I found the bus the I paid 6 Euros to get into Dublin City centre. It was very easy to find as the signage in the airport was awesome and easy to read. So I got into the city centre very easy and it was extremely packed... wow so many people! The weather was awesome and the streets were very wide. The bus actually dropped me off right at the Information centre in town so I shot in and bought a little $2 map of Dublin which helped. I normally find my lodgings first, drop off my bags and then go sightseeing, but I though that I would do it the other way around this time. I had a wander around for about 1 hour just wandering in the general direction of my first real port of call... The Guinness Storehouse! Ofcourse, it had to be done - go to Dublin and not try Guinness??? haha. I found the Guinness store after a while of walking it was actually right down the corner end of Dublin CBD - I had actually walke da few kilometres to get to it so felt like I needed a bit of a rest by the time I got to it. It was actually pretty neat. Having had mates and family members brew homebrew beers and stuff I sort of knew about most of the brewing process. It was still very interesting though, they had a 7 storey building that they had converted into a bit of a museum with a tasting centre and a pub on the floors throughout the building. You could even 'pull a pint' of you own and get some bartending practice. I declined the friendly offer, thinking that my mates would just make me work behind the bar if they found out that I knew how to pull pints haha.

I spent a few good hours in that place and it was really good to have been there and seen it once and for all. I got a few little souvenirs for people and will send them off in due time. My next stop was supposed to be Kilmainham Jail but the day was drawing to a close and so I decided it was time to try and find my hotel. Unfortunately for me it was miles away (like BLOODY MILES!) from the Guinness factory where I was standing. Luckily, besides being amazingly good looking I am also pretty damn smart! haha. A tour bus went past me and stopped a few metres up the road. I just on and bought a ticket for the tour. The tickets (I had read) lasted for 24 hours and the bus actually went just up the road from my hotel so that was good - I got a guided tour of about half of Dublin and dropped off just down the road by my hotel hehe. After checking in I decided it was time for some dinner and I found a local pub just down the road... I mean in England and Ireland (and Wales it seems as well) there are pub within about every 30 metres haha crazy! So I got into the pub and had a nice meal of lasagna while watching the local old buggers fight it out about some argument they were having. I couldn't tell what they were arguing about because of the super thick accents , and especially after 3 more glasses of Guinness it was a right riot :-)

The Skylon Hotel were I stayed was very nice and I was up again around 9am catching the bus back down into the City Centre. I wandered around the Malls (Malls are virtually non existant in England) but at least they have some in Ireland - they're great for Air Conditioning and escaping the heat of the day. I bought a few dvd movies and also a PSP and some games - - yah me - this will be really good for a couple of upcoming long flights that I have soon!

I also went and visited Kilmainhim Jail which was also very good. I got a bit of a tour around the cells and the main area - really good - I got to see the yard and the place were they did quite a few executions - the place is mainly remebered though for the several attempts that the Irish people did for when they tried to gain their independence from England. The most famous was the 1916 attempt and there is a lot of information in the museum about that - a whole floor devoted to the attempt with loads of original letters and evidence. It was very good for just a few Euros.

Ireland or Dublin really was very nice and I really would like to go back one day. It's good a lot of buildings that are like England but that is about where it ends. They have wide roads and footpaths, rubbish bins (don't laugh - London sucks because of no rubbish bins anywhere) and they seem to have be all rather in a good mood and a lot of people are very cheerful and happy to say hello and send you a smile - London seems to be a bit lacking that those departments.

Anyhow - I'll have to do another post tomorrow about some of the naughty things I've been getting up to over the last few days back here in England :-)

Cheers
Matt

Wales!

2008-05-06T09:03:00.002+12:00

Well, for the past couple of days I was very spoilt and have been driven around Wales and shown a lot of what the country has to offer. It seems that Rugby is not the only thing that New Zealand and Wales have in common. Several times I thought that I was back in New Zealand, the country side was so similar. If it hadn't been for the fact that they have slate-rock walls pretty much everywhere you drive I would have truely thought it to be so.

My sister Michelle and her husband Matthew, drove us (well Michelle drove, Matthew navigated) west out of London on Saturday morning after picking up the rental car on Friday night. We spent 3-4 hours on the road traversing toll bridges, small towns and slate walls to get across the country. We stopped in a a pink pub called "The Cider Mill Inn" and I got to try Rabbit for the first time! Not bad - a little gamey, like day old mince with perhap parmesan cheese hidden in it somewhere hehe. I'll have to try it again, not too sure if I like it that much :-) After that we found (after a little bit of searching) our first camping spot of the night. I had a 1 man tent and the married couple had a 2 man tent to share. But first, since we were so close, we had to try the pubs! The first pub, and the closest was a bit rough, Michelle was the only girl there out of about 20 locals and when I say local, I mean, rough and dodgy locals :-). We had a few beers there and moved on, else I could see a possible 50/50 chance of the night not ending up very well for us. We moved on, the next place was a restaurant and so we moved onto the 3rd which turned out to be a bit of a dog pub hehe. It actaully had 5 dogs in it when we arrived, and there were only about 10 people in the pub! haha! After a few beers we went back to the restaurant and had a bit of a late dinner and went back to our campsite, we got a bit lost and took a wrong road, but we eventually found our way back and the extra walk probably did us some good. We stayed our first night in a lovely little paddock/camp site near the town of Llangattock. For 5 pound we got a tent site and off we went. Was a great night. After we woke we drove out to the coast a bit and found an amazing campsite at a location called Llangelynin. It was a campsite that was basically on a cliff that was right on the beach. Amazing really. We had good weather for most of the day, and it did actually rain a bit but it fined up at about 4pm and lets us have a lovely bbq at 6:30pm. We had some yummy welsh lamb chops, sausages and cottage cheese hehe. The sun went down over the see about about 8:50pm and we retired to bed soon after. We drove back today - it took about 8-9 hours of driving with several tea and scone stops thrown in haha. Michelle was the uber driver and many thanks to her and Matt for taking me around Wales. I'll upload some photos around the place but I'll have to do it another time as I seem to have misplaced my usb cable and it's pretty late at night here at the moment and I don't want to wake anyone up.

Tomorrow I am off to Dublin for just over 24 hours and I will be flying there, and doing the Guiness factory tour - haha ofcourse... as what else do tourists do when they go to Dublin :-)

Cheers
Matt

2008-05-02T21:53:00.002+12:00

Well as it turns out, I did sleep for a lot of that flight. I think I must have slept for about 10 of those 12.5 hours. Pretty good I thought. I missed 1 meal but that was ok as it was the first one and I still was digesting 276 tonnes of crabmeat in mah belly. It wasn't until about 10 hours later did I actually get hungry. The sleep wasn't that great, I was sort of asleep but not really, waking every 60-90 minutes to move around a bit and to hear noises and to check my watch. Eventually I have about 2 hours left in the flight and they woke up all up to have breakfast which was about 4am London time. I hate all my meal and sat back waiting for us to land. It wasn't as bad as a lot of people make out to be either, we had to circle the airport for an extra 10 minutes and we had to sit in between runways in the middle of the airport waiting to taxi across the runways but it was only another 5 minute delay and we were ahead of time a bit so no biggie.

I got through customs and all that perfectly ok - no big dramas there and found Michelle waiting outside for me big smiles and hugs waiting for me. Very nice indeed. So anyhow she lead me over to the underground train, ofcourse I had no idea where I was going but she lead me around, up and down the stairs and escalators and stuff, so I just followed along happily. We had to change trains a few times, once because someone had died on the tracks (fell or jumped and was electrocuted and died - Michelle said it happens quite regularly) so we had to switch around a bit. We didn't get back to her place until about lunchtime. She bought me a train ticket and showed me quickly how to use the trains and stuff, and she had to go back to work so she went wone way and I went another. I walked along the Thames a bit and looked around, very brown and yucky looking as it always is. I walked across London Bridge, over to the Tower of London and around a bit. I was pretty damn tired by this point and there were heaps of people around (which I have found to be quite normal) so I decided I couldn't be bothered doing anymore, so I turned around and came home. I didn't quite make it all the way home though and ended up in the pub that Michelle pointed out as her local. I stopped in and got a beer or two and texted her to say I was there and she replied saying her husband Matt would come past around 5pm and stop in. Sure enough he did I think I started on my 3rd or so drink by then. Michelle turned up an hour or so later and also her friend Tanya. I was having a pretty good time around my 6th beer, getting loud and rowdy and laughing a lot as usual for me. Then I friggened blinked and woke up back in their flat lying on the couch at 7am in the morning. CURSES!!! FOILED AGAIN! I blame the jetlag I think. I don't think I've ever wiped out like that before... crazy. And the hangover, well, I just had to rate it, probably the 2nd worse ever that I had had. Man I felt like I was gonna die, damn I felt bad. Michelle was laughing at me and bought me a glass of water, half of which I drank with some Aspirin. About 10 minutes later I threw up 4 times in a row, which is weird because I have ever thrown up in the morning... whoa just crazy... It must have been like 10 hours plus since I last had something to drink. But it was good though, as about 30 minutes later I was right as rain aside from a small headache, so I popped a few more aspiring (as the last lot got flushed) and off I went sightseeing again.

The next day I decided to wander around central london and just walk and see what I could find. I found a Starbucks which I procured a yummy hot coffee and then I found the Museum of London. Well you see the thing is, I quite like Museums, and also in London, they all seem to be free to get into, which is awesome. Well the museum didn't open till 10am (they all don't open til then) and I got there at around 9:15am and had to wait a little while hehe. I spent over 3 hours in that Museum wandering around and the damn place was half closed due to them working on the bottom half of the building. And after that I was pretty tired, and my legs and hips were saying the same thing. But I pushed on and walked around a bit more, which turned out to be a lot more. I walked along the Thames more and found The Eye of London, a giant Ferris wheel, and Big Ben and the Parliament Buildings. But it was a crappy day, with it raining pretty solidly for most of the day so I found a road that look mostly sheltered and walked down that, away from the river and in a semi-direction back to the London Bridge train station. Although little did I know I had already walked a considerable distance in sort of the wrong direction... well not wrong, just away from the place I was intending on ending up at :-) So I found a subway station and went for it. I was like spider man, jumping form train to train, to-ing and fro-ing and I found my way back to the station I was supposed to be at. How chuffed was I? haha I felt pretty good about myself.

The next day, which was yesterday, I got up and leisurely got ready, and then decided that today was going to be train adventure day. I was going to try and catch trains to all sort of stations and have a look around some of the more popular stations to see what I could find. I didn't get too far. I went to 2 or 3 of them, mainly remembering the names by referring to memories of an old monopoly board I used to play on hehe. Then I found Bakers St. Woohoo Sherlock Homes! So I went for a walk and also found Madam Tussaud's but the queue outside was about a kilometre long, so passed on that... (christ sakes London is busy!). After wandering around Bakers Street I went to Kings Cross, which had a lot of action going on and I had a bit of a wander around there... didn't find anything there though hehe so decided I was going to go on to Victoria station, surely there would be something there. It was about 4 stops away from my present location so I jumped on the train and waited. After about 2 stops I hit South Kensington the announcer said, home of museums! woohoo! I was looking for those the other day and couldn't find them and I had stumbled on them by accident. I went into the Museum of Natural something or rather... and DAMN it was good! I was in there 4 hours looking at stuff. I had to have a few sit-downs cos it's hard work doing all that looking! I still didn't finish the place either and had to leave around 4pm just to get home by 5ish. It was a hell of a good musuem though and maybe I'll go back and look at it agian soemtime there was some brilliant stuff there.

I also have to do the Albert and Victoria Musuem, the Science and Technology Musuem and the Imperial Was Musuem. Holy Major Musuem country batman! haha
So last night Matt (Michelle's husband) Michelle and I went out for a Turkish meal, pretty damn yummy to be honest, and poor old Michelle hit a few too many red wines and ended up calling half of NZ on the telephone when we got home. I was careful not too drink too much after the last few days efforts hehe.

Right-e-ho then We are off to Wales tomorrow and I will report back in a few days - and hopefully have uploaded a few more photos by then.

Cheerio
Matt

Casinos are funny things

2008-04-30T07:14:00.001+12:00

Another hot day in Malaysia, but I am fairing up very well I think. The locals hate the heat more than me it seems haha. Air Conditioning is everywhere in the shops and cars and it takes about .0001 seconds to break inot a sweat as soon as you step outside them. Cold showers are the order of the day for me, and are actually quite nice. Poor Julie seems to think that I want to have hot showers and I have had 1 since I have been here, but I can happily handle a cold shower in this heat, I actually thought about having 1 before going to bed last night, but decided I would just fall asleep in the shower if I did, I was rather tired... and this entry should describe why.

Yesterday started very late... I think I said I didn't get to bed the previous night until 4am - which was like am for me! And so I woke up around 11am or 12pm here - can't remember which but it was late and I was dying. A cold shower later and I was feeling 99% better, but still a bit sleepy and a headache was still there. Julie and Edward (Julie's fiance) came over a short time later and I was packed into the (air conditioned) car and off we went. Initially I thought we were going up to the mountains where the casino/s were but unbeknownst to me ( hey I didn't know where Edward was driving us) he took a turn off and we went up to the Batu Caves. I don't know the history behind the caves - there wasn't much information posted there. Julie said they were there for the Hindu's to pray and to walk there at special times of the year... I'll have to goole it a bit more when I get some spare time. Anyhow, we had to walk up (initially) 276 steps to get up into the caves. hehe We almost had to drag Julie up them, poor girl, she's not used to walking so much. There were a few wild monkeys pretending to be docile and innocent until people got close enough and then they would strike and scream at you like the ninja's they were. Ofcourse, only white people got close to them, trying to be cool and stuff haha the locals looked on as if they were stupid - which they probably were. The caves were pretty amazing, but it could really do with a bit of a clean up, loads of rubbish decaying everywhere... in complete contrast to the next place we visited.

A few kilometres down the road and up several more kilometres of hills we came across the Japanese Tea Rooms. This turned out to be a nice serenic walk amongst the only Japanese gardens in "The Tropical Forest" which I think means Malaysia. We wandered around there marveling at the incredible sights, I couldn't find any information on who built it or how it came about and I had a bit of trouble asking as English wasn't a prime language there haha. Julie thought that was quite funny :-) We walked around the gradens and around Koi ponds and conservatory's and green houses. We also saw Strawberries growing, which we found out (Julie told me) that this was the only place in Malaysia where they grow because it's cold enough for them (we where up a mountain basically).

After that we moved onto down the road and we found a big castle... like huge! Nestled in the hills, upon further investigation we found that it was a present from France to the people of Malaysia. It was like a little town really, very well kept and very nice. It had a moat and a clock pronouncing the current time in France - very quaint hehe. There were multiple little shops all very "French-like" on the outside but defintely Malayain as soon you step inside... except for the English styled pub I found there haha. Wanted to get a beer but we were running short on time so we moved on - not before taking a few photos and getting the room rates for the place (you could stay they in the rooms above all the shops) which went for about $200 to about $10,000 a night. I told them I would be back next week haha.

After that it was getting a bit late so we had to push on to the Casino. Edward suggested we catch the gondola up to the casino which turned out to be a brilliant idea. The gonola wnet for 3.5 kms and it was dark enough for the lights to be turning on just as we started on the gondola. It also meant as the gondola went over the tropical rainforest, you could hear the rainforest come to life as a lot of animals were settling down for the night, but also a lot more were probably just coming to life. Also - near the top of the gondola it became VERY misty and we couldn't see were we were going - and the HUGE building that housed the casino came out of nowwhere, it was liek something out of a movie - I hope I shall never forget it. All 3 of us were in awe.

We decided to get some dinner first, I was pretty hungry after not really eating much all day so I decided to turn on the Matt Eating Machine and devoured 4 plates of mains and a desert plate as well from the buffett we had at the casino grounds. We couldn't get into the casino because of the no-collar no-entrance policy but we were able to buy shirts there. As luck would have it, they all had just one pattern, but loads of different colours. I got one for 30 ringet (about 13 NZ dollars) and damn it actually looked good on me - haha I am so taking this around the world. We wandered around the casino for an hour or so marvelling at the world-wide craziness that is casinos. No one smiling or laughing, everyone just looking like they were at work or something... bloody nutters. Ofcourse out of the thousands of people there, I was the only white person and pretty much I was the only one nearing the 6 foot tall mark and I was wearing the shirt of shame (which I thought looked pretty cool) so ofcourse I was the main attraction as I wandered aimlessly through the casino. Oh yes note to you all - non smoking laws haven't kicked in here yet... blech! After a good hour or so of checking the place out, we decided it was time to go home, so we found an empty roulette table and promptly lost $100 ringet on the table... we won a 1-1 payout bets and we able to hang on the money for a little bit and had a good laugh with Julie, Edward and the dealer - and ofcourse I attracted a crowd who I think wanted to see if the white guy knew any special secret ninja roulette moves... which because pretty obvious I didn't haha.

So after feeling poorer we snuck out and caught the gondola back down which this time was in complete darkness and oh my god, talk about hearing a deafening chatter coming from the forest below. That was really amazing, not something I think I'll get to do again anytime soon. We got home a little later around midnight (again 4am for NZ'er) but I think my body clock is slowing adjusting as I was able to get up ok today without too much problem. Today is my last day here in Malaysia and I think we are just going to take it easy and wander around Seremban. My flight to Europe (Amsterdam and then onto London) leaves at 11pm tonight, so I think I will be sleeping for a good portion of that flight - another 12 hours coming up!

Cyas all a bit later
Matt

Big day!

2008-04-30T07:13:00.001+12:00

Hi all! Malaysia is pretty cool 0 well not really, it's actually pretty frikken hot! Althought yesterday I spent a lot of it walking either indoors or outdoors, and either way you seem to either ignore the heat or just not notice it. It's not too bad really, the temperatures are easily in the 30's and in the late 20's at night, with a truckload of huumidity. After a little you realise you can't hide from it and just deal with it. It's a lot easier when you are travelling around and looking at things. Yesterday we over to the twin towers, the tallest building in the world, which was pretty spectacular. There was a pretty big mall in the bottom of it and we wandered around there for a while taking photo's and looking at things. After that we went up to the KLCC (Kuala Lumpur Central City) tower. A lot like the Sky tower, only a bit taller. It's supposed to be a 4th tallest, and in comparison, Auckland's Sky tower is 6th tallest. The have a Flying Fox park at the bottom of the the tower, which I went on twice, everyone else was chicken haha. There was some american guy who I gave a bit of grief too because he was bitching about the terms and conditions he had to sign. I told him to 'Butch up' which he didn't think was very funny, his girlfriend did though and I got a good laugh out if it. I had to go first and it was pretty easy. It wasn't really that big and I had been on bigger, but as I was pretty much ared to go on it, I couldn't really say no haha. The American chap was a bit stressed though to say the least. On my second go I had to jump of the platform backwards with no hands haha. Damn that got the heart rate up a little... only 1 previous attempt to trust the hardness I was in gah, I did it though so rawr to me haha.
After that we walked around several malls, which was great as you escape the never ending heat and humidity. Plus looking around 10 storey malls is pretty fascinating, there is some amazing things to look at. I was even taken to a computer mall haha About 6 storeys of just computer shops. haha Crazy! Some of the prices for things were pretty cool. I'll have to come back and get some new gear sometime. TV's were a similar price to NZ but other things like HDD's and memory were a lot cheaper for instance.
So last night we decided to get some dinner and go out into KL for some drinks and a bit of a dance. Well, as things turned out it was 10:30pm by the time we got hom and changed and then we found a little place to eat some food and then drove into KL. Unfortunately it takes a little while to drive from Seremban (where I am staying with Julie and her family) to KL, about an hour really - and with a few other stops (picking up other people and money stops) it was just past 1am when we got into town to our first pub stop. Well, when I say pub, I actually mean Hotel pub. The hotel was called Traders and the pub was called the Sky Bar. Now you know people like to say "the drinks are expensive here" well screw me, can you say 17 NZ dollars for a Heineken! haha! And I got 2 of them and a vodka and a bourbon. Needless to say that were the only drinks I bought there and we left soon after. But I must say, walking inot the pub which had a big 25 metre swimming pool in the middle of it, and AMAZING views of the twin towers and the casinos off in the distance of the hills, it was pretty unreal. I was thinking that maybe if there was actually a cover charge for the place it might have evened out the prices a bit - hehe Trying to make myself feel better :-)
After that we went over to a bit of the strip where KL has a load of clubs and the place was packed out.. we even had to barter to get into the club, which ended up us buying a bottle of Jim Beam Black and we got to drink that all night, which wasn't too bad in my book haha. But sadly 3am came around pretty quickly and the nightclubs all closed up and we got kicked out... so we had to drive home... Now 3am KL time is actually 7am NZ time, so I fell asleep in the car on the way home, which was good but I feel a bit stink about that... nevermind... went to bed that night and that was my day (reather long) for quite some time.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DAY
- Seeing a lady in one of those full-length muslim outfits getting it caught in an escalator hehe - they had to stop the whole escalator and she was stuck the for 10 mins while several guys tried to free here.
- Harrassing some American and telling him to stop being a pussy, winning the admiration of the local guys running the Flying Fox service
- 6 stories of computer mall.... droolllll
- Walking around KL and seeing my friends (who were born and live here) sweat more than me

Malaysia - Full of Malaysians!

2008-04-30T07:12:00.000+12:00

Lets see - Day 0 of the what I shall call the world trip haha. It's worldy I suppose because I am going to fly to at least 3 countries (Malaysia, England and and Canada) and will be see a lot more thanks to England and Europe and all that sort of thing. So world-wide it is. I don't know if I will ever get the chance to see so many place again in my life - maybe after I retire I might but I might be a bit too old to get up to some of the stuff I will be trying this time around.

So anyhow, Day 0. The first Day. I have a flight from Auckland to Malaysia today at around 1pm so I don't have a late nights sleep and Get to wake up around the very civil hour of 7am. I get up and I find after my shower, I am ready to go in about 10 minutes as I have done everything else the night before. So I sit down and watcha bit of tellie haha. My flatmate, again, is sleeping in and again has missed me leaving to go on holiday... bah. Gave him some grief about that later haha.

Got the Devonport ferry to the Auckland Viaduct, and then the Airport bus which picks me up right outside the ferry terminal and drops me off at the International terminal for $15 woohoo! I check in pretty easily, only 1 bag and hardly a queue at all. I had a quick look around the outside shops but decided to go straight through to the customs area and then had a big wander around the other shops and area. Bought a few gifts for people who I will be seeing (and stealing their beds hehe) and boarded the plane pretty much right on time.

The flight itself was very very good. I'm gonna have to say the Malay Airlines are the best of flown on. I had a little bit of leg room - which although wasn't much, you do notice it when you are 6 feet tall and never have much room to begin with. I had yummy spicy chicken satays for my meals and drinks were being served all the time! Plus as for passing the time on my 11 and a hlaf hour flight I watched a few movies and I'm sure I got the highest Tetris score haha! I played heaps of games and time just disappeared.

Landing at Malay airport was sweet too. I really had no idea where to go, but before we landed they played a little video of where to go for things and I also just followed the crowd :-) <-- always a smart move. I got through customs without a problem, in fact I did some naughty things and somehow skipped the bag checking area. I was following another Malayian guy and the guard yelled out to him (as he was missing the bag check area too - just walking past is) and they started yelling at each other, and I somehow managed to slip past. It wasn't until a little later that I realised what I had done hehe oh well.

Julie and her sister were there at the airport to meet me (yah!) and good for them too as I was probably going to lose a few dollar on a taxi ride into KL if not for them - White people seem to have to watch their backs over here haha - I'm sure the country was notified of my arrival and were updated on all the 'short' jokes that I have made over the years haha - better watch my back! As for the heat, well it was 2 degrees LAST NIGHT at 9pm.. gawd... So Julie and Joanna took me on a little drive last night seeing a few things that we really couldn't see in the dark and promising to take me into KL tomorrow. Should be good. The place where we a re staying is really nice! I even got a bed to sleep on haha which is a lot more than I was expecting or hoping for, so that was good.

Today we are off to KL for a bit of a look and then god knows where, Julie and Joanna seem to have a few ideas, so should be good - hope they include a bit of air conditioning because after Canada and the South Island I am becoming even more used to the cold :-)

Anyhow - will update a bit later! Cheers
Matt

AC/DC and Vegemite

2008-04-23T16:55:00.004+12:00

Well here I sit. the last day I have at home before I take to wandering the world again. Awww I feel all kinda "Grasshopper"ish. haha. My last day in NZ again for at least about 2 months. Strange. Last time I was champing at the bit to get out and go to Canada. This time, I'm rather reserved. Maybe it's because I am off to KL first and I know that it's going to be a COMPLETE change for me. I've never been to a country where English isn't the primary language... so I am rather apprehensive. I think if I get through the next couple of days and get through KL (I'm gonna either love it or hate it) I think the rest of it will be pretty awesome too.

Yes so I have been down to the shops and bought a few items for my trip, and am about to go and pack my bags. I've been pulling stuff out of draws and cupboards over the last few days and basically just throwing them all in one pile in my room. the idea is that at least I wont forget that stuff that I have deemed important enough to take, so I think I will be organised and wont be leaving much behind. (My primary school teacher wont believe that I am so organised haha).

I've recently bought a nice little 120GB USB HDD and have copied a few files onto it that I can take around the world with me - including my CV. Yep - will have to keep a bit of an eye on the job market around the world... dunno if I.T. is what I want to continue with. It's either going to be a whole new career of fun frivolity or back to making real money agian in the IT world - which will also give me stress and anxiousness again no doubt - grrr.. oh well - lets see what the world dishes out shall we?

So anyhow - tomorrow's flight takes me to KL (as I have mentioned already) I spend a few days there. I have 2 people to meet up with. 1 was a friend I used to work with at TCL a year or two ago, and the other is a mate I used to go to High School with (back in the 80's! haha). I gave him a bit of a ring this morning and caught him before he went to work - he's a project manager but I can't really envisage him in anything but ripped jeans and a black AC/DC t-shirt haha!

Speaking of AC/DC it's been confirmed a new album is on the way - yah! It is apparently I have read on the newsgroups and a final farewell tour will probably be planned for after... so not sure if I will attempt to go to that... might do - it would be an awesome highlight in the good old life I am having :-)

Anyhow - must go bags don't pack themselves and I just remembered that I have to go get some Vegemite for my sister in England and get it through 3-4 lots of customs haha yowser!

cyas
Matt.

Picton eh? Sector 7-G

2008-04-15T09:10:00.002+12:00

Wooohooo South Island has been completed! Well as much as it's going to be completed for the near future anyhow. I travelled up the coast the other night and stayed in Hokitika, I think I mentioned that. Hoever the next morning, bright and early I was outta there! I had driving to do and a long way to go. I didn't really stop and had about 5-6 hours of driving to do. I did allow myself a bit a of a nice stop at the world famous 'Pancake Rocks' in Paparoa, which is all there is in Paparoa, but the place was pretty neat. Amazing rocks formed by different layers of limestone being washed away over millions of years. You just don't get to see that sort of thing every day... I know BORING! but I like that sort of thing... tourist actvities don't really excite me but I love to see what nature can do - it's generally much more powerful than what mankind can ever do.

Anyhow after a few photos and some neato bush walking, I was back on the road again. I stopped off in Greymouth (which was before the rocks I think) and stopped in at the local Wharehouse shop and grabbed another CD - I couldn't find 'Old School of Rock - Vol 1 (dammit!) so I had to get Hip Hop Classics lol! A double CD with about3 songs by Snoop Dogg and another 3 by Ice Cube... hmmm.. There were a couple of goodies on there so I looked like some crazy white guy driving a SUV about to pop a cap if you know what I mean haha.

Lets see what else did I do, hmm stopped at Nelson, went and saw Semi-Pro at the movies - yeha bit sad, but it was Sunday night and everything eas closed. EVEN THE GODDAM STARBUCKS! How rude! I did go for a bit of a drive around the Nelson coastline before it got dark and it was very nice. I didn't realise that Nelson was so big. I thought it was a bit of a little town but I was defintely mistaken. It was quite large. 3rd Largest apprantely in the South Island. Quite good..... very sunny and relaxing too. Unfortunately my time was running short, so I was off early the next morning. I had to get over to Picton. I was in 2 minds at this point. A Few days before I had driven up the Buller river and I couldn't help but think that how cool it would be to do some kayaking down that river. I had seen a few kayaking trip advertised but didn't really think much of it until I got a bit further north. So I figured that maybe I might find something in Picton that might fly my down that way and do some thing cool like that. I did find a seaplane but it was already out for the day. Rats. So I decided to turn in my rental car and visit a local musuem which was on a ship (the 9th oldest still floating) called the Edwin Fox. Upon looking through some of the passenger lists of people that it bought to NZ I may have discovered my Great great great Grandparents... hmmm pretty cool I'll have to do some more research into that.

Anyhow the trip back to Wellington was fine. The weather did pack in a bit as I neared Wellington but no matter, it cleared up enough for me to walk the 2kms back form the ferry bulding to the train station.

Oh and only 23 possums spotted on my quick trip today (and a branch off a tree that fooled me and caught me out as well haha)

Catch ya later
Matt

Possum!

2008-04-12T22:58:00.000+12:00

Wow what a great few days I've had lately. Remember how I didn't like Queenstown very much? Well I don't. Strange really. I really like everywhere else I have been to obut not this place. It doesn't really fit in, but then again it does. It's like a little hideaway for NZ's party people, well the people from overseas party people that is. Even in Auckland you don't see so many people from other countries. Pretty neat in that respect, it's like a town made from other countries and stacked all into one place. But the town is just way too commercial for me. Too many shops advertising so many things. A lot like the Jasper and Banff in Canada... pretty nice for a short stay but you probably wouldn't want to live there... well not me anyhow. So anyhow I laid low there for a few days. I went and did the Shotover Jet and zoomed up and down the river... for about 15 mins which cost me $109.00 gah. Anyhow I was considering doing a bungy jump but thought I would wait until I get an audience... much more fun if I actually have a witness... that and I wouldn't chicken out like I did this time aorund haha.

So I left Queenstown this morning. I had to drive to the Queenstown airport to drop off my rental car when I thought I would be much better off keeping it for a few more days. I think I was right. Almost as soon as I got back on the road I was amazed at the scenery I keep seeing. I picked up some hitchi hiking dude... form Switzerland and could barely speak english but we chatted as best we could till I dropped him off in Wanaka, nice guy, some snowboarding/ski intructor but only if his english could improved apparently so I think he was taking English classes for about 4-6 hours a day. We talk about a few things but we didn't really understand each other haha. So anyhow, Wanaka s at the southern end of two lakes, Wanaka and Hawea. Both pretty amazing, and I stopped to stop several times driving past each lake. Pretty fantasic scenery. I was thinking that for a $39 flight from Auckland to Dunedin and then hiring a car for 5 days (for a special deal of 5 days for the price of 3) for less than $200 was a pretty awesome way to see the country, I totally recommend it.

After the lakes I got into Haast Pass territory and then Haast itself. Very cool indeed, Huge mountains, dense forest, incredibly clear water and fresh air to die for. Just brilliant, hardly even saw another car as well - and it is a Saturday afternoon for crying out loud! I stopped off in the Haast information centre for a bit of a look-see and saw a few tidbits about the location and the settlers and all that good stuff that only I really like to spend loads of time on :-)

After Haast I drove further north and went up the coast a bit. It included a rest stop that looked like it was something out of Baywatch... amazing beaches and little nuggest of land (like mini islands) jutting out of the water and looking just breath taking. Several group of tourists thought so too, they even have tour buses stopping there for people to get off and stretch their legs, and as soon as the bus pulls up you can see the look on their faces... just like mine, in awe.

After the mad scenery stoppovers up the coastline, I got to the Fox and then the Franz Joseph Glaciers. Having never actually seen a glacier first hand meant I knew I was in for something good. It was pretty incredible, all that ice inching its way downt he countryside. I just didn't realise how big those things actually were, and our ones are probably not the biggest in the world. I had to laugh though, when I was at the Fox Glacier there was a small fence line with signage saying do not cross - DANGER DANGER!!!! Of course there was some idiot wayyyyy past the fence line right up at the foot of the glacier taking photos... You don't know how much I prayed for an earthquake right then. The twit was wearing a bright organe jersey and I was thinking that if there was an earthquake that he would be a new tourist attraction in maybe 200 years when all the tourists would be able to look down at a perfectly preserves man frozen in time with a bright orange jersey and a stupid amazed look on his face. Dickhead. Anyhow he lived and I didn't get any laughs up there, but it was ok because the glacier was pretty awesome. I saw Franz Joseph glacier as well about 30 minutes later but the light was fading and I had another 1.5 hours of driving to go so I took a few photo's, read the signs a bit, and chatted to some of the other tourists and promptly left the vicinity... by the wrong road - doh! I drove down the entrance... whoops - I could just see the other tourists in the campervans thinking, 'look at that idiot!' haha whoops.

Anyhow as I was driving to Hokitika (where I am holed up at the moment) I listened to my CD that I bought just outside of Dunedin. I've now listened to it 7,435,435,665 times and I think I am going mad. If I hear Old Skool of Rock Part 2 one more time I think I will go (even more) mad. So I had to invent a new game. Now, if you don't know, the possum is a major introduced pest in New Zealand, it lives everywhere and destroy much of New Zealand's native forestry and if we could wipe it out, we would. Well, anyhow, I noticed several days ago that there was a lot of dead possums on the road... so today I started counting them and I said that I had to shout out the word "Possum!" as soon as I saw one... (pretending that I had a friend in the car with me and I had to beat them to it - which of course mad me giggle at the thought of how mad I was going). 36 Possums! later I arrived in Hokitika and here I am for the night! I only have 30 minutes of internet time... those motels are figuring out that I like the leech as much bandwidth as possible so tonight I have to pre-write my little blog entry :-)

Anyhow I have the rental car for another day and a half so I will have a look at my map tonight and see what I can do and see tomorrow. Trip is absolutely fantastic and wish I had done it sooner...

Cheers
Matt

South Island = takes a turn for the worse.

2008-04-10T14:51:00.002+12:00

Gah! Everything is moving so fast and I have heaps to write and never seem to get in front of a computer to write things down how I want them! For instance, I drove to Bluff the over day, I looked around the town. I saw 3 fish n chip shops that were advertising Bluff oysters... and each one of them were sold out or didn't have any. What rubbish. The most famous thing the town had to offer and nobody had any... probably getting ready to hock them all off at the upcoming festival in a few weeks for triple to cost - probably. Anyhow, my trip that day started off with a drive to Bluff as I mentioned just before. I went down to the signpost that showed I was at bluff and took a photo of myself underneath it - for proof hehe. It was a bit of a miserable day and it was raining on and off a bit. But I went to the Bluff Museum which was mainly naval based but showed some intereting things, like Bluff being the oldest European settlement in NZ to date. 1824 it was settled... only a few more years and it can celebrate it's big 2-0-0. Also went for a little walk around the township, which is a lot like Eltham - the town were I was bought up, and like Eltham, about 4/5 of the shops now are all closed up and there are mainly just pubs and dairy's still going.
After Bluff, I drove back into Invercargill for some lunch and then followed to coastline along to Te Anau. Te Anau is the last town before the Milford Sounds area. This town is a lot like Banff and Jasper in Canada. Tourist-ville. I don't think I have ever seen so many tourists. I was the odd one out because I didn't have any discernable accent. In Te Anau I went to the Glowworm Caves (the must-do thing for all tourists hehe) and drove aorund a bit. Small town but most of the shops are aimed at tourists. Even speaking to the locals (old people who ran the petrol station) they reckon it picked up and went crazy about 10-15 years ago. Sounds about right. So after the glowworms (I got back from that after 10pm) went bed, but not before booking a trip on one of the Milford Sound boat trips. Another must-do thing when in the South Island. The boat trip was at 9am. I had to check in about 15 mins before it departed and it takes about just over 2 hours to drive there from Te Anau... Get the picture? I had to awaken around just before 6am and drive there. Was pretty good though, I had some good music on in the car and rocked out most of the way :-) I stopped off at a rest stop for some awesome slightly-post dawn pics and also again and the amazing Homer tunnel. 1.5 kilometres long and takes about 2 minutes to drive through... I went through when the traffic lights weren't on... had to pray like mad I didn't met a tour bus coming the other way haha luckily I got through unscathed. Anyhow, Milford Sound... the place is packed to the eyeballs with tourists. It probably wouldn't be so bad if you had to work there, or were a tourist (of sorts) yourself, but I just felt a bit like I was invading a strange place and that I shouldn't have been there. Strange. Anyhow, the boat trip was pretty unreal. It was run by foreigners. Scottish guy driving the boat. Irish girls serving (and taking turns driving) - German people running the expo centre... bah. I found one guy who was a kiwi and we talked about him doing repairs on his Holden car -- typical haha. So the boat cruise was stunning. I paid a few extra dollars and went and visited the underwater place, 1 of 5 people out of about 80 who paid an extra $20 to go see it. Basically you couldn't go see it if you were on a tour bus because they don't wait. Luckily for me and my rental car that wasn't a problem.
I got back to Te Anau at about 12pm and then drove over to Queenstown.

Queenstown, the mother of all NZ tourist destinations. My god, help me. I really do not like this place. It' amazingly beautiful, but there something about it that just isn't right. It smells of money. Flash shops, SUV's, old people, young people... but it seems to be a playground. What seems to be missing are the middle class people, the young families, my age kind of people. It's weird. It's like a generation or two was denied access to the town. Don't get me wrong. If you are from another country and want to do all the stuff that this place has on offer, come over and enjoy yourself. If you are a kiwi person, on his own and looking to see some nice things and look around real New Zealand, go elsewhere. Anyhow, that only my initial impression, I'm trying to give this place a fair chance, and to prove it I'll be staying here for 3 days. I went on the Shotover jet this afternoon. I just went for a drive and found it by accident. I like it when that sort of thing happens, sort of like fate. That slice of fate cost me $109 for a pretty cool jet boat ride. Up, down, up again and down again the Shotover river we went... they take photos and movies of you in the boat and then try to sell them to you later. I didn't like my pics, I looked retarted - both pics where with me having my eyes closed and some sort of looney arm angle - pftt. The ride was pretty cool, but I wont be surprised whe I hear the day when they hit a wall and someone is killed. It's pretty split second stuff... :-) So anyhow, I might go on the gondola tomorrow for a bit of a look around, and perhaps a trip up north a little ways to see the Lord of the Rings main locations. I'm thinking of doing a bungy but we will see - probably do that another time when I'm with a group - kinda dull doing it by myself probably... scary as hell - but still not really that great.

As you can tell I'm a bit unimpressed with this area of the South Island. I wanted to get away from it all, and all this area is, is sinking me deeper into some fantasyland escape place. I'll go for a look around over a few days and see what I can find to change my mind.

In the meantime, I might edit this post a little because I really have done quite a lot over the last few days and I'm sure that I don't have it all down here yet.

Cheers
Matt

South Island = teh win so far.

2008-04-08T08:44:00.003+12:00

Hi all.

Well, as the title of this blog entry shows, I'm pretty blown away by the South Island so far and I've hardly even started! I hired what I thought was meant to be a small 'compact' car (so it would be cheaper) but the car rental place didn't have any, so I got upgraded to a 4WD Hyundai jeep thingy. Very awesome. It's almost as big as a proper ute and I have plenty of room and grunt to go pretty much anywhere. It's a 2007 model so has plenty of mod cons which is just great. Best thing is though, is that I hired it for 5 days but only have to pay for 3 which is pretty awesome. So yesterday afternoon I picked that up and drove south from Dunedin. I took the coastal route from there and made my way down to Invercargill. I stopped off at Balclutha and had a bit of a look around... saw the big river that gave the town it's name. I then went on and had a look at the Matai Falls. It was only a 10 minute walk into the bush off the main road, and there were two falls, the main Matai waterfall and another one called Horseshoe Falls. Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera ran out after taking a few snaps of the first fall, but Horseshoe Fall is aptly name - it's like a mini Niagara Falls... water comes down around it in a big wide arc - very cool.

After that, I was driving for a bit and I went down to another falls which was McLeans Falls. It was a bit of a hike, about 20 mins through the bush (which was frikken awesome) and the falls were amazing. While I was there a bunch of kid came through and clambered up the rocks and all over the waterfall. Should have down that myself, but I tend to be a little careful when I'm by myself as there is no one to go get help if something should happen to me. Anyhow, I have a few pics of the kids all over the rocks hehe.

Unruly South Island children ;-)

Later on, I made it to the very southern tip of the South Island, it was pretty wild and rugged down there, although I think the Ngawi, or Castlepoint, which are basically the southern tips of the North Island are actually more wild and rugged. But anyhow, it was still awesome to be there and check out the terrain and the cold windy conditions that existed. I didn't see any seals or dolphins, they had signs posted to say to look out for them but I think that was just for the tourists haha! After that I was in a pretty good mood. I've now officially traveled to the tops and bottoms of both of the main Islands. I've now only got Stewart Island to go but I don't think I will go there on this trip - maybe I think I will save it for another adventure... as I think I will need a few days to do that properly.

Stewart Island will wait for another day!!

So anyhow I traveled further down the coast. I basically drove for over an hour through bush which was like a giant national park (it probably was a national park come to think of it - haha The Catlins I think it was called) and was pretty awesome. One time I pulled over because I just liked the view and I wound down the window (real hard when you only have electric windows haha) and my good I was almost deafened with damn bird noises! Tui's and a multitude of other singing birds were out in force... it was starting to get a little dark so I suspect they were trying it on for the last time of the day. Pretty amazing really.

So I got into Invercargill just on dusk. I drove around the township several times getting adjusted to it. I found myself a motel for the night and through my bags inside and then went for a walk through the township. It was very nice. I've heard some rubbish comments about Invercargill - mainly about it being the ass-end of NZ and crap like that. But it's actually rather nice and tidy and very presentable. Sure, it's not Auckland and giant with loads of shops and stuff but it's a very nice place and seems to be easy to get around and see things.

Today I think I will drive over to Bluff and sample some famous Bluff oysters. I really don't like Oysters, but I get me half a dozen deep fried ones (sorry purists) and maybe a piece or two of blue cod and will try that. I'll have a bit of a nosey around there and then come back to Invercargill and check out a few things here.

All in all though, I've been on the road for half a day, and not even going up the west coast and I'm enjoying this part of the country immensely. Awesome!

Make sure you guys check out the photo links on the right hand side of this blog - there are a few pics there of my travels so far.

Cheers
Matt

Dunedinnnnnnnnnnnnn!

2008-04-07T08:47:00.002+12:00

Hi there, hope everyone is ok out there!

I flew down from Wellington to Dunedin on Friday and met some friends that I had sort of know for probably the best part of 2 years but never actually met. Jeff and Faith are mad gamers (a bit like myself, but I'm not so mad - well maybe I am) and I've chatted to the them on and off for quite some time now. So I decided that as I was heading south and investigating this part of the the country that they would be good people to drop in and visit. Well it's Monday morning and I must say they have the comfy-ist bed mattress a guy could ever wish for. I'm lying on it as I type and I just never want to leave - although I would probably get kicked out sooner or later haha.

So I flew into Dunedin and also met another chap called Nigel whom I have know for several months but never met. We went out into Dunedin and went out for a lovely dinner (I had several dinners) and some drinks. We basically just went around the Octagon and drank our way around and I chatted to the locals and what it meant to be a Dunedin-ite. Most of them thought that you had to be cold, drink a lot and set couches on fire... sounds a lot like Canada! haha

So anyhow - we wont talk about Saturday, because Saturday is the devil's day and I seem to have terrible headaches those days. I think we all stayed indoors, played World of Warcraft (I watched) and Guitar Hero III on the PS2. I am pretty addicted to that game now and will have to get a copy of the game in Duty Free or something when I am overseas.. woooh! :-) That game is fun!

Sunday we all went out to the Dunedin Botanical Gardens and went for a bit of a walk... very nice. We saw the gardens, the duckies, the Dunedin City Jazz Band and the Denedin Aviary. We wandered around the township and looked at shops and stuff - very nice. I actually like Dunedin quite a bit. Except it seems to be hilly as hell, a lot more than Wellington actually is and for someone who likes to get outside and do a bit of cycling, it's probably a bit too hilly for me. Oh yeah, we also drove up New Zealand's steepest street - goddamn - now that is an experience, you just think the whole car is about to roll over backwards on the way up the hill, and then coming down you pray the brakes don't fail. Ofcourse as we got to the bottom of the hill there were those pesky asian tourists again. I swear to god, it's the Truman show staring Matt Scott sometimes haha - we were almost like celebrities as they saw us come down from the hill... I haven't had my picture taken so much since I last encountered my asian fans on a trains on the way to Edmonton in Canada hehe.

Anyhow, I am renting a car today, and I am not sure where I will go. Thought I could go up north to Christchurch, but I have been there once already, and thinking about driving further south down to Invercargil (oooohhh scary!!) haha. So anyhow, a bit of a shower is in order and then a quick email of two and I will be off driving around the significantly colder part of New Zealand! ok then - toodle-loo - cyas a bit later!

Matt

Kapiti - Great Place

2008-04-03T12:13:00.003+13:00

Another great day! Went for a little walk around Paraparaumu (para-pa-ram for you wanna-be locals) and did a little sight seeing - it's a bit of a beachy township and was very nice just to have a quick wander around. Went down to the beach and took a few photos' - Saw a school of fish (probably Kawhai with Snapper sitting underneath) with a whole load of seagulls flying in trying to get themselves a meal - great fun to watch and a nice way to spend 20 minutes of your day let me tell you.

Anyhow, just a quick post at the moment with a nice photo of some awesome looking joker - don't be jealous of me not working - I'm not :-)

Cheers
Matt

Travel downtime

2008-04-03T12:02:00.000+13:00

Well here I am in Bulls - heading down the west coast of the North Island. It's bee a great last couple of days. After my Wrestlemania night, on Monday (which was a hell of a great night), I have pretty much been on the road, doing a spot of travelling and seeing the region. My friend Kim took me down the coast line of Taranaki, regailing me with stories of the past and all the things that we did as kids together, like eating chocolate on the beach, attacking eels, drinking copious amounts of alcohol, and generally being deviants as only boys can be. Anyhow, we drove down through some of Taranaki's more remote countryside, and stopped over in Taranaki for a little meal in the cafe there. Then we moved onto Hawera where Kim dropped me off and I stayed with my Grandmother overnight. It was very nice to see her again, Now it has been twice in about 4 months that that has happened. It must be some sort of record because I normally just don't get the time to see many of my relatives, as they all live in different areas of the country side. Lucky for them that I don't have a job any more and they can feed me and look after me now when I decide to drop in on them. Actually - the more I 'drop in' and see people for a day or two (or more), the more I get the feeling that I am leeching off people. I know I really aren't but I have always been a rather independent kind of chappie and don't like having to have other people make any plans or fuss over me. So I tend to try and keep my stays short and really don't like to interfere too much in their lives. Life on the road seems that much easier. I am currently reading a lot and as I take small breaks I look up out the window of wherever I am and find myself really enjoying things. What is there not to enjoy? Whether it's raining or sunny, life seems pretty damn good. Hmmm getting a bit mushy here, oh well, I'm sure I will counter it some other time with some funny things that I will do and get up to sooner or later.

So back to the start... I'm in Bulls. the town really doesn't have too much going for it except for it's name, which I don't really know how it got that, and as I don't have any internet access, I'm afraid I cannot tell you. But anyhow, this town is a smallish typical kiwi town, with about 1 pub on every corner. haha so that makes it about a 4 pub town. I am on a 4 hour bus trip which actually takes reall only about 2.25 hours to actually drive... but buses make stops and also I have a 1 hour wait for a connecting bus to get her haha crazy. Anyhow, it's 5:30pm on a sunny, but fading autumn's day. Quite nice... the sky is blue and pretty much almost clear and only a whisper of wind is in the air, very pleasant. Anyhow the bus has just turned up again (my connecting bus that is) so off I go - will post again later guys - internet connections are hard to find in the middle of New Zealand hehe.

WRESTLEMANIA XXIV (24 you noobs!)

2008-03-31T13:43:00.002+13:00

Well, if you are even remotely involved in my life, you will know that I like to watch the wrestling on TV. It's really great fun and escapism. Seeing grown men beat up each other - or at least look like they are beating each other up, is actually good fun. I mean, you guys, most of us have seen "Fight Club" right? How many of us guys think that movie is totally awesome, but then, your gf/wife/mum that you took to it as well thought it was totally crap? uh huh - probably lots of us. There's something watching a bit of the old blood sweat and tears in the name of sport that seems to appeal to a lot of guys. Even though most guys make smarky comments about the wrestling, I find that with a bit of watching and a few back stories to bring them up to speed, that most guys will happily watch an hour or two of wrestling with a good laugh or two.

Anyhow matches tonight include a 24 man battle royal - woot! the playboy bunny match (4 girls duking it out with Snoop Dogg as the special guest referee - LOL!) the big championship match, and an sure to be awesome Money in the bank match... that's always really awesome. So the beers, cokes and chips and dip are all in the fridge getting ready! woohoo

Anyhow, it's raining here in New Plymouth again for like the 3rd day in a row. Not too bad really.. been enjoying life, just cruising round meeting friends, recovering form hangovers and doing a spot of shopping in the malls and stuff here... quite nice and relaxing. I was actually supposed to climb the mountain and also do some sea kayaking but the weather has put paid to those ideas. No biggies. Am looking forward to meeting friends down in Dunedin, it'll be like a little foreign country no doubt. One last blast before I head off into the wilder yonders all by myself which is the west coast of the South Island - I should have way more pictures to add to my photo album by then - so stay tuned for neato scenery pics. :-)

Anyhow kiddies I'm off to watch a bit more CSI and enjoy my day - hope you all are enjoying your week :-) haha

Cya
Matt

And so the hangovers begin...

2008-03-29T11:36:00.002+13:00

Yesterday was a great day, I got to met up with friends and family, I got to go for a swim in the baths here in New Plymouth and just generally enjoyed myself. I saw my friend Kim and his partner Jane, plus I got to visit grandparents in Stratford. The highlight / story of the day, however, begins after 6pm when Mike came home from work. The story contains the 'howto' of a great hangover and small children should be restrained from reading any further.

It was the end of the working week for some hehe, so Mike, Kirsty and I thought that we should should go out, initially it was for Indian food. But New Plymouth seemed to be rather full, so we drover around a bit and just ended up looking for somewhere nice and quiet. Which turned out to be a restaurant called El Condor. A pizza and and pasta place. I actually got the special which was a steak, and it was very nice. Also nice was the 6 beers I had with it hehe.

After the meal, we actually just went next door and there was a quiet little pub called Rosie O'Gradys. When I say quiet, I mean quiet, I think there was only one other guy in the place when we arrived at 8:30pm. Anyhow, we sat down got a beer or two down us and gave Kirsty some money to play the pokies... at least it would be slightly more interesting than having to watch and listen to me and Mike get trollied and talk rubbish all night. Kirsty came back pretty quick after losing all my money haha but by then Mike and I were on shots and were trying out pretty much every liqueur on the bar. I was enjoying myself immensely, just basically chatting to the other half dozen people who had arrived in the bar.

Well I failed again. I wasn't able to drink the bar dry, although I think I gave it a good effort. Mike and Kirsty left me at the bar, telling me that they would leave a door open for me at home... not like I was even sober enough to hear or understand them haha. Whoops it would be something I would later regret. Somewhere along the line, I passed out, got thrown out or stumbled out (the latter is probably the truth) and I woke up in an alley way around the back of the pub. It was about 3:30am at this time and I decided that I might start the long 10km walk home. Why do I always walk? I never try to get a taxi or call people to come and get me, I just seem to like to walk... idiot! I had made it about 2km, when I found a nice little garden for me to have another sleep in haha so I slept there until about 6am when I woke up freezing cold and started walking again. I got a long way, about 6km into the walk really, but I ran out of pavement (I was heading into countryside by that point). So I saw the last petrol station and figured I should really call a taxi from there, which I did and finally got home and fell into bed at 7am... goddamm another hard day done haha.

Anyhow, I survived that night, great night too... now I have to go and force myself to the gym I found and go do a bit of a workout... that should be fun! haha

See you all soon!
Matt

Mad Dog Ahoy!

2008-03-27T13:48:00.004+13:00

Did I tell you that Mike and Kirsty have mad dogs? They do - one more than the other though really. Check out this pic of the maddest mad dog! I'm sure Mike slips it speed before he goes off to work in the mornings! haha

I got this photo by putting superglue on the ground, although it only temporarily slowed down the beast... but only just long enough or me to catch the pic!

NZ Trip - Day 1

2008-03-27T09:23:00.001+13:00

Well Day 1! So I started my trip off nice and early. Had to get up at 5:30am and have a bit of brekkie. as I was wandering around the house I spotted a few other things that I hadn't packed and thought that might come in handy like my glasses and a camera stand and my uber $600 flash-as sunglasses! So I carefully packed those away, ate my weet-bix and left the house before Shaun (who said he was going to get up early and see me off) woke up. hehe.

It's always interesting from a people watching point of view to see who is wandering around your home area (Devonport for me) at 6am. There were a few familiar faces who I see around town every now and then and a couple of newbies as well. Quite a lot of tourists actually though (funny how you learn to spot them...). Had to walk up to Sky City Casino with my pack on, which actually wasn't too bad, because my pack is a flash-as pack that I got form Katmandhu last year for my first trip and it was fitted for me there on the spot. So it fits like a gloves and I can alter the places where the weight sits with a quick pull of a strap or two if need be - very nice!

So I got on a bus at about 7:45am (I got to sit outside the bus station for 30 mins because I don't
like to be late) and we took off. I got my little face covering do-hickey and tried to catch some sleep. I've seen the majority of the North Island before and figuring this was going to be a 6 hour bus trip I though I would sleep through as much as possible. Well I got about 2 hours and an hour after that we pulled into "The Big Apple" a nice little country food and rest stop. Very nice - took a couple of photos.. for no real reason other than to try out the new camera.. I'll upload them a little later and add them to the picasa web page, and maybe try to organise my old photos a bit better too.

Anyhow, back on the road and I got into reading a bit, not too bad there, I like to read when someone else drives.. a lot of people get headaches but I don't really notice them that much - lucky me.

Anyhow, pulled into New Plyouth at about 2pm and went and saw my buddy Mike and his lovely wife Kirsty. They have put me up for a few nights. I used to know Mike from my Polytechnic days and we still carry on our friendship to this day... which is nice... always good to have old friends.

So anyhow, I'm keen as to not miss out on Wrestlemania this year, so I went and booked it to play on Mike's TV in a few days haha - I don't think he and Kirsty are that keen on it, but I'll watch it just the same... it's only $20 and it's great for a but of a laugh and simple entertainment!

Kirsty cooked an amazing dinner of Roast chicken and pasta and another awesome salad here and Mike and I ate for all we were worth... I think Mike got told off for eating too much hehe - great to be a guest! Anyhow, tomorrow I might go for a bit of a walkies and take a few photo's maybe of the area - will be nice to have a few North Taranaki photo's. Shame the bus didn't have more touristy stops as the weather was awesome and some of the beaches were went past (not to mention the Awakino gorge) looked amazing!

OK - see you later kiddies - I'm enjoying this - will write more soon!
Matt

Let's go!

2008-03-25T17:28:00.002+13:00

Ok trend setters! Lets dooooo it!

As of tomorrow morning I am officially setting off on another trip! This time I am going to see a goodly portion of the South Island. I must confess I haven't really seen much of the bottom half of the country. It's just something I never really got around to doing, as I don't really know anyone there (only 1/4 of the country lives there and it's a pretty big place) and I got pinged when I was in Canada for not seeing all of my country before going overseas (and rightly so I concur).

So I'm going to jaunt down to to New Plymouth tomorrow morning on a bus and am going to see some friend and family, before heading to Wellington to see some more people. I will then fly out of Wellington and fly to Dunedin (the almost deep south!!) where I can meet up with some friends I have not really ever met face to face but almost close enough! From there I can check out a bit of Otago and Dunners' before heading out to go up the West Coast and explore a bit for approximately two weeks. Should be good!

Anyhow, I also bought a cheapie new digital camera as my old one never did reappear, and I figured I might be able to get a nice new one when I fly through Malaysia later one down the track! So am just packing bags and setting up the laptop again tonight! Off to the gym right now for a last ditch effort to make myself really really really really good looking (like Derek Zoolander) and will be enjoying my last night of Devonport nights.

Anyhow trendsetters, catch you all later and some sooner than others!

Bye for now!
Matt

So hyped!

2008-03-22T11:06:00.002+13:00

OK - so maybe I have eaten a few pizza's last night, and maybe I stayed up till 4am and maybe I am tired as hell at the moment, but damn I just watched the Wrestling on TV (yeh I know it's fake - but damn it's fun!) and man, I'm so pumped for Wrestlemania on 30th March haha! So many good story lines, so many silly and funny things happen on that show, the guys who write some of those storylines need to be given a medal or something. I'm not really going to bore you with the details... lets just say I burst out laughing more than a few times this morning! :-)

So anyhow, after watching a bunch of grown sweaty men run around beating each other up I'm thinking I might have to go down to the gym... even though I have a bit of a cold going on... hmm... well it's not too bad so maybe I'll go a little bit after lunch when things have settled down a bit.

Anyhow kiddy winkles, hope all you employed people are having a good life. Honestly I think that redundancy is like the best thing ever - now I know what's like to be rich and to just sit around and basically not have to worry about anything ever! haha I'm so not ever going to get stressed at work again... well you know what I mean... it's just not worth it is it?! Anyhow, I'll have to get another job at some point so don't worry I'll join you back in the office again no doubt before the year is out. Unless I win the 14 million dollar jackpot from the lotto this weekend - woooo then I'll be gone like a gone thing! I will be able to employ people to write my blog for me ahah!! can you imagine it... hehe.

And what is it with this CRAZY weather. It's like STILL stinking hot here in Auckland. It's been like going on for almost 5 months now? what is that all about? Is this one of those years, that when I'm in the old folks home in 70 years I'll be going "Goddam, remember that summer back in 2008? what a stinker! ha! You youngun's don't know what a real summer is like... mumble mumble, where's my bourbon and pills Dolores!?" muhahaha. Ahhh so funny.

Anyhow, I better go take a shower and clean up a bit - don't want to be messy, you never know when the queen will visit! Tally ho!

Matt

The sequel is being planned....

2008-03-15T12:24:00.003+13:00

Hello everyone! Well I promised another post and here it is! I actually don't know what I am about to write about (can I say about twice like that in one sentence? - Not good grammar I suspect) but I am just going to wing it and shoot from the hip! A lot of people tell me I write with good humour and suspect that it must take me a long time to write these little blog posts. Well it doesn't really... I think I have Stephen King syndrome... I just sort of start typing and all this stuff just comes out naturally really. From time to time I delete a sentence or two, but mainly it's when I am about to repeat myself or there is something I don't really want my mum to know about! hehe.

No, really I just pretty much just jabber away here and try to make it interesting for anyone who likes to read this sort of thing. Anyhow, I suppose I should give you guys a bit of an update as to my upcoming future. I'm off on a another trip. It has a surprising feel to actually being a bit of a movie sequel actually. It's like Rambo First Blood Part 2. More alcohol, more food, more sights, more countries and more explosions! woohoo! Plus I reckon I'd look pretty good holding an M60 with a bandanna on my head shooting away at the local street kids tagging to neighbours fence! pew pew pew! haha.

This time, I'm going to 3 countries. That's right! 3! And not only that, but this time I'm going across 3 different continents! Oh my god, what a diabolical plot! First off I'm jetting off to Malaysia! This is what I am considering the opening scene of the movie, it's where I go to a strange foreign land, where English isn't exactly the primary language. I'm meeting an old work mate there and am going to discover some Asian experiences! - Oh my god, I really don't want to eat chicken feet again! Twice is enough for anyone thank you very much! Honestly, what were those crazy Chinese people thinking... it really must have been discovered when there was some sort of famine going on, because really... THEY ARE CHICKENS FEET! lol I bet those Irish people are just kicking themselves now too.... "Dammit - rotten potatoes! We could have eaten chicken feet... who would've thought!!?"

Anyhow, lets get back on track. Malaysia, Kuala Lumpar to be exact. 3 days in the city. Wow! I'm gonna loads of short people with straight black hair and they are all going to look the same! haha. Actually can't wait! It'll be the first time I've ever been to a non English (as the first language) country! Well you know what I mean, it'll bee cool and I will have to be on my guard and hopefully stay alert and try to take in heaps. And yes I will be really nice to everyone.... because I really don't want to piss anyone off who can whoop my ass in 15 different flavours of kung fu!

Next, after my brief stint in the secret orient, I am jetting off to London. This is where the main part of the movie will take place... haha Europe's a big place, so good luck to me to even see pretty much anything that other people will ask me about. You know, when you see people and they tell you they went here and here, you tend to say "Oh cool - did you see such and such?" - well I don't think I am going to have enough time to actually cover those things off... but hey - life is good and I will undoubtedly come back some day and try to see more.

Anyhow, I'm off to go and see my recently married sister Michelle! Yah! I think I have seen more of every other one of my family than her! We basically haven't spent any time together for like 8 years! The recent wedding was the only time I've spoken to her! So that will be cool. Hopefully she can take a little time off work and maybe show me around some of Europe. She's lived over there and been too many different european countries so hopefully she can give me a few pointers. This is going to be when my adventuring goes full on. 4 weeks in Europe with no itinerary! I'm hopefully going to see a little of Scotland - will be nice to see where some of my ancestors came from. And also Italy/Rome I think Michelle said. That will also be cool - very cool actually. I am not sure what else I will be getting the chance to see - I will just wing it and play it by ear. Will definitely be fun.

Then, I get the big bad finale. Back to where it all started (like any good movie sequel!) I'm jetting back to Canada! My friends, Kevan, Bruce and Daryl will have unfortunately have finished up their 6 month contract to work on the mountain and will have left the country. But luckily for me I am going back to meet up with Delee and hopefully she can take me on a nice little trip around some of the more scenic parts of the country! Not sure if she will have any time off work so I will try and wing that when it happens... I think we are going to do a bit of camping - yah bears! eeek! and also I really want to try and do some mountain biking! I'm totally topped up with the best travel medical insurance money can buy so I am pretty covered there! and I am leaving all the dangerous stuff till the end of my trip! (This movie is SOOOO ending with a bang!)

Reflection time (with your host Matty J)

Well it's all been a rather interesting year (or 6 months so far...) became single, been to my first family funeral, 2 family weddings lost my job, became unemployed for the first time in over 12 years, and also have had quite possibly some of the best times of my life. Amazing! I'm really quite stunned by it all when I think about it.... I suppose I'm going to have to get another job when I get back from this holiday... but at least I'll have heaps of photo and great memories!

Ciao for now (practicing my Italian already you see!)
Matthias!

Lets go world!

2008-03-11T18:40:00.002+13:00

Alrighty then trandsetters! What is happening?!?!?! Well for a start, I'm unemployed, although I like to think of it as being in between jobs. It's not like it should be hard for me to get another job, there are plenty out there and plenty in my field and paying good money. So after getting a nice little payout I can comfortably have a few months (re: several!) and live of that for a while! Nice for some eh?! haha!

OK well that enough of making you extremely jealous, now I'll move onto the next part - more holidays! woo hoo!

I figured 4 weeks in Canada wasn't enough... so now, I'm going to go and spend 4 days in Kuala Lumpar to see some friend/s who used to work at TelstraClear and check the city out a bit, probabyl wont get to see much of the countrywide, because, 1) I'm only in town for a few days, 2) will be staying in the city and 3) I don't think my friends there are that big on being country people themselves hehe (if you get my drift). So that will be fun. I have especially planned it so the I turn up there on a Thursday or Friday, so that I can spend a weekend there and maybe go out for dinner and checkout the nightlife and stuff, should be fun! Will be cool to be the tallest person in the city! hahaha! (Well I should be in the top 1 percentile anyhow lol!!)

Then I think, after that I am going to jet off over to London to see my sister who was recently married and go and stay there for 4 weeks. Hopefully I will be able to travel around on the smell of an oily rag and go and see some European sites... maybe Scotland, Italy, and who knows where else... opinions!?!?! I have 3 weeks!

Then I think I will head back over to Canada... Unfortunately all my kiwi mates will have finished up their 6 month contract and will have come back to NZ so they wont be there for me to see... although I will be able to catch up will a lovely young lady I met over there, who promises to tie me down, pour molten cheese on me... uh err... ummm - she said she was going to take me camping... I hope we don't take any honey, I worry about bear enough as it is hehe. Hope they don't like marmite either! :-) So yeh, do a bit of camping in Jasper perhaps or some mountainous area/s in Canada will be awesome! It's probably a bit more like me that skiing actually is... I prefer the nice mountains all nice and quiet but with lots of greenery. Anyhow, 3 weeks there and then back to NZ.... where I will probably have to find another job... oh well, nevermind.

Now before I head of overseas again (on an amazingly good deal for flights by the way!) I'm going to go and see the family around the North Island, and also try to head down to the South Island and cruise around there a bit... will be good to see the other half other the country (that just between me and you I really have not experienced - shame on me!).

So anyhow, I'll firm up the dates, confirm the flights and get back to you all with a bit more info - a bit of a early summer trip will be good no!? Oh by the way, I don't think I am ever going to work for 12 years solid ever again... I'm having too much fun doing this! 12 months on, 6 months off sounds pretty good no?! haha!

Cheers
Matt

New post - coming soon

2008-03-09T03:31:00.002+13:00

I've been meaning to post a new blog... oh I have so much to write!

Just a bit tired and over-alcohol indulged at the momet so wont write too much... but will do so in the next day or so!

Lets just say I'm going to re-visit some old stomping grounds and see some new places!

Oh how unprepared is the world... :-)

Matt

Mid February... Summer is still here!

2008-02-21T18:05:00.002+13:00

For all 17-elevnty billion readers, I thought I'd just let you know it's still as SUNNY AS HELL here in Auckland, New Zealand! Damn, it's been raining a little, but you wouldn't know it as the rain seems to be sucked into the ground faster than it falls to earth! and then it's nice and sunny and hot again. Pretty awesome acutally, as everything is still nice and green... although I think the farmers are having a bit of a hard time trying to grow their crop to any real decent size...

Anyhow, work... lets see what can I say. I got made redundant from Unisys. 12 years and I got paid out nice ly thank you very much Unisys! Now I am living the liife of luxury that god intended me to have (well, enough to pay off my debts and be able to afford a weeks worth of Subway anyhow!) haha And now I'm doing some contract work at TCL, mainly doing a bit of training, support and transitioning stuff. quite nice actually. Not on-call anymore, which is a hell of a change. I compare it a lot to be 'acclimatised' to prison. Not that it's a prison or anything, more like that I am within a boundary that I can't go out of without major effort or organising. But now I am free to go out at night, to turn off my cellphone, to get drunk, to fall in a gutter and not have to worry about fixing stuff in the middle of the night... Very nice indeed. Life is pretty awesome at the moment.

Lets see, what else? Oh yeh - I got some photo's from my sisters from one of the weddings I went to in December. My sisters' wedding in Kapiti actually. A big 12 people wedding which was good. My favourtie photo is one of me, my 2 sisters and my mother and my father all in the same photo. Because since my parents split up when I was young we never really got a family photo.... now I have one - and it rocks. I think my sisters quite like that photo as well... it's very unique as far as our family goes!

So yeh, back to the gym now - been going several times over the past week... getting fit again. It's strange, I haven't been for 3 months (when, back then I had been going for 3 months solid as well) but within a week I feel almost like I am back to that point where I finished up at peak fitness (does that make sense?) I'm almost lifting the same weights and with the same amount of reps again. Not quite - but almost... so only another week or two and I think I will have it... and look out world... think I'm confident now? haha hold onto you hats!

AND - omg - big news of the week!!! I know have in my posession, one of the best secrets of the universe! - "Kryptonite for women!" haha Bet that got your ear going didn't it? Well I am not one to keep secrets so here you go... You see, for 2 weeks now I have been taking Salsa dancing classes on Tuesday nights, and earlier this week I learnt how to (properly) spin the lady around on the dance floor and control her.... Talk about melting at ones' feet... lol It's nuts... The looks you get from your partner when you pull it off correctly and you apply the correct amount of 'forcefulness' is brilliant. I swear I could almost put in my breakfast orders in there and then... hahaha!! So there you go. Don't say I never tell you anything good! Anyhow I will have to keep going to those classes... they are pretty good!

So yeh work is about to all wind up for me soon - I really don't know what I will do next. I get the feeling me, as a package, I am in demand... a kiwi born, english speaking chappie with over a dozen years of good IT skills. It seems that I hear a lot of "You'll find a job in no time" sorts of things... well, that might be true but I feel lazy again... and maybe I'll have a few weeks off before finding some more work... Maybe a couple of part time jobs in Devonport would be good... somewhere in the public sector where I can meet some of the locals... like one of the pubs, or a foody place... dunno - maybe, will probably go work in a fluorescent-lit room again with more computers, but I like to dream :-)

Anyhow, I'm off to play some World of Warcraft and enjoy the last hours of the day.

toodle pip!

Cheers
Matt

2 WEEKS!?!?!?!

2008-01-29T23:41:00.000+13:00

Where the hell did the time go?!! I swear it was just the other day when I made that last post?!?!? oh well, here you all go then you crazy kids! More posts from good old Matt, the mad poster!

So if you haven't heard already, I have been made redundant from my job. It's not a bad thing really. I have done 12 years and I enjoyed a lot of it. I also hated a lot of it, but for totally different reasons. The good times where the laughs and the great learning experiences... the bad things where the stress that I had to endure and the utterly stupid and bad people I have had to deal with over that time. Although I would like to point out that I generally told those people what i thought of them, so if I haven't pointed it out to you then I probably think rather highly of you. I do not suffer fools gladly. Unfortunately, it is because of my brash nature that I have got a double side reputation. On one side I am brash and arrogant and sometimes a bit of a dick, but on the other side, I'm a good worker, intelligent and can get on with the job and people and be a hell of a good guy. At least I'm honest with myself and like to get the job done... Anyhow, as I age I try to tone things down a bit, but I do so enjoy a good scrap every once in a while haha.

So anyhow, yep I've had I think an overall positive and good time at my roles in my company. Now I look to the future and it is WIDE open. No kids, no debt, no mortgage, no extra weight, no hassles. And to top it all off, it's like one of the best summers in history here in NZ at the moment and I'm getting fit again... so awesome.

Anyhow, I will be undoubtedly be looking for another IT job - but I'm not sure if it will be in NZ. I could go anywhere.. it's all about lifestyle for me now.. I earn the kind of money I've always wanted (I've never really wanted to be a millionaire - so I set my sights at a nice level, of which I think I have gotten to)... so now I will just keep saving for retirement and enjoy the hell out of life.

Damn this is a bit of an emo post isn't it? Probably because I am writing it at almost midnight and I haven't slept much in the last few days... damn computer games hahaha! Must go soon though if I am to get up and go to work tomorrow (2nd to last day at work by the way LOL!)

Anyhow - hope you enjoyed this - it's was good to post again and vent a little. Viva the next couple of weeks!

Oh and stay tuned for Matt's upcoming LAKE TAUPO cycle challenge!!! woot!!! 160kms on the bike with some mates!

Cheers
Matt

2008-01-15T20:05:00.000+13:00

Well, here I sit after a crazy day. Up at 6:30am after little sleep, back into work, saving the world and doing my best to not get too stressed out (although I think I was fighting a bit of a losing battle there). Eventually I got the server fix and I also got the remote access set up so that I wont have to go out in the middle of the night if something else happens to it. Luvely Juvely.

So here I sit at home, just after 8pm, and it's still nice and sunny outside. I've had a bit of a munch on a carrot and thought that maybe I should be a devil and make a second blog post on the same day! omg... "However can I keep up Matty?" I hear you say... well, I dunno, but don't get left behind! haha

So today was a pretty good day with all things considered. Under pressure for most of the day with this dreaded bad server wanting to crash on me all the time, and me with no access to it when it did . Grr. Anyhow, I got to escape the building for lunch, and got some sunshine and paid my Amex bill. Was good to get outside again, gave the old head and hands a bit more of a tan haha. Shame I was wearing business pants and shirts as usual. :-)

I gave the old "Oldfriends" website profile a bit of a spruce up today, seems that as I am finishing up at my job, I thought it would be good to keep things a little up to date. So if you are on there, hunt me down and take a look! Let's see, now what do the rest of the week hold for me? Hmmm join the gym again... was supposed to do that today but sort of got sidetracked at work. Umm Possibly biking 35kms on Saturday and Sunday to cover for the guys at work to help with a job. We will see - it's a bit up in the air at the moment. Maybe a bit of a movie night on Saturday night with some gamer mates and then maybe a BBQ at Gaz's house. What a weekend! woohoo. hehe

Anyhow, might sign off now, have to go and hunt some dinner down... chicken nuggets from teh freezer sounds like a good eat for tonight. See ya later.

Matt.

Woot! Blog time!

2008-01-15T10:49:00.001+13:00

OK - I haven't had much sleep in the last day or so. Mainly because one of the servers at work has decided to play funny buggers with me. I got called out at around 10pm last night and didn't get hom until around midnight. I decidedthat maybe it would be nice to have a little sleep in and not get up for another hour, but all my plans were dashed when my pager went off at 6:20am... grrr only 5 hours sleep. Lucky I got that much I suppose.

So I jumped, got some clothes on and push biked over to work, quite nice actually, nice and chilly still in the fresh mornign air, and with some good tunes blaring in my iPod. Plus with my fitness coming back to me I made it to work in very good time.

So after a bit of a taxi ride out there and a quick look at the box and a bit of a investigation I found more problems with it haha. christ - so here I am all day working on this thing rather than doing any normal kind of log checking, kinda fix work. Oh well, at least I'm earning my salary - wont feel guilty at 5pm today. Although I suspect that I wont be finishing until 8pm probably goddamit!

As for other things, well life is pretty good. The weather, well, what can you say about the weather. The summer is incredible this year. You know how you think the summers were all long and hot when you were a kid and it's never like that anymore? Well this summer is like that, and eveyone has been saying how amazing it is. It's great. Long hot days.... sure, a little humidity now and then but,, just brilliant overall. Great evening walks and bbq weather. How can you not be happy!

By the way, my flatmate, fails. Fails at being clean and tiday haha! Nah, he's a good dude, but you've gotta have some leeway when it comes to tryign to keep the house clean, especially when I am a bit of a cleaning Nazi these days. It's good to have someone paying half the rent and bills too. Good to have him about.

So not too much of an update, probably gonna rejoin the gym tonight or tomorrow if I get the chance... gotta get soem uber fitness back. Can't wait!

Cheers
Matt

Lost my camera boohoo!

2008-01-10T13:36:00.000+13:00

Somewhere along the line I lost my digital camera... Luckily I'm pretty sure it didn't have any photo's from my trip or anything like that. But unluckily, I wouldn't mind taking a few photos of Auckland or other parts of New Zealand for some of my friends in Canada to see just how good NZ is.

It rained yesterday for the first time since I had been back. The place was looking a bit dry and it was nice not to be in 22-25 degree temperatures all the time! haha

However, I received a VERY nice little message last night courtesy of a totally 'random' reader of the blog. It was very nice to hear that I had made someone's day and they were continuing to read the blog even though I had pretty much finished up. I have published the comment in the 'comments' area of my previous post, go and have a look! I only thought that only my friends and family that I had specifically pointed towards this blog would really bother reading it (because I know half of you buggers didn't read it! haha) So thanks to the people from Southern California, you made my day. Very nice indeed.

Now, I can't reveal too much infromation, but I'm in for a bit of a change in my life, work-wise that is. Stay tuned and I will reveal more when I am able to.

As for New Zealand, well it's great to be back again. Blue sky's, nice hot weather, everyone seems really happy and it's nice just to wander around in good old Devonport again. My house is about 1 minute's walk (literally) from the township and me and Shaun went for a walk last night in the evening to get a bit of dinner. nice to see the locals around, said hello to a few and wave to some more.

I'll have to get another digital camera this weekend because I really want to upload some nice snaps. Plus I think a paddling pool is on the cards! Oh Yeh, it's a bit of a crappy image but you get the picture haha! Rock on!

Early January, I'm back!

2008-01-08T09:42:00.000+13:00

Well the blog sort of died off during the last few days of the trip.

I had gone back to Jasper, and just basically hung out, enjoyed the grandeur of it all. The snow, the cold, and the nice weather. The company wasn't half bad either ;-), and I tried to just relax and take it all in. I had survived a month in Canada. It was brilliant, a trip of a lifetime. I learnt a lot about a lot of things and had more fun than I could have possibly imagined.

I made it home, and had sweltering heat to greet me. I went to see my good friend Mike in New Plymouth, who is doing very well and seems to be in good spirits which is awesome to see! Hi to him and Kirsty and the crack dogs!

I also went to my cousins wedding. She looked lovely, and it was a brilliant wedding, put on by her parents, who did an exceptional job of organising everything I might add. Just another awesome day.

Then somehow I got through Christmas and Boxing day by keeping a low profile and then onto my sisters wedding down in Waikanae down Wellington way. That was a neat little wedding too with only 10 of us in attendance. I think there was even a photo of my original family all grown up, that in itself was pretty incredible. The 3 kids and mum and dad all together with no one else in the photo. Man I have to get a copy of that photo! It was taken by the professional photographer at the wedding so hopefully it will look good!

After the wedding I popped down to Wellington for the night to see another godo friend, Heather and we had a bit of a dinner and a tour around Wellingt CBD and local suburbs. It was really nice to see Wellington again, and see what had changed. Heather was in good form as usual! haha

Anyhow, back to Auckland for New Years Eve where Shaun, my flattie got boozed and was trying to pull some old chick, heheh and he did a runner at the last moment and ran back home. New Years Day was a quiet affair at my house, with computer games (World of Warcraft) being the dominant factor.

Fast forward antoher week and I am now back at work. Strangely good to be back at work and back into the routine again. Quite enjoying it.

Oh, and back on my bike agian too... sore ass, but that is temporary and my fitness is shot to hell, and hopefully that will change too in the upcoming weeks. Here's to a long glorious (and sweaty!) summer.

Cheers
Matt.

Day 25 again...

2007-12-14T08:29:00.000+13:00

Well I had to check out of the hotel, and decided to go and sort out my train ticket to Vancouver. Got that sorted and also check in my backpack which was once only half full, but now is nearing capacity. I certainly can feel the extra weight I am carrying around now (the bag - not my tummy hehe). Plus I still have a few presents to buy for people, I hope I can find them back in Vancouver before I depart. Surely I will, how hard can it be to find Maple Syrup in Canada honestly hhaha.

Well, so I went for a little walk and am now sitting in a pub having a beer, just typing away with any sort of impulse that comes into my head. Hmm... I have noticed that it doesn't seem to be as cold as my last time here in Jasper... maybe it's not as cold... I think it's about -5 here at the moment... still freezingly cold compared to almost anything in New Zealand, but I am seemingly becoming a bit more accustomed to the cold it seems... although not like a lot of the locals though who walk around without gloves and hats on and make me look like a big wussy haha.

So I have a rather long train trip ahead of me, the biggest one I will encounter so it seems, approximately 17 hours I think. And it's late already and there's still another 3-4 hours to go before it is due... But honestly, what do you expect with it being so cold and snowy everywhere. I know I am happy enough to let it slide, I am on holiday and wont be getting to worried about it all... this is why you don't organise things too far ahead, no connections or anything... just taking it easy. Very kiwi of me. hehe I checked out perhaps buying a train ticket with a sleeping cabin, I thought it would be nice to get a bed on this train trip, after all 17 hours is going to be hard to survive on the train... but considering it costs about $700 CAD for that trip I decided that the public cheapo seats is the way to go... Maybe I will meet the National Canadian Womens Volleyball team and they will fall madly in lust with me and invite me into their rooms for the night. haha Dammit, they have eluded me so far, maybe, just maybe they will be on the train. haha only half way in my first beer so far... :-)

OK so lets change the subject, women volleyball players on trains is getting perhaps a little out of hand...

Jasper township is pretty good, it's pretty basic really, but has a touch of tourism about it. Once you get out and about you really realise how much there is to see and do out here. Plus it only seems to be running at about 30% capacity. A lot of the stores seems to be closed for the season, only the important ones are still open (read: pubs). hehe. But now, in Jasper I went out on a Wildlife tour and also the Ice Valley walk, which was great but to get there we had to drive for quite some time and you see a lot of cool stuff that you could do if I had the right cold weather gear, or that you could do in the summer months. Funnily enough, it also has the affect of making me really keen to get back home and bloody well go out and explore the rest of the country that I haven't seen yet. Too many people I meet say "Oh yeh I was in NZ for a few weeks and I saw this and that... and I have hardly seen any of what these people talk about". Looks like I need to go and tour around the home country a bit and get off my lazy ass and go see these things a bit more.....

But on the flip side of this, skiing will not be one of the things I will be really keen to do in NZ again. I have been totally spoilt by Canada when it comes to the snow. Everywhere I go, there is snow, and it's all really puffy fluffy snow. Crazy. I kick it with my foot (which the locals then thought I have drunk too much Absenth) and it explode in a cloud of it all. Spoilt I am indeed. NZ snow is crap, slushy, icy rubbish, so it will have to be a pretty good situation if I am going to be finding my self skiing in NZ again. Luckily it's not my sport of choice, so I wont be too under pressure to move countries hehe.

OK.. so that enough right now... but damn, Pirates and Ninjas in Canada... I have seen it all I'm sure... :-)

Day 25 - Jasper to Vancouver

2007-12-14T07:03:00.000+13:00

Well I got a good sleep last night. Honestly was a little bit tired... way too much of a good time here in Jasper. Totally too much to do, it's been a great time here. Brilliant one might say haha.

Anyhow, today I have some free time so I can get back on the good old computer and do a little bit of mindless typing and throw up some crazy tidbits that I know you all love. Like, here's something.. I bought these super expensive boots/shoes in NZ about a month before I left, and they had hard inner soles on them. So I bought some of those inner sole thingys for comfort, and they also had the extra addition of stopping foot odour (doesn't matter to me because I smell of (manly) roses with everything I touch hehe. Anyhow, I put these inner soles in my shoes about a month before I left for Canada. I got them out of the packaging, read the directions, carefully cut them to the right shape and size and inserted them into my shoes. Awesome. They worked very well. Nice and comfy and no odours. Brilliant. Except, whenever I took my feet out of my shoes, the damn soles kept coming out as well. Dammit! Ah well, I thought, a small price to pay for comfort and nice fresh shoes. I have been wearing these soles for about 7-8 weeks like this now. Every day is a constant battle to try and keep those soles in the shooes properly. I thought about glueing them in and then disgarded it with the thought that these shoes cost way too much for that sort of treatment to them. I just put up with it... until about 2 nights ago when I came home and removed my feet only to have the inner come out completely of my shoe... only then did I realise my mistake... I had put them in upside down! It hit me all at once like a tidal wave... it's taken me two days to get over how stupid I have been, no wonder they fit but weren't sticking to the bottom of the shoes haha dork!!!11!! :-) So let's just say I have now rectified this mistake and my shoes are now the complete envy of everything below my knees hehe.

Let's see, what else have I been thinking about and seeing that requires putting pen to paper. Ahh yes. I have discovered that there are Pirates in Prince George. Let me explain. When I was in Prince George several days ago now, on my first night there, I picked a motel right next to the Town Hall. It was quite lucky for me , because someone I think at the Visitor informatioin centre there, said I could get a bus day pass from the Town Hall, so the next morning I went and bought one. Very cool - after a brief look at the map, I jumped on a bus and sat down. The buses there do complete circuits so I was able to get on, and stay on the buses and just cruise around all day without any fear of being kicked off at any point. Yes I am getting to my original point about the pirates... As I was travelling around on these buses I always noticed a few transient people on the buses, there are transients around a lot of BC and Alberta (Canada on the whole I think), not sure why, but there are, and in some ways it's rather sad. However, I prefer to look on the bright side, and think that in my own twisted way, that they are there to provide me with a comical outlook on life. Particularly this one pair of transient guys I found on a bus that day. I sat behind them at the end of the bus. Just another bus nothing special, but these two guys were talking to each other in some sort of hard core drunken slur. Much like myself, and if I had been drinking all night I'm sure I could have easily joined in with them. But I was sober (probably hung over though), and it was all I could do to not burst out laughing when this next thought came into my head and persisted for many days after. These guys sounded just like frikken pirates. Old drunken sea dogs, with a penchant for rum and had obviously put into port several days ago, and now were enjoying the fruits of their last sea borne trip for hidden treasure and spanish ships! "Ahaha!! Ye ahhh matey eh?!" one of them seemed to yell, to which the other would reply "brahahaweare Grraauurr!!! YeeaAahhh!" To which both of them would laugh, and the conversation went on like that for the 15 or so minutes that I sat behind them. Thank god they were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn't turn and look at me, otherwise I would've had to walk the plank for sure... (because I had no rum on me). These swarthy dogs chatted(?) to each other and eventually decided to get off the bus (in the now immortalized Keith Richards style swagger) leaving me to wonder if Prince George was the home of the sea dogs, because Johnny Depp himself couldn't have out-acted these two jokers. Brilliant, just brilliant.

Argghh whoops - gotta go - half an hour late for checking out... gotta go - will type later!

Cheers
Matt

Day 24? - Jasper

2007-12-13T12:34:00.000+13:00

Hi everybody (hi Dr. Nick!)

Back in Jasper for a few days. It's still cold here, but oh my god, it's a little township within a massive National Park and the scenery here is just fabulous, bordering on unbelievable. I have been lucky enough to meet up with a certain lady from Prince George who was extremely nice enough to come over and see me and keep me warm, er, company for the past couple of days. The last couple of days and nights have been brilliant. A really good change from just touring around by myself and was very nice to er, talk to someone for an extended period of time. :-)

I must admit I haven't seen too much of Jasper this time around (been indoors quite a bit), but I did get out today and went an did the Malign Valley Ice Canyon walk. I was basically just going past the tour guide place and so I popped in and asked if they had any tours and they said they did, in about 5 minutes. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to run back and get my camera so I didn't get any photo's sorry. But it was a pretty neat trip up a frozen river and we saw some neat stuff such as some ice climbers, a sort of natural ice hotel and a cool little ice slide. All in all, it took about 3 hours and was about $50 but was totally worth it, you can only do it a few months of the year and I doubt there are many places in the world you can do and see all that. Very cool.

So not too much else to report actually, just gonna finish this entry and then go down to the hotel's restaurant and pub for a meal and some drinks and then head to bed I think. I had a mid afternoon train to Vancouver tomorrow, which will take about 17 hours I think so better get my book ready hehe.

Cya
Matt

Day 21 - Lake Louise

2007-12-09T11:27:00.000+13:00

Lake Louise eh. A small township (15 shops located in 3 close by buildings) surrounded by lots of large hotels and motor inns. It's main attractions are the natural features of the rockies and a several nearby natural (magnificent) lakes. Today, I was going to go and see the lake it was named after, Lake Louise.

After a lovely late start for me (10:30am) I grabbed a nice bit of brekky form the hotel restaurant and asked a couple of people how to get to the lake. After getting funny looks (apparently everyone knows where it is and why don't I?) I found out that there was no shuttle or bus service up to the lake. That was puzzling, there was a shuttle to the ski area in the other direction, but nothing up to the lake.... weird.

So I went for a walk over to the area where the mall/shops were and found the Visitor Information Centre and asked the chap in there how to get up to the lake. He said as I was on foot, I could either walk, or hitch hike. It was only 4kms by road, or 3km by walking track. "3kms?" I thought? I could do that in my sleep.. hahahahah!!! (Manic laugh aka Dr. Evil) I asked him about the track and he said that the track would be sweet as lots of people used it all the time. I felt good about this and off I set, just before 12pm.

How wrong I was...

I found the start of the track easily enough about 400metres outside the township. But the signpost didn't really indicate "Lake Louise", and it looked a bit snowed over. But I have good tramping shoes, they are waterproof and I was confident that I could do it. Well, I'm sorry, but the track was not well used and I found myself soon walking in 8-10 inches of snow. I walked about a kilometre when I reached a big camping area. I was looking at my map but I could not find any kind of marked to figure out where I was. There was just knee deep snow everywhere I went off the track and those good old 8-10 inches on the track that I would sink into... I walk around the camp zone area a bit but couldn't easily find anything, and decided that I would not become Canada's next stupid tourist victim and regretfully headed back to the township.

As I got back to the start of the track I saw the signpost again, but only this time, from a different angle, did I notic the OTHER sign off to the side of it, that mentioned Lake Louise... grrr.. I had already walked 1km in both directions (2km all up so far) and I hadn't even started...

The signpost as I first saw it, so, ok, I headed to the left...

But as I came back after the first walk in the wrong direction I saw this... note the third signage - I didn't see that before arggh!!

So I decided that I would take the track and head off in the right direction. This track looked a little more used but I soon found out that it must have been used by Basketballers or some yeti, because the footprints had rather large spaces in between them and I could not keep up with the steps, so I was soon back to walking in 8-10 inches of snow again... grr. Too makes matters a bit worse Lake Louise is up a bloody mountain, so I was climbing up hill in this crazy snow in this crazy track. After about 1 kilometre of this the track went under the road. I took a breather (I was buggered) and decided, that even if the road was longer by another kilometer, it would still be easier than walking through the snow like a twit. So I started up the road, and I was correct. I got up to the lake with no further problems. Probably only took me another hour to get up there from making that decision, and I have a few photos of the frozen over lake in my albums. Very cool. Very very cool indeed. For some reason the temperature was about an extra 10 degrees colder than when I was walking up the road. I think it was something to do with all the ice and the lake being frozen over, because I defintely noticed it being a lot warmer as I descended down the hill a little later.

But while I was at the lake, I walked around and had a bit of a look. The place is really a bit lacking. Just a few basic signs about the area, nothing really interesting. To be honest the Fairmont hotel, which is the giant hotel that was built on the lake's foreshore is actually a bit more impressive (when the lake is frozen over in the winter that is) and inside are some very interesting photos' of the lake and the hotel's history). Unfortunately, the pub, the restaurant and the cafe where all closed when I got there at 1:30pm on a Saturday afternoon... pretty crazy really, but luckily all 4 of the damn gift shops where open (sarcasm). There wasn't really a historic info place or anything, so I grabbed a few appropriate photos and set off back down the hell. A bit of an anticlimax to the whole place really.

Lake Louise

The Fairmont Lake Louise Chateau

The walk back down the hill only took 40 mins, a nice quick walk and there got back to the hotel in about 1 hour flat. So here I sit at the computer typing all of this up for you all. It's almost 4pm here now and the day is coming to a close. The sun has been down behind the mountains for a little while now and the light is starting to draw to a close. But the pub doesn't open for another hour. What are these Canadians thinking... no light = pub. Sort it out Canada! haha

Anyhow, tomorrow afternoon I am off to Jasper. I've already been there and accidentally done the tour I was supposed to do in a day or two. So I will have to find something else to do for the fews days I am supposed to be there. I have scouted most of that town already and know some of the key areas. I think I will be relaxing before I trip back to Vancouver and see the boys for the final few days I am in this country.

Cheers
Matt

Day 20 -Banff (Skiing day!)

2007-12-09T11:08:00.000+13:00

Well I was very good last night. I purposefully did not go to the pub (well I did, but I only had 3 beers) as I had to get up nice and early to go skiing this morning. I was talking to the lady on reception in the hotel I was staying in about thinking about skiing, and she gave me a coupon for a ski rental discount for gear. Obviously in cahoots with some shops but it was 10% and was better to get it done in the evening than tomorrow when it could be time spent on the slopes!

This is a nice little pic of the Banff township at night. It seems to a be a very Christmassy little winter village thing going on. Very quaint :-)

So I hired some ski's, boots and poles for a grand total of $21 for the day hehe, and carried them back to the hotel where they had a special room for me to store them. Very nice. Anyhow I was up at 6:30am, and I found that the hotel's restaurant had opened early (they weren't open yesterday) and so, as there was no one to serve me, I sort of just helped myself to a whole plate of hot sausages and croissants hehe. I scoffed a plateful down, and then got some cornflakes and toast, and then the waiter spotted me and came over and I said I was there for a continental breakfast hehe. So I got away nicely with that ;-). After that I caught a shuttle up to the ski field called Norquay (the Banff township has 3 ski-fields) and it was the first day of the season for Norquay so there was hardly anyone around. (Only 3 of us on the shuttle at 8am). Anyhow afte ra 5 minute bus ride we were there and I got a lift pass from the office and put some stuff in a locker and I was off. I was the 2nd person on the slopes that morning. The 1st guy was just in front of me on the chairs but he was a much better skier and I had no idea of where to go so I just followed him a bit. I had machine groomed powdery trails pretty much to myself all day. I did all the green trails for the first 45 minutes to get my rhythm going as I hadn't skied for about 2 years. But after that I was off onto the blue trails. I skied pretty much non stop for about 4.5 hours and eventually I was pretty tired out. My legs were starting to quiver and buckle a bit and I was glad when 1:30pm came around so that I could go back to the lodge, have a quick bite and catch the 2pm shuttle back to the hotel in Banff town. It was and awesome days skiing. The quality of the snow, the powder and the runs left me in no doubt that this was much better than anything we have in New Zealand. I have a few photos of some of the blues runs I did. Unfortunately they don't look as steep as when you are actually standing on top of the damn hill. Man I saw at least 4 people start out, and then decided it was too hard and try to climb back up the hill hehe.

The blue run at Norquay. This first part as a huge drop (well over 45 degrees). I went hard and showed no fear! haha

I just put my iPod on and cranked out the music and barreled down the hill. I only wiped out a million times, but it was only when I went into the 2 FOOT DEEP powder!!! haha It was crazy, I've never seen powder like that, and had no idea on how to ski it... so I just kept falling over in it... it was hellishly fun! Had a great day and might do another day's skiing in Jasper in a few days time.

Well I caught the transfer bus over to Lake Louise. It's a funny little place. Again, it's surrounded by mountains, and most of the buildings are actually great big hotels or motor inns. They have a little mall of about 12 shops in 3 buildings but things are quite spaced out and takes a little investigation if you don't know where you are going. I didn't and tonight I walked int eh wrong direction for about 1.5 kilometres and took a few photos of the landscape (a cunning attempt at me trying not to show I didn't know where the hell I was going).

Anyhow, got a nice meal of ribs for dinner and went to bed and had a read. The pub was going off last night and my room is right by it. The hotel was chocker-block with skier and it sounds like there was the national training team (or two) there last night as that's all that everyone could talk about. I had about 4 beers, but after the day i had had, it felt like about 40. So I went to bed and did some reading. I couldn't really sleep (over-tired I think) and eventually fell asleep at around 1am.

But tomorrow was another day of stupid things I was to do in Canada hahaha so you then.

Matt

Day 19 - Banff

2007-12-07T14:23:00.000+13:00

What a rockin day I had today.

I slept in until 9:30am - that was a good start eh? haha Then I decided to go find me a nice mixed grill breakfast. I mean, I'm in the friggin snowy mountain wilds town capital of the world, there' has to be a mixed grill on offer somewhere right? Wrong. Dammit I walked for almost an hour and all I could find at that time of the morning was a damned Sushi place. WTF? Sushi for breakfast? madness!! Sparta!!! I like Sushi and all, but I was so in the mood for some hot meat and eggs! goddamit. I settled for salami stick from the dodgy asian grocery in town. They were ok but I didn't really eat until a little later.

I was told there was a 10am bus up to the Gondola, but the chap at the hotel got it a bit wrong, it was 10:20am so I got to talk to all the snowboarders as they went past and got in the other buses. Then I had to stand there and say 'no thanks' to the bus drivers, and as I was the only one there, I probably like a little 'down-syndromed'. Nevermind, my bus came eventually. The driver was an Indian guy who told me he normally drives tour buses, not the shuttle, so we got to chatting pretty quickly and he told me he was a MT or MP or something... It's not really spelt like that, but that's how it sounds, maybe someone will correct me later (like just before epunching me in the head or something thinking that I am abusing their race hehe). Anyhow, he said his people were the best looking race, much better than white people, and I agreed and told him that there was no chance of his race going extinct as his women looked pretty good to me. He gave me a sideways look and then he continued to tell me about the surrounding mountains, as I was the only one on the shuttle (familiar story eh?).

About 30 minutes later I got up to the Gondola place and said farewell to my new mate, and went over to the Gondola entrance. Inside were heps of Japanese tourists all sitting down having muffins. How dare they! There was a perfectly good Sushi shop open for Breakky back in Banff... damn tourists haha Anyhow I got on the Gondola and headed up the mountain. I took some photo's on the way up which you can see in my album. It was pretty nice views all around, and the gondola went up at 51 degrees at some places which is pretty steep. Luckily I was the only one in my gondola so if anyone was to fart, then I would be the only one to do haha. Luckily though, no one did and I escaped from my floating plastic cube at the top and I was on top of Sulphur Mountain. There is a bit of history about it, but it's all probably a bit too boring to repeat here (go google it if you want) - as this is an action blog, not some National Geographic channel. heheh Anyhow, at the top of the mountain I finally found found. Some crazy $8 sandwhich, luckily it was big and I munched it down in undoubtedly a new world record. Then there was a nice walk out to the observation post and I took several more photo's and a video of the surrounding area (360 degrees around). It was amazing. This is why people love Banff, although most of them come here in the summer when there is no snow around on the mountains. For that I think they are mad. It's a million times better turning around and around and seeing nothing but snow covered mountains all around you. Makes you feel wonderfully small and insignificant, and alive (dunno how that fits together, but it did at the time - very cool). And the other thing was was that I was about the ONLY damned person up there. Almost lunchtime and I was the only one up one of Banff's most amazing popular tourist destinations... how amazing is that.

A photo of some uber dude - how awesome is this shot I took of myself. haha!

After coming down the gondola a little later I asked how to get to the Hot Springs, another of Banff's big tourist attractions, and not far away, although the directions I got were a little suspect. I was told to walk up to these steps and follow the trail a bit. Well, the steps were ok, but the trail of snow was knee deep almost and it took some time to get where I was going. At one point I came across some nice deep snow, and found a ledge for the camera and put the timer on and threw myself into the snow. It was a bit shallower at that point and I didn't sink in as much as I had hoped, but it was still fun and I was giggline to myself for a good 15 minutes after that. Checkout my photos, there's one of me lying there in the snow haha good times. But as I was saying the directions I got were a bit didgy, because for all my overland snow-shoeing, I could've have just WALKED THROUGH THE CAR-PARK and it was on the other side. I suspect someone was laughing at me - bastards. haha No worries.

The Banff Upper Hot Springs were also pretty neat. I was told that they were having trouble with their pipes today and weren't open, but they weren't too sure (the same people at the gondola who gave me the directions..... hey!). Anyhow, I wandered over there and sure enough they were open, only just though. They had been open for 5 minutes, how lucky was I to get up late and mosey around. Good stuff. The waters were 40 degrees warm and were natural and stuff like that. I stuck around for 40 minutes because the sign said the recommended time for a soak was 20 minutes and I'm twice as hard as normal people, so I stayed twice as long. Actually it was full of really old fat people, and I was hanging out to see if any hot chicks would turn up. None did and after 40 minutes I looked enough like a skinny old person (re: wrinkly) that I decided to leave. And, as luck would have it a friggin MP / MT volleybal team decided to walk in just as I was walking out... goddammitt@@@!!!! hahaOnce again I had to laugh at myself. I get the good luck with some things and not with others... oh well Karma dude!

Anyhow back at HQ at the moment and have decided to go up to the mountain and get half a days skiing in tomorrow and go up to Norquay (which is one of the 3 ski areas in Banff). Check out -- http://www.banffnorquay.com/ tomorrow - you might see me on the webcams ahah doubt it because at 12pm tomorrow it's like 8am in NZ. I'm gonna try and catch the first shuttle up there at 8am and get busy! I have already rented my gear and it's here in my room now. So tomorrow, the plan is to get up there, and then waste a little time buying a day pass. This is my cunning tactic so that other people start to doa run or two before me and show me the way because I have oviously no idea which way to go... haha Anyhow, just doing some laundry at the moment, and will now update some photo's and stuff.

Catch you all tomorrow for when I update you on Canada's newest hotdog ski instructor - me ofcourse! haha

Cheers
Matt

PS - If you've read this far, then take a look at this little video I made at the top of Sulphur Mountain. I thought it was pretty awesome to be honest.

Day 18 - On my way to Banff

2007-12-06T05:48:00.001+13:00

Alrighty, I've been waiting for this day for about a week now. Now I get out of the cities and back into the mountains which I much prefer. The towns are smaller, the people are friendlier and the sceneray is oh so much better and there are more thngs to do and see (physically anyhow - gt sick of looking at shops and museums).

Anyhow, Just typing up a quick note while the useless internet connect (10mbps for over 20 floors of a single hotel - figure that out tech guys) is going. I'm off to Banff today. Can't wait. Will be getting there in the mid afternoon so wont have much time to go skiing today or anything. Actually I'm not sure when I will get much chance to go skiing but I will drop a few things from my organised itinerary to do it. How could I not come to Canada (Especially Banff and Jasper) and not go skiing.

Also if I get the time I will upload the few photos I have taken of the past several days. They aren't many but they help fill in the blanks I think. Might incorporate one or two of them into my blog as well :-)

OK - well better go get checked out of this hotel and get on the Greyhound bus and have a bit of a read up on what to do in Banff.

cya's a bit later
Matt

=======================================

OK it's later!

Well I got to Banff today at about 3:30pm. It took m a few minutes to figure out where the hotel I was booked into was. It was about 4-5 blocks away from the train station, although with all the snow it was pretty tricky figuring out where the township was when I had never been there before. I started off in a good direction and soon found the town. It's probably about the size of Milford for those of you in Auckland. And it is covered in snow. There are tons of christmas decorations out and everything is looking very Christmassy. There are tonnes of young people around, and lots of different accents to try and decipher :-) Actually, funnily enough, I think I have heard more English accents than any other tonight. Even when I was at one of the local pubs, a bunch of southerners came in and were making a bit of a racket (they were young) and I overheard the barman complain to his other barman mate, that they were bloody aussies. This pissed me off a bit, because I'm all for harrassing aussies, but not when it's their fault. (Can't let the poms get away with it!) So I decided to correct the barman, which he was not pleased about. I ended up having a little stare off with him and I thought it was a good time to leave, which I did. It put me in a bit of a foul mood so I went for another walk around town. I found the local starbucks and had two coffees. the staff there were pretty friendly so I chatted to them through my first coffee. Then after another look around the township and looking in the windows of most of the local taverns, I decided it was to quiet and that tomorrow would be better spent sober and not hungover. So here I am, in my room at 9:30pm going to watch a bit of tellie, of a few episodes of Kenny vs Spenny, and then will hit the hay.

Tomorrow I have to go check out the Banff Gondola and the Banff Hot Springs, which are right beside each other. So maybe I wont be skiing Banff after all. It does look like Lake Louise (not sure if they are the same ski fields) will be my first stop though. Then onto to Jasper again. If I get stuck I can always stay an extra day at Jasper and ski there. Should be all good!

Cheers
Matt

Day 17 - Calgary

2007-12-06T05:47:00.001+13:00

Well I haven't been able to get to a reliable internet connection for the past few days so really haven't been able to do any blog updates sorry. Plus I've also been in Edmonton and Calgary which are both big cities, the biggest I'll be visiting on my trip to Canada. But there's not actually that much to take picture of really. Just more buildings and stuff really. I came into Calgary yesterday evening on a luxury bus that basically was half the price of a plane ticket, but probably took the same amount of time (3.5 hours form downtown Edmonton to downtown Calgary) as it would if I were to take a plane (taking into account transfers and taxis and stuff) - so all in all a very nice trip. Although I did pay a price for not booking somewhere ahead in Calgary. Almost every hotel was booked out! I had to walk in the friggin freezing cold for the about 2 hours, and when I say cold I mean in the mid -10 to -20 degrees just as it was getting dark. I had to walk probably over a few kilometres but eventually I found a room, and I was glad of it. Went to an Irish pub across the road, which was probably the worst Irish pub I've ever seen, with useless bartenders who couldn't layer any of the shots I ordered (trying to impress my new Canadian mates I met about 10 mins earlier whilst sitting at the bar. Anyhow, I met a Danish guy and Texan girl who were travelling together. Well, she was travelling, but he had to work in Calgary for a week. They knew several bars so went toured around a bit to about 3 of them. Most of them were dead, as you can imagine on a Monday night, but we found a goodie at the end of it and watched the hockey game there. Oh, and we met a nice South London lass and I told her that I knew a guy who supported Liverpool and she said she felt sorry for me haha. But soon around 10pm the other too wanted to go home as the Danish chap had to work the next morning so I went down to the hotels pub and talked to the last few patrons there. They were closing up to for the night, but one of the guys there said there was another pub across the road that was open till 2am, so off we went. It was a bit rough, but pretty empty really, only about 5 people there all night, so we had a pretty interesting chat about Israel, the States and Canada. Well it was pretty interesting if you were as drunk as us haha. I was doing pretty good actually, having converted over to a few diet cokes here and there, so I could still stand. At least I wasn't slurring my words like some others there haha (slurring is always my 'Coup de Grace').
So this morning I got up at 9am, hungover again, and cursing to myself about it again. Got up checked out and got the people at that hotel to find me another room in another hotel. Turns out this new room is better and cheaper than last nights, so that's all good! Walked around Calgary for most of the day today. Actually saw some intersting things. The first thing was that I though I wasn't in the main area of town because there were hardly any people walking around on the streets. I thought maybe they were all in the office blocks or that this was normal for a Tuesday morning and maybe it was because it was pretty cold. But then later I kept noticing these walkways going over the streets, connecting the buildings. I followed some guys into one, trying to look all cool and casual like I knew what I was doing and it lead through this little tunnel/rabbit-warren type scenario. Eventually it came out into a mall area, pretty neat! In fact, these tunnels almost snake along most of Calgary. They mainly run up on the first floor of lots of buildings and connect to lots of other buildings. They are all nice and warm and stuff so you can actually get from one end of the CBD to the other (a good hour or two's walk) without ever having to step outside and get cold. Very cool, but shame it's not advertised a bit more for us newbies). I did think however that it did all get a bit too 'recycled' air kind of thing and I did actually make several conscious moves to go out and walk on the street form time to time. It was all a bit too much not to go outside and get some fresh air and see the sun. Still nice though to pop back inside and cruise around all nice and warm.
I also went to the Calgary Theatre. There were all sorts of shows on, but mainly all very arthouse and things like that, not really my scene so I didn't really go and see any shows. Also I went over to the Calgary museum. Why do I always have frikken hangovers when I visit museums... ugh. Anyhow it wasn't too bad. this one actually had non-canadian stuff in it. Lots of things about history and wars and things. Sure it was relevant to Canada in some ways mostly, but I was glad not to have to look at more Native American Indian stuff.. it gets oddly boring and annoying when you see to much of it. But the best thing I did today was go up the Calgary tower. Almost 200 meters tall and with an observation deck on it you could see all around Calgary - I got a few photos' of that so it was pretty cool. Then I went to the level beneath the observation deck and had a lunch there in their restaurant. I had some Haddock and chips. OK fish but nothing really to write home about hehe.

So here I am back at my hotel room, replying to emails and stuff, trying to catch up really... oh - I did a little more shopping in Edmonton, I bought the other series of Kenny vs Spenny! Yah! Now I have all 3 series on DVD and the 4th series is on tonight at 9:30pm so hopefully I can get the bar to change the channel if there is no hockey on - pfftt what am I saying... there is always hockey on! More hockey on tv here than bloody Rugby in NZ! haha

Anyhow must go. See you hosers round eh? Take off!

Matt

Day 15 - Edmonton - Part 2

2007-12-03T16:53:00.000+13:00

I've had a lot to think about today. You know those days when your brain really goes into overdrive and does some serious thinking about life and how things really just all fit together. Unfortunately today was like for me. It turned out to be a real world/people watching day.

But first, let me tell you about something that happened to me last night that I have to share. After leaving the Funky Buddha nightclub last night I was walking back to the hotel (about 100 metres away), when on they way I passed another night club. Outside were about 4 kids (they were like 18-20 years old) who were trying to get people inside. I was pretty trashed and one of them had dyed their hair shocking pink. And they were male. I couldn't help myself. I don't think I was slurring too badly when I launched into my comedy act about him being colour blind and how he should have dyed it blue and then he could have passed for a smurf and other classic lines like that. the dude had no comebacks... and if he did I just laughed over him. His mates were equally laughing at him, they must have been surpressing their laughter because I basically just opened the floodgates and then all the pink hair jokes came out. Poor bloke, but if you have hair like that, you deserve whatever comes your way.

But then, the best thing of the night happened. This is what I have been smiling about all day. I saw 2 ninjas. That right. Honest to god I thought they were ninjas. They were dressed from head to toe in black. They looked like they had weapons and their faces were all wrapped up and only their eyes were viewable to us other mere mortals. But they weren't ninjas. They were Edmonton police doing a raid on the nightclub. I'm sure I wasn't subtle or quiet when I said "Oh my god! Ninjas!" and I paid the cover charge to my new pink haired friend and followed the ninja's inside mumbling something along the lines of "ninja's, ninjas! C'mon I got to see the ninjas!" haha But those ninjas were sneaky and the nightclub was large and I lost them at the coat check just inside hehe. But it was all worth it. Soo cool to see Edmonton Ninja's. After getting into the nightclub I wandered around laughing at how everyone was like 20 years old and desperately trying to be cool and stuff - it was just great to see people doing stuff I was doing 10-15 years ago haha. Then, down the back of the nightclub I found the VIP section. It was roped off and had 8 guys in it. No girls, just 8 guys. I openly laughed at them too because I was well drunk and just thought they all looked like funny buggers them sitting there in a little corner with all their bling on and no one to talk too haha. I left a little while after as I had run out of things to laugh at and decided that it would be best to get home to the hotel and get some much need rest. It was a funny old night indeed.

Today though, I went out to West Edmonton Mall. It was all a bit rush rush, trying to find out bus schedules and fares and where the stops were and stuff but I got there with a little trying. The Mall has over 800 shops and is the largest in the world. I got lost several times and spend about 6 hours just wandering around looking in shops and talking to staff there. Found lots of good stuff to buy but ended up only buying 2 DVD's. One was a Canadian comedy dvd which was supposed to be classic Canadian comedy, I saw the ad for it on telly and it was pretty funny. I'll watch that a little later. The other dvd I got was Kenny vs Spenny - Series 3. I looked but couldn't fnd the other 2 series and the shop check and didn't have them either I'm going to have to really ramp up my search for those 2 series before I go home! Anyhow the mall was huge. I has an almost life sized replica of the Santa Maria Galleon in the middle of it. Also, a MASSIVE beachy type swimming complex with wave machine, hydro slide and stuff. It's literally huge, and much bigger than anything in Auckland or NZ for that matter. Pretty amazing. Also they had a min SeaWorld where they had Sealions performing which was cool for the 3 stories of people watching from all different vantage points. Plus there were 3 food courts that I found - including a Hooters where I got a steak for lunch. yummy and the food was ok too haha. Nah too be honest I didn't find Hooters that great to be honest. There were only 2 girls doing the waitressing for the entire restaurant which was pretty packed, so a bit of a let down really. But yeh, spent about 8 hours in the mall I think including seeing "No Country for old men" movie as well....

Anyhow, it's been an interesting day watching Canadians do all their Christmas shopping and some of the neat store I found during the big walkabout today. I got a nice steak and crab dinner at the Keg (a rahter flash restaurant) across the road and it was ok. It let me chill out and then I had to brave the -20 degree temperature on teh quick walk back home. Thank god for warm clothing is all I can say.

Anyhow, cheers for reading again. See you all tomorrow.

By the way, if any of the guys in Vancouver are reading this, I have something special planned for the 16th December - my last day in Canada before I head back to NZ - so don't go leaving the area!

Cheers
Matt

Day 15 - Edmonton is the Devil

2007-12-03T05:51:00.000+13:00

Another day, another hangover... goddamn. haha I think I must have walked into a wall a few times cos the old head is slammin nicely right now. Better go find some aspirin or something soon. Anyhow, just thought I'd say that Edmonton is cursed to me or something. I actually went into a hotel last night, and, for the first time in my entire trip, they didn't have a room for me. Unreal. Plus, with the lack of taxis, english speaking taxi drivers, and transport around the train station, it all just seems a bit like this city is working against me at the moment... Maybe the French know I'm working my way east and they don't like knowing that I'm getting closer to them, so they are trying to stop me haha Those Frenchies. hehe

Anyhow off to Edmonton Well Mall today to have a wander around the world's largest mall, some things include a water park with a wave machine, a gun shop where you can shoot guns (6 types including a Magnum 44) and some other crazy stuff I can't remember. hahagun shooting in a mall, how crazy is that... I think they forgot it wasn't the US or something.

haha ok type to you all later.
Matt

Day 14 - On my way to Edmonton

2007-12-03T05:24:00.000+13:00

A very quiet night last night guaranteed one of the better nights sleep that I have had in a while. Even though it was -29 degrees outside, it was a comfortable 21 in my room thanks to the air conditioning. Imagine trying to live in those conditions when heating like that wasn't available - crazy. I'm now thinking the settlers in New Zealand never really hard it THAT hard. Maybe though, different situations called for different types of challenges...

Anyhow - a realizing start to my day is slowly going down hill. I started of with a late start, an easy breakfast of oatmeal and a nice late checkout was very nice. Across about 2 roads form my hotel was the train station. My jeans felt rather frozen by the time it took me to walk there (about 3 minutes) and I was glad to be in the train station. Until it was swarmed with a bunch of 14ish year old kids. About 60-70 of them in all. I think they must be like a French class out on a trip or something, as they periodically break into snippets of French. I think I understand why people don't like the French. Why do people suddenly become about 3 times more arrogant when they start using that language? I dunno, but they are really getting annoying and I'm really enjoying the fact that Edmonton will be the most eastern stop on my trip now.

Anyhow, I'm now on the train for Edmonton which left a little late today so I will be getting into Edmonton around 6pm tonight and not sure, but I think that it shouldn't be too hard to find somewhere to stay tonight.

Pretty good actually being a kiwi traveling around. Probably about half the people who attempt to guess where I am from generally say Australia, but their eyes light up and their smiles broaden when I say New Zealand. Makes you feel kind of welcome when you see a little rush of relief or happiness come over them. It seems that Australians are look upon as semi-troublemakers, and there are probably a few too many around for Canadians comfort. I've only had 1 person guess that I was from New Zealand on the first guess, which is surprising. I thought I would have been discovered a lot more. But it's good fun to feel a little special form time to time.

A little bit later...

Well I got to Edmonton. The train I was on was massive (about 20 carriages I think) which is probably about the biggest train I have ever been on. Also, it was pretty full with people and I actually didn't talk to anyone... for a whole 2 hours. Dunno how I managed that. I decided to strike up a conversation with one of the adults who seemed to be trying to manage the groups of teenagers periodically speaking French. His name was Mike and he was from Edmonton. It turned out that they were indeed a school trip who went up to Jasper on Thursday and were now coming back home on the train. On the trip the kids had to speak French all the time as part of their class, which I thought was pretty interesting. I chatted to Mike for over an hour and he pointed out a few things for me to try during my short stay in Edmonton. The mall being the main thing (it actually is the biggest in the world - although not the best if you ask a lot of people) and the main strip for pubs being the next. It was very lucky that I did actually speak to Mike and chat to him, because when we got off the train at Edmonton there were no taxi's, shuttles or anything to take us (me and the other travellers) into town as the train station was miles away from the city... So luckily for me, Mike and his group had all their luggage put on a tour bus with a bunch of Hong Kong tourists (camera city!) and the bus drove away into the night. So they were waiting around at the train station for ages as well. When a taxi driver did turn up to the station he could hardly speak English and I was warned by some of the other travelers to watch it with these guys too so I decided on a cunning plan. I asked Mike if he knew of anyone heading to the part of Edmonton that I wanted to go to, and he was very nice and said he would happily take me and show me some sights on the way as well. I met his wife Michelle and his daughter Brianna, which was cool . I got the feeling that they may have been Christians or something because they were very nice and were all very (almost druglike) happy. So I didn't swear too much on the trip, and just made French jokes instead which seemed to go down well. So I got dropped off on the main strip where all the nightlife is and got a room at a nice motel and almost went straight out and found a pub called the funky bhudda where I sat down and had a few beers. Also got some Poutine for the first time too. I have been waiting for a place that does this stuff well and I wasn't disappointed. Chips, cheese and gravy. Haha what a killer... damn Canadians always putting bloody cheese on everything! hahaha
Anyhow, the pub seemed good to start with. Basically I had walked into some sort of retro 80 pub. Almost everyone wore black and most were wearing leather jackets. The music was awesome, Guns n Roses, AC/DC and loads of 80's and 90's rock anthem classics... I was just wandering around with my beer chatting away having a good time. But, after a while, when the place had filed a bit, the music changed to techno dance music which I really don't enjoy, so I left and headed back to the motel.. Quite an interesting day eh? :-)

Day 13 - Jasper

2007-12-01T12:42:00.000+13:00

Woke up rather late in Jasper today. Needed a wittle bit of sleep so got up around 10ish. Mosied on down to the hotel lobby and got some breakfast. Jasper seems to be inundated with Aussies! There were 2 in the restaurant of the hotel I am staying at, and also another 2 there this morning. I've spoke to a few people and the said yeh, I probably had a 50-50 chance of running into an Aussie working there around town. Damn Aussies!

Did the normal walk around town thing this morning... but it was probably about -15 degrees so I had to cover up a lot! It only got to a maximum of -12 today just after lunch time and, apparently it's going to get a lot worse tonight, going down to a maximum of -29 and tomorrow's high is expected to get up to -15! Crazy eh? Can't believe that there is even a town here to be honest, there's no wind, but I can't imagine anyone even building a town on a calm sunny day here, let alone in any sort of foul weather. Pretty incredible.

I went and did a little 3.5 hour guided tour with a tour company today. Went up to an area called Maligne Canyon/Valley. Because it's the off-season, business wasn't exactly booming for the tour company, and I was the only person on the entire tour! I had a chap named Bruce give me the guided tour and he was extremely knowledgeable about the areas we went into - at times he seemed a little too knowledgeable and automated with some of his chats, but by the second half of the tour we were talking about the damned french and the good times that his home city of Edmonton (My next stop) have to offer. Apparently now I learnt that the Mall there is like the biggest in the world or something like that so I have to go and see it - it's world famous. Sounds good to me! haha Anyhow the trip was freaking awesome! We saw several animals like elk , coyotes, Harlequin duck, and trout and stuff but to me the best parts were the natural surroundings. Massive mountains, huge extensive forests and ice blue half/mostly frozen rivers. Very awe inspiring. Bruce spoke about a lot of the mountain names and explorers most of which I have already forgotten, but the memories of the hills and valleys partially covered in ice and snow are still fresh in my mind.

The Jasper township itself is a small town in the middle of a National Park. Jasper pretty much prides itself on being natural and at the fore-front of conservation and preservation of pretty much all things. They have and are, enacting strict laws and bylaws to prevent all sorts of modernization so that the wildlife and parks can continue to flourish - very impressive to a kiwi who sees a lot of that sort of thing in New Zealand and I was very happy to see so many people to make sure that nothing is ruined in their area of the world. Jasper pretty much prides itself on being 'natural' and they seem to think they have 1-up on their slightly larger neighbors of Banff, whom I will be visiting in a few days. But really, Jasper is a lot like Queenstown, very natural but still a bit commercial, but definitely very nice. Very natural, and very nice indeed.

I've also done some reconnaissance today, and checked out where I can get lift passes and shuttles to and from the mountain for when I come back here in several days time. So I am pretty much good to go for some awesome skiing when I get back!

Day 12 - On my way to Jasper... just

2007-11-30T18:47:00.000+13:00

Let's just say that my friendly barmaid poured me one too many many diet cokes last night and I forgot to set my alarm clock for 6:30am. So at 6:52am I casually woke up and realized I had 8 minutes to get changed, pack, check out and Get me and my gear 3 blocks to the train station for the 7am train to Jasper! haha Luckily for me I had packed mostly the night before, paid my bill ahead of time and there was a cab sitting outside the hotel, and most importantly, the train didn't leave until 7:30am heh. Totally not like me to miss a time like that, or, more importantly to get a time of an appointment wrong.

Prince George was a rather neat town, rather spread out with no real high rises or built up areas. Although I think it was a little tricky to find things when they were all cover in snow. Plus it was very cold, the coldest I had been on this trip so far. And I was very welcome for the company whilst I was there...

Never mind - I was happy to be on the train! Besides the 3 staff working on the train (driver, engineer and the attendant) there were only 3 other people. Myself and an elderly couple. We had 3 train cars to ourselves so saying we had lots of room was a slight understatement hehe! PLus the other couple had actually lived in the area between Prince George and Jasper for 22 years so as we rode the rails they pointed out pretty much every farm and, hill and landmark around. I couldn't have paid for better guides! What luck!
I'll upload the photo's later, but I thought that Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria was the best thing I'd seen in Canada, well maybe it was up until today. That train trip through the Snowy wilderness was absolutely incredible. The unspoilt natural beauty of the hills, rivers and mountains were amazing. I would love to do this again sometime, The first 10 minutes of the trip were worth the $100 it cost for the ticket, and the 9 hour trip just got better and more incredible with every passing hour. The photo's probably once again wont do it the justice it deserves - sometimes I think that I shouldn't take photo's for that reason, but they are a record for my trip so I shall persevere :-)

Anyhow, Got into Jasper tonight and checked in to a motel. It's -17 degrees outside at the moment - it's incredible how you can walk not even 30 metres and the legs of my jeans feel like the are iced up. It's awesome!

Anyhow, I'm dead tired so I will cut this short tonight and up date this to be more essay-like tomorrow sometime. I'm just in Jasper for a few days, primarily to suss out tours, passes and transfers-to-the-skifields information for when I come back here in several days. So basically just going to take it a bit easy and update a bit of web information and look around the place. Oh by the way - the top temperature of the day here get UP to -12 degress hahaha! holy shit - how cold is that! :-)

Cheers
Matt

Day 11 - Prince George (Day 2)

2007-11-29T14:31:00.000+13:00

Woke up a bit late today - sort of didn't get too much sleep. They closed up the pub and it was only me and the staff left over. We had a few more drinks (I was on water by then - so all free for me) and eventually stumbled home to my motel room (across the street). Canada sure is a friendly place.. I even had an escort to help me get home safely ;-) Come to think of it, she sure was very friendly! Might have to consider going back there tonight.

Anyhow - I checked out of my motel, because it had no internet connection, which is why I didn't update anything yesterday. Moved into another motel another block down the road which has a good wireless connection. Then I went and got anther $5 day bus pass and jumped on the bus and went and say the Prince George University and the Prince George Casino. Both were pretty neat to look at - although the Casino was very small with 80% of the things in there were slots and there were only about 4 green felt tables, blackjack, poker and something else I think. So yeh the casino was pretty small. I didn't stay long in there, but did see some poor dud my age lose 1 grand on one hand of blackjack, poor bugger too. It was such a good hand, and the dealers was complete crap. I thought he was doing the right thing and was nodding in agreement as he did it, and then the dealer went on got 21 and owned him and his money. He left soon after that. So did I :-) As I was waiting a the bus stop there was a "native" (Local-speak for Native American Indian) who I was chatting with. He was telling my how mankind was poisoning the earth and stuff like that. I got in a bit of an argument with him, more like a disagreement, but we smoothed it out and I got on the bus and got the hell out of there haha.

Then I went over to a really big mall (For those of you in Auckland, think Glenfield mall but twice the size) Pine Park Mall I think it was called. I walked around for about 2 hours and bought a jacket that will serve me well on the mountain and also around town. Also got some ski leggings and thermal leggings. My pack should now be pretty much topped up so I'm good to go. Oh, yeh, everything was super cheaper than NZ prices and even better I got everything on 50% sales. (Had 2 girls helping me find stuff hehe good times).

Oh yes, and I must mention it, I bought a Starbucks coffee mug. You can't take normal paper coffee cups on the transit systems here, you have to take 'travel' mugs, you know, the ones that don't spill much f they get knocked over. Plus I get a slightly cheaper coffee when I take it in to Starbucks for a fill. Plus, I'm also helping the environment a bit so it's all good. I'm loving Starbucks and Tim Hortons (T.H.'s is similar to Starbucks and is primarily a Canadian thing) - I'm finding several coffees equals a meal haha plus it's hot so it's quite good!

So I've had a pretty busy little day actually and a very good one too. Going to upload a few photos (I can't get over being in a city covered by a blanket of snow!!) Now I'm getting into a serious part of my trip now. Travelling to Jasper for a few days tomorrow. Going to scope it out a bit in preparation for when I come back to it in about 2 weeks near the end of my trip, you never know I might even pop back into Prince George and have to pay a visit to my new favorite pub and barmaid. Tomorrow I have a neat 9 hour trip on the trip through the snow covered wilderness. The weather forecast is awesome sun so this ought to be an amazing day coming up!

Catch you all a bit later!
Cheers
Matt

Day 10 - Prince George

2007-11-29T14:16:00.000+13:00

Wow - what a bus trip. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to sleep on the bus, but it looks like I did ok. I kept closing my eyes and then a little later would look at my watch, happily surprised to see that another hour or two had somehow teleported past without me even knowing it. So I think I got a several hours sleep, but I don't think it was too deep. Anyhow, I'm not really a deep kind of guy so it all works out ok haha.

So I got into Prince George at about 8am, and was confronted by a whole town under snow. I've never lived in a city that was like this so I was rather scared and amazed. You couldn't walk on the footpaths because there was none, and I didn't want to walk on the roads, so I got a taxi somehow, and went over to the Visitor Information Centre and the lady there helped me out and showed me where heaps of the motels where. She also told me where to buy a day pass for the buses, which has proved to be one of the best pieces of information I've gotten on the whole trip. I've been cruising around on the buses (there are about 5 routes - and they all go round and round in a circular pattern) and exploring the rather big town that Prince George is.

Day 10 (Tuesday) was great I walked all over the city and it wasn't that easy as the footpaths had been cleared but it was still a bit slippery and patches of snow that hadn't been cleared made it a bit tricky every once in a while. I went and saw the Civic Centre, the Art Gallery, a Hockey Skating rink (no game on though dammit), and a few malls, and good stuff like that. I also found the towns indoor heated swimming baths. They were open till 8:15pm so I went over there at around 7pm and went for a swim. Brilliant! I entertained myself by bombing some poor Canadian kids who got too close to me as I came off the swing rope hehe, also off the diving boards and down the hydro/water slides a few times. hehe Not so much fun doing it by yourself, but I wasn't going to not do it just because I was alone. Felt really good and fresh after that too.

Then I went across the road for dinner at a place called Shooters. I actually went in there for lunch, and the service was quite bad, and the main bartender loved himself, and that just pissed me off even more. Anyhow, there was another bar right next door and so I tried to go in there but it was closed so I thought I'd just go back to Shooters and give the place another try (thinking that the lunch time bar staff wouldn't be there). I was right and the place was quite different with the 'uber' friendly evening staff, including one very cute little bartender with awesome eyes, (such a sucker for nice eyes) and other certain body parts as I found out later. I had a delicious pizza and then dug into some bourbons. Of course I was watching hockey with the locals in no time telling them how amazing the game is and trying to pick the Vancouver team as my team hehe. Had a great night thanks to one particularly cute bartender (mentioned above), so much for needing to go to the gym for a workout... damn! Also, didn't really have a hangover the next day due to my amazingly smart method of one alcoholic drink and one diet coke, then rinse and repeat. Thank god for no hangovers.

Anyhow - I think I have a few photo's of the town in the snow so I will upload them soon. Great day and enjoying everything!

Thanks for all the comments so far - I'm publishing all the nice ones :-)

Cheers
Matt

Day 9 - Prince Rupert

2007-11-26T12:43:00.001+13:00

Late yesterday afternoon I caught the ferry to Prince Rupert. It's a 23 hour ferry ride and we left port at about 5:30-6pm yesterday. There are cabins on board but I thought I wouldn't bother and save some money and just crash in the public lounge area (like several others do). What I didn't know though, is that the place really isn't heated very well, and I have been half asleep, half awake for most of the night. Luckily, I tried to get some sleep from about 10pm and the cafeteria opened at 7am so I got a decent amount of kip, but I dunno exactly how deep it was. No matter, I just might have a bit of a long sleep tonight and try and forgo the pub (hehe maybe!).

Well, since I have been sitting here trying to type this blog post, I have been side-tracked, chatting to a elderly Canadian chap who is on his way home from Vancouver, back to his home in an area north of here called Terrace. He was a nice chap who liked to talk a lot, so I got to listen while drinking my first coffee of the day. Then, the father of an Australian family (first Australians I've actually seen) came over and the three of us chatted about different things, like the Internet, Wellington and the new Australian Prime Minister. Not a bad start to the day really.

At about 7:45am, the sun started to come up and I have been getting a bit of a first look at where we are. I think it's time I put in a pic into a blog entry so this is the type of thing I am looking at...

It's like we are going up a wide channel as were are surrounded by islands in every direction. Sometimes we get pretty close to the shoreline which is all forest. I'm expecting to see bears frolicking in the treeline haha but I haven't seen any yet :-) I will have to keep watching.

We are due to dock/land at 2pm which is in 5.5 hours time. Then I probably have a 3km walk into town, maybe I can hitch a ride or a taxi or bus or something, no matter, I will see how the gods roll their dice for me.

UPDATE:
Well it's 11:30pm here for me in Prince Rupert. I'm lying in bed because this town is a bit boring and like NZ, it closes down pretty early on a Sunday night. I did have quite a nice night though to be honest. I met a French girl (Alexandra) on the ferry this afternoon. English was not her first language and she admitted to not really paying all that much attention in class at school. So the conversation was rather difficult, but good fun as we both were trying to decipher what the other said - honestly a 10 second, 3 line conversation took about 5 minutes for us. It was 'boss' as someone I know would call it. haha. Anyhow, Alex had to catch another ferry 6 hours after disembarking off our current one, as she was going to Alaska. The ferry terminal was right next door to the one we landed from, so that was pretty easy. She also has a blog of which she gave me the URL and her email address. I felt sorry for the poor girl - she had been travelling for several days straight (From New York) and was going pretty much non-stop to Alaska which was 2 more nights/3 days of non-stop travelling. So I invited her to my hotel room, so she could use the free wireless internet connection and have a shower. She accepted so like a gentleman I left the room key with her, took my belongings and went down to the hotel pub and drank a few heinekens. I gave her 20 minutes and went by the time I came back she had showered and was working on her emails and blog.

A little later we went out for dinner. She liked sushi, so we found a local and ordered several kinds of sushi. Man, the salmon sushi I had was MAGNIFICANT!!! It was sooo nice I have to try something 'salmony' for breakfast tomorrow hehe. We both agreed that it was a very nice meal and so we walked back to the hotel where she got a cab and drove off to the ferry terminal. It was very nice to have someone to 'talk' to whilst having a proper dinner.

After that I tried to go to the pub but there was a damn hockey game on (there's always a hockey game on) which basically just sent me to sleep. There was no one in the pub except for the waitresses and me, but there were married and weren't bothering to even pay me any attention so I called it quits after 2 beers and went for a walk around town. About 1 hour of walking later I had found nothing (everything was closed) and came back to the hotel. So here I am, lying in bed,

updating my blog once again, about to go to sleep and wake up for tomorrow. I have an 11 hour bus trip to Prince George. It starts at 9pm and goes through the night - so at least I will save money on a hotel room haha.

Cheers
Matt

Day 8 - Port Hardy

2007-11-26T12:42:00.001+13:00

Woke up in Port Hardy today. Was drinking a lot of the night, talking to several dozen locals. Meet the bar owner (Babe - that's her real name!) and her workmate/friend Sandy. We basically sat at the bar all night talking to all comers. Luckily for me, the girls were pretty impressed with my methodolgy of 2 beers and then a handle of diet coke. It kept me sober (somewhat) and I didn't have to pay for the Diet Cokes. As pretty much everyone knew Babe (who doesn't know the pub owner of the best pub in town), I was privileged to meet a whole boatload of people, and chatted for quite some time with many of them. Expect about a dozen new immigrants in New Zealand next month haha!

Even though it was Friday night, it was a quiet night at Babe's Pub and they closed up at midnight. After that I was taken out on the town (Port Hardy has about 3 'approachable' pubs - the rest I would need to be either an Indian dude, or some sort of crazy deathwish as the town is a little bit scattered and rough. But after visiting several local taverns and meeting many more people, I meet a guy who was a nephew to Kiri Te Kanawa, Had an ex All Black father and about half a dozen other notable achievements. I hadn't heard of this guy but he was pretty much the authority on matter of New Zealand. He even was wearing a little tiki around his neck. He was a cool guy, and told me he went on a trip to the 'motherland' (New Zealand) a little while back and yadda yadda yadda, but I'll be buggered if he looked Maori to me. More like some sort of cross between Tongan, Samoan and Hawaiian. But anyhow, he was a funyn dude that stood out somewhat.

After all that I finally got dropped off back at my Hotel Room at the Glen Lyon Inn. But damn I had forgotton to turn the temperature down - it was well over 35 degrees (the max temperature that was showing and the needle was well past that). I almost melted and had to sleep on top of the bed with all the doors open. haha Until about 6am ofcourse when I woke up with no testicles because they had shrunk away to nothing in the freezing cold temperatures I was sleeping through. So later that morning I dragged myself up to the pub and found Babe and Sandy again and proceeded to knock backa few bourbons too warm myself up. Somehow, the time flew and I found it was 3pm before I knew it and I went down to the beach and took a few pics and then over to the ferry terminal where I am now typing this.

The ferry is a bit smaller than the last one I took, which is a bit surprising as I thought it would be a lot larger as we are travelling for approximately about 23 hours on this trip to Prince Rupert. I passed on the opportunity for a cabin, as I think it will be pretty warm and the ferry is very empty anyhow, so I will probably just be able to get some sleep on the ferry lounge seats somewhere (it has a small cinema to watch movies and sleep in if you name is Matt haha).

Not sure what I will be doing at Prince Rupert. According to my itinerary, I am going to leave on a 11 hour bus trip across to Prince George (which is waaaay inland). But a lot of people have told me that I should really make an effort to see the Charlotte Sounds. I think I might be able to squeeze it in. I can forgo the bus and get the train instead, which will be a little pricier, about the same time to travel, but I think it runs overnight and also it will probably be a nicer atmosphere than the bus. Plus I figure I can make up the time and not go to Jasper as originally planned. I can just go riht through it and go onto Edmonton. I will be coming back to Jasper later in my trip so skipping it at this point to make up time should be ok if I can wing it.

So far though, the trip is going awesomely. I've been having a blast, seeing new things, meeting loads of people and drinking loads of Canadian beer. Good times!

Cheers
Matt.

Day 7 - On my way from Courtenay to Port Hardy.

2007-11-26T12:41:00.000+13:00

Well today I got up nice and early (love being able to just do whatever I feel) and mucked around and watched the news on Tellie for a while. The current weather forecast is for nice weather for the next day or two. Although it doesn't look too good after that for at least a week. Lots of rain is coming and it looks like it'll hit when I get to the big cities again. Oh well, at least I get to experience rural (sort of) Canada with brilliant weather. It's a bit of a shame that at the moment I get dropped off in the cities in the evening. I can see the nice natural beauty, but it's difficult to capture it with photo's. Plus only staying overnight makes it difficult to organise trips to other places where I can 'get amongst' it. No matter, I suspect that when I get to Banff and Jasper I will be spoilt for scenery, so at the moment I am concentrating on investingating and exploring what I have available to me. Namely, ever different type of coffee and food outlet I can find haha. I am liking Starbucks a lot. I have tried a few of the other 'fringe' coffee places, but I suspect that Startbucks uses some sort of addictive substance in their coffees to make it taste so good. Plus their staff know what they are doing and make the experience rather pleasant. Last night I went to a restaurant called "Boston Pizza" and I ate one of their massive pizza's. haha Well I wont be doing that again and the guilt trip I gave myself from eating so much crap meant that eating like that just wasn't worth it. Oh well I'm on holiday - so I can afford to splurge like that once in a while.

As mentioned previously, I'm off to Port Hardy today. This will be another 'smallish' town where I will be just staying overnight. In fact, it looks like I will be getting into town, off the bus just as the sun will be dropping behind the hills (about 3:30pm) and I will hope that acocmodation and the ferry port is not too far away. I like to find my next departue point before I head off to bed,but I suspect that the ferry terminal shouldn't be too hard to find considering it is probably the main feature of the town. Port Hardy is one of the few most northern towns I will be visitng so I am sturdying myself for some real drops in temperature. Although watching the weather forecast this morning I found out that the real lows come when you head in-land. The watery island locations tend to stay just above freezing... lucky me eh? haha

That's another thing I have noticed now. The word 'eh' is thrown around rather casually here. It's quite brilliant form a tourists point of view. I seemed to have picked up a similar version of it and I walked around talking to be going 'yah' all the time. I can't help bit giggle to myself and smile all the time, even when I'm just sitting down doing nothing but listening to other people talk. Plus the good old Canadian/American accent is a delight to listen to, it's like a free comedy show. "Haayy Bawb, haw yor duuing, eh?" haha too funny. Ofcourse the opposite happens when I open my mouth. I tend to make people turn their heads as the walk and I sometimes give them a wave and smile. The lucky ones get me saying ""cheers mate" to them.

OK well writing up a storm here as usual. I better stop and do some postcards (old school!) as I have got a few to do now before I leave town.

Cheerios eh.
Matt

Day 7 - Part 2

I have been taking some notes as I think about certain things through out my day today. Now I am going to try and write them down here and hopefully enlighten you are casually readers.

1) The bus is a lot smoother than the train. Mainly because it runs on a concreted road/freeway most of the time. Where as tracks go clickety-clack and make it that much harder to try and get some sleep. Plus the damn train like to toot the horn when going through a residential area which was about every minute or two. And it didn't just toot the horn once, it was several times so it made it rather difficult to try and get some shut eye. (Although lets just forget the fact that it was early in the morning and that people really shouldn't be trying to sleep at the time of the day haha).
2) Another noticeable thing was that the train had a lot of older people on it, who where quite happy to send a smile in your direction if you made eye contact with them. The bus however was the complete opposite. It had quite a number of younger people on it and most of the looked or smelt like hoods or drunk poeple hehe. I really can't decide if I like the bus or the train better. (The bus is also a little cheaper, but the train is a little quicker).
When I was on the bus from Courtenay to Port Hardy I met two guys on the bus. 1 was 62 years old and an ex-fisho. Halfway through the 4.5 hour trip had started drinking a hip flask of vodka. By the time we got into Port Hardy had just finished it. So it was not surprising that I could hardly tell what the hell he was going on about most of the time. Luckily for me he tended to laugh at the majority of his speels, meaning that I just followed suit and laughed a bit as well just to keep him and his mate happy. The second guy was my age, and missing a boatload of front teeth. He was apparantly a native to the region, and he tried about a million times to get me to go with them out to the "Res" which was short for Reservation. haha He promised me as much fish as I could eat, free alcohol and himself as a bodyguard for later on when he was gonna start a fight, because he reckoned that the night wasn't complete unless he fought a little. Later through the trip he decided that he wasn't going to fight (must've changed his mind for some reason) because he thought it was just too dangerous these days and people bought weapons nowadays and it just wasn't a case of fisticuffs anymore. Oh, yeh and they promised to hook me up with whatever type of girl I wanted. haha I thought I was either going to be buried or married if I went out to the Res. So I gratefully declined his offer and when we got off the bus I tactifully avoided them by walking around several corners in their opposite direction haha. Plus I decided to avoid them so I found the best hotel in town and checked in. They were of the opinion that the flash hotels and pubs were not for them and that hard living and drinking was for them through and thorugh. haha It was quite a bit of brilliant piece of artful dodging if you ask me :-)
Although they did tell/show me a couple of interesting tidbits on the bus journey from Nam. One, was a conveyor belt that we drove over when nearing Port Hardy, it came out of a quarry and went under the road (the road turned into a bridge at that point) and way down into the forest. They told me that the conveyor belt went for several kilometers right down to the ocean wharf where it was automatically loaded onto ships destined for the U.S. They were quite disgusted by this, sayin that all their natural resources were being sold off like that. Reminded me of back home a bit really. The other thing they told me was that because Canada had either the oldest or most recent (I can't rememer which sorry) ice age, it meant that their gravel was some of the finest in the world, which means that it was the preferred material to use for the creation of silicon chips for the world market. Pretty interesitng I thought.
I got into Port ardy at 3:45pm. There was approxiamtely 1 hour before the sun went down behind the hills. Now I know what it is like to be a vampire. It's a race to find a place to sleep before the sun changes it's location. In my specific case, it's because when the sun goes down, the temperature likes to drop a hell of a lot and it's not a good idea to be stuck outside for too long without the proper insulation (which I do not have). So luckily for me I asked a few people and found the Glen Lyon Hotel and as it's off season I got it at half price like most other places I am finding, which is turning out to be very good. Right next to the Hotel was a restaurant and I the waitress told me that they do 'All you can eat fish n chips' haha DO THEY NOT KNOW WHO I AM!?!?! Somehow I composed myself and actually went against ever fibre in my body and just just to have 2 pieces of fish. The All you can eat special was for 'Cod' only. I hadn't tried the cod before so I figured it would be was to try some first before I went and chowed down and enptied their stocks of fish :-) So I only ordered a pice of cod and a piece of halibut. The Halibut reminded me a lot of NZ snapper. the cod reminded me a lot of Hoki. I will be trying Halibut a lot more, it much nicer by far. So I ate my dinner and then decided to go upstairs to the pub. It was a great night, which I am continuing in my next post.

Ciao
Matt!

Day 6 - Courtenay

2007-11-23T15:17:00.000+13:00

Decided not to stay too long in the pub again last night. Only stayed there till midnight :-) as I had to be up at 6am. hehe. If you are in Victoria, I suggest you hunt down Big Bad Johns Hillbilly bar haha. Talk about laugh - great place, and everyone seems to have heard about it and as it was in the same place as my hotel, it suited me fine when it came to going to bed.

Anyhow, today has just been a travelling day today, had to get the 8am train from Victoria (one end of Victoria has the bus station and the train station is at the other end. Got into my destination of Courtenay at about 1pm today and found my way pretty much straight away over to the bus station where I will be going up to the top of Vancouver Island tomorrow up to a town called Port Hardy. Courtenay isn't exactly a tourist stop so I am only spending a single night here in a pretty basic motor lodge. The internet is damn fast as usual though (Shakes fist at Telecom), so I will be entertained tonight. Plus I get to watch the wrestling on TV tonight haha!

Well I've just been out for dinner and ate an entire 15" pizza - haha three waitresses had to gather aorund to witness the evidence (or lack of it). haha I'm feeling rather full (after that pizza, a bowl (upsized) of hot wings and 2 large Margaritas haha. Only cost me a truckload of money, but it was worth it. Haven't had a massive fatty meal like that for ages. Probably wont eat like that again for several weeks (When I'm back in Vancouver no doubt). Anyhow, it's getitng close to 9pm here and that means TNA Wrestling. Woot. I'm gonna try and re-arrange my photos' a bit better too.

Cheers
Matt

Another day, another hangover...

2007-11-22T14:03:00.000+13:00

Somebody lied to me when they told me I would love Canada. Well maybe I do love it, but it doesn't love me. More specifically, the Jim Beam I drank last night has been at war with my head all day. Last night I went down to one of the pubs in the hotel called "Big Bad Johns". It is a bit of a hillbilly bar and I fitted right in :-) The played some good ole music like "Copperhead Road" and several other songs most recently seen on re-runs of "The Dukes of Hazard" haha. It's decorated with Bras, $1 notes of many denominations, and various booby traps like plastic spiders attached to bits of nylon all controlled by the bartender so that they can have a 'controlled' drop on unsuspecting patrons haha Several girls screamed last night (because of the spiders you filthy minded beggers) haha and some pussy guy (not me). Anyhow, that damned bourbon got the best of me and finally, at 2am when the bar closed and I got thrown out I went to bed in a rather zig-zag direction :-)

Woke up this morning at 7am and somehow dragged myself into the shower and then downstairs for a continental breakfast. They had a shelf that contained lots of little boxes of cornflakes and other various cereals. I devoured 4 boxes of cornflakes. The waitress mentioned something about me being homeless and not eating for weeks. Impressed another person ith my eating prowess again, my job is done haha.

After that I wandered over to the BC museum, which was only about 10 minutes walk from where I was staying. I wandered around the museum for about 3 hours. It wasn't that big but it was very interesting. It was basically divided into 2 sections. The first was all about the Candian environment and the other was all about the human involvment around Canada and Victoria or Vancouver Island. I forced myself to leave at 12pm. I was sort of running out of time and wanted to see some other stuff, plus my legs where killing me, so I left. I walked up the road and went and got some lunch, omelettes in this town are sprinkled with crack I'm sure. They are soooo yummy. Think it's the cheese.

After a spot of lunch I went up to "Craigdarroch" castle. It is really just a massive house built over 100 years ago by the richest man in Canada at the time. The place just blew me away. I haven't looked at the photo's yet, and they probably wotn do the place justice, but once again I spent several hours in there looking around. Eventually I had to leave because the day was growing old. I should write a lot more than this about the castle, but take a look at the photo's, I'll put comments on them later, hopefully they are interesting.

So at the moment, the hangover is FINALLY disappearing, and I'm sitting in another pub writing this while the Canucks are owning somebody at hockey, and I think I am going to be shot for not watching the tellie with everyone else haha

Catch ya later
Matt

Day 4 - Victoria welcomes Matt

2007-11-22T05:30:00.000+13:00

Day 4 - 20-11-07 11:50

Well it's 10 minutes to 1pm on Tuesday afternoon as I sit here in the Pacific Station.

We all got up a little late this morning (last day of rest I think for some time), showered and whatnot and eventually got ourselves down to the local cafe (that does chips and gravy) it's an instant favourite with me, I can't fault any of there yummy food (especially like the shrimp and crab meals). After I boarded the ferry over to the CBD one more time and walked over to the Sky Train. It's much like a monorail train - but it's really just a fast electric train. Unfortuantely I only had to go 4 stops (about 2 minutes) before I had to disembark. Quite good fun really riding a train just like I was back in Wellington again.

The train station was in sight as soon as I stepped of the train, so I went and booked myself a ticket for a coach/ferry/coach trip over to Victoria on Vancouver Island. All in all, it's supposed to be a 3.5 hour trip and it leaves in about 30 minutes so I should be in Victoria city by 4pm. Which should be just before it gets dark. I should be able to find a motel or hotel rather easily, I saw lots of the online yesterday evening whilst doing my research.

Overall the time with the boys was brilliant, really good to get a little base settled and to learn a few things about the surrounding areas (like the unwritten rule of standing on the right side of the escalator if you aren't going to walk up it). Very handy. The Canadian/American accent is still very funny to listen to but their mannerism are still rather cute. Lots of 'eh' this and 'eh' that. haha! Plus a lot of them liek to repeat each other when they are surprised by something haha Still brings a smile to my face when I watch them talk - haha gotta be careful though, I could get in trouble if I laugh too much hehe.

Today is a very fine sunny day. The weather here seems a lot more settled than in New Zealand and is a bit tricky to realise that when you get a fine day, you will generally get 3-4 fine days in a row, but vice versa if you get some bad weather (as I have just experienced). But luckily Starbucks is my friend and conviently shelter me form the rain for a small price (of which I get a free drink as well haha).

Intermission... photo time... :-)

On the bus with Matt Scott!

On the ferry with Matt Scott!

(A little bit later!....)

OK well oh man what a trip! Funnily enough, I've never actually been on a ferry. Any today, I was treated to a giant ferry of the southern tip of Vancouver, which went over to the southern part of Vancouver island. The ferry itself only took 1.5 hours which seemed to go very quickly, probably because I spent most of looking out the window and walking around the 7 different decks exploring the ship. It was pretty awesome really. About half way there we had to pass between 2 islands which looked like something straight out of a Canadian postcard. Lots of trees, hills and probably frikken bears hiding around the back of the cabins haha.

Pretty much as soon as we disembarked form the ferry though, it was dark and then there was a 40 minute drive into the city of Victoria which so far, is dark and cold. :-) It was just after 6pm when I got here and being "British based" pretty much everything was closing. So I bought some tickets for a couple of IMAX shows (Mars and Prehistoric Sea Monsters) and went for a walk while I waited for the right viewing times about an hour later. It's surprising how much ground you can cover while you are waiting for an hour to pass :-)

After the show I went back to the hotel, and did I tell you the this hotel has 8 different pubs in it? Only 6 are operating at the moment, because 2 of them are on the roof and are only open during summer. But I found "Big Bad John's" to be pretty much me, and settled in there with a bourbon (or 6). Chatted to most of the locals, found some other kiwi guy, who had come over to Victoria on a holiday several years ago, and met up with some kiwi girl and never really left. I dunno, I gave him some crap about that and he started talking to me in Maori, just before he got boted out of the pub for being too drunk haha. I got told off for swearing too much, if you can belive that! haha That's not like me!! Anyhow, I got on with the locals and eventually the place closed at 2am and I got walked out (about 4 bouncers walked me out because they must have thought I wasn't going to leave hehe) But yeh, stumbled up to the hotel room and crashed out. Top day all things considered :-)

Matt

Day 3 - A bit of recovery

2007-11-20T14:16:00.000+13:00

After yesterdays mammoth events, a bit of calm was being called for. The boys had to go to work today for their very first day at work, and, as it's just after 5pm as I write this, I expect them back very shortly. I wonder how tired they will be and if they will want to go out for drinks and a last meal.

Got up nice and early around 8am this morning. I was due to go and meet a good friend of my sister (Michelle) at a Starbucks near the Gasworks Clock. Now luckily, I had only just found the Gasworks clock the night before when I went out on the town with Kev, otherwise I think I would have been in trouble. Anyhow, I met up with Sandra, and we proceeded to chat away and walk around several different areas of Vancouver, including English Bay and probably a dozen different areas I cannot remember. It was awesome to have a native Vancouverite show me around the city. We were chatting away the whole time about different things so the several hours we spent together sped by really quickly!

After that, I ferried back to the flat (late afternoon) and have spent the last part of the day filiing out postcards, chatting to people on MSN and Skype, organising transport and possible lodging locations for the next part of my trip. I've also ofcorse, been doing this blog post.

Tomorrow I travel over to Vancouver Island, leaving the boys behind and striking out on my own. Can't wait to get out there by myself. I will have to do some old man things like going to museums and checking out a couple of similar type attractions as I quite enjoy that sort of thing. Anyhow I thought I should upload a couple more photo's and a video from yesterday, just incase you hadn't laughed enough! :-)

Cheers
Matt

PS Oh and thanks for the comments guys. Haven't published them all because some people are rude (Shaun) and this is a family blog haha!

Don't trust South Africans! They are always trying to steal your stuff - even in Canada! ;-)

I don't care who you are, I'm not smiling!

Matt Scott is an Ice Skating legend! (Almost)

Day 2 - Biggest Day ever.

2007-11-19T20:08:00.001+13:00

Oh my god. What a day it was today. This is going to be a big post, we did so much today. We are all totally tired out and we are all busily uploading photos and documenting our day today. We saw so much, did so much and had sooo much fun! (As the photo's and videos will attest to).

In my last post, I mentioned a search for Breakfast, and oh boy, we found it! And guess what Gaz, we found CHIPS AND GRAVY!!!God damn! I had to order it and we took a few photos for proof, check it out!

We ate like kings for that breakfast oh boy! (And the waitresses we very nice too - I'm going back tomorrow! haha).

After that, we went back to the flat and picked up Kevan, and went for a bit of a drive. We went up to Capilano suspension bridge (a swing bridge) and we went out on that. There was a mini forest park and walkways once you get over that so we walked around there and checked out the trout in the small ponds they had there, very cool. There was talk of grabbing a trout with our mouths but we decided against it (the breakfasts were still full in our tummys). We took several photos of the area and made our way back out eventually.

We then drove up to Grouse Mountain, where the guys are starting work tomorrow. We went over there, where I bought a gondola ticket (they guys got theirs for free since they are staff now - I paid $30) and took the gondola up several hundred metres into the mountain. A light snowy area greeted us. The ice skaters were zipping around on a newly opened lake. Very cool. Then we went for a wander a bit further afield, and we found the bear enclosure where we saw 2 bears - they weren't fully grown (90% we think) but the were huge! I can now see why a single swipe from them could probably take you out no problems. They were very neat to watch. They seemed rather happy to be in their little enclosure surrounded by lots of food (us). haha Apparently though in the non-snow season, the enclosure is much larger and they are almost free to roam where ever they please.

We then went for a walk up the back of the mountain up some big tracks. We had a great time playing on ice and checking out the AMAZING scenery overlooking Vancouver and the surrounding forest areas. We walked up to the biggest hill we could find. Several other people were up there taking photos, as it was just such and incredible place to be and to look out from. Ofcourse I couldn't help myself and I had to play a little stunt - it well worth the sacrifice as you will see. All I can say, is IT HAD TO BE DONE!!! (haha to the amazement of the onlookers!)

Well, yes, if you have viewed that video, you will know that I am mad! haha It was so much fun - as good as a shower! Soon after we ran down the hill (will I did) like a loonie, in almost knee-deep snow, whooping and yahooing. What a rush! haha the other tourists (mainly asians) all thought we were mad and some even seem genuinely scared of us haha! Once we got down the hill we went to the restaurant and the pub and had some drinks and a top notch meal. Damn, the customer service in this country is just outstanding! Dunno if it's because they work for tips or they just love the accent - either way, I'm gonna work it for the duration! haha.

After the meal (and several chocolate martinis) I did some Ice skating, I was a bit wobbly at first, but I could be forgiven as it's been several years since I did it, but eventually I got into the swing of things and was zipping around the lake at top speed and practising backwards skating - very cool! haha Even Kevan got some skates and jumped on - he caught on very quick and we had some great fun fighting each other on slippery ice! haha After about an hour of that, and totally tired out, we caught the gondola back home, where we are now all sharing and uploading pics and vids to people and friends around the world. Check out my Picasa album, there's lots to see! But I'm off to bed soon - we did a lot in one day and I'm totally frazzelled!

Cheers
Matt

Day 2 - Here we go.

2007-11-19T07:49:00.000+13:00

It's just after 10am here and I'm waiting for the boys to get up - lazy sods. Gonna go down to the shops for some coffee and breakfast.

Went out last night with Kev across to the CBD on the ferry, wasn't too bad considering we didn't know where the hell we were going. Found a few bars and stay around for several drinks but most places were too loud to even talk to the person next to you - so we ended up leaving. Found the main strip and walked up and down there for a bit of a laugh. Mainly because so many people were queueing outside the nightclubs - silly buggers! haha Anyhow a good eye opener and had a few beers, which the head is feeling this morning. Hopefully that will clear up soon.

Right - off to find some breakfast - later
Matt.

Day 1 - Wet day

2007-11-18T14:49:00.000+13:00

Got several hours sleep and we were up and about (after breakfast) at about 11am. We walked a few blocks down to the ferry terminal, caught the ferry ($2.25 a 1.5 hour ticket) and ferried over to the Vancouver CBD. When we got there it started raining rather heavily so we escaped into a big mall and walked around there for a few hours. Was very interesting to check out all of the stores. A lot of them are the same as shops in NZ, except with a different name. I bought a few books for my upcoming train trips - they were books in a series that I haven't been able to find in NZ so all good!

Also was talking to loads of people just so that I could be a bit of an attention whore, the accent gather instant customer service and people love talking to me/us. hehe

Got back after a few hours (back on the ferry again) and we went through Lonsdale markets and bought a bit of sugar free chocolates - very nice! Bought a little box and we have all had a few pieces - the rest has gone into the fridge as too much incurs a bit of a laxative effect if you know what I mean ;-)

Going out for dinner in an hour or two - not too sure where just yet, but will be somehwere where we can have a few drinks and harass the locals about how it's lucky their town in on a mountain or it would be underwater with all this rain haha!

Cheers
Matt

Made it!

2007-11-18T07:06:00.000+13:00

Would you believe that my delayed flight to Vancouver got delayed even further? Yep add another 30 minutes onto that! haha crazy and then, just to top it all off, 5 minutes befreo we were due to board, the fire alarm went off in the airport! But ofcourse being America, 2 things happened.
1) Only about 30% of the people actually got up to leave the airport (I was not one of them).
2) When eventually, the false fire alarm was deactivated, EVERYONE clapped!

Americans... glad to have gotten the hell out! haha Yep - so we got on the flight and the flight crew were most apologetic. It was actually a very nice flight and I even slept 1.5 hours of the 2.5 hours somehow (must have been super tired to do that).

Touched down just after 2am and went through a large but totally deserted Vancouver airport. The Custom officials were all smiley and jokey, if you can believe that, haha until I walked up anyhow, then I got the Spanish inquisition.. hehe but luckily I must have given the correct answers. I got lots but no real problems arose and I passed thru to Canada with no further mishaps.

All three of the boys came down to pick me up in the uber ute and we drove backt o their flat via Vancouvers main city streets and checked out some of it's street life at 2:45am :-) Looked just like Queen street at 3am - full of people freshly kicked out of the night clubs haha.

Anyhow had a good sleep and am now awake - the boys aren't yet but will be soon no doubt!
See you again soon!

Matt

46+ hours awake - still going!

2007-11-18T07:03:00.000+13:00

Haha What a killer this trip is turning into!

Got up nice and early on Friday morning (first mistake obviously) to get the last of the housework and packing done. Did just over half a days work and left at around 2:30pm. Got to Auckland Airport around 3:30pm and mucked around there for several hours. My flight was due to lift off at 19:40 but it was delayed until 20:25. That didn't bother me too much because I knew I have approximately a 10 hours stopover in everybody's favourite destination LAX. haha

Anyhow, I lucked out and sweet talk the check in lady at Auckland Airport and she changed my seat into one right by a door so I had heaps of leg room and a chatty american bloke to natter to. Good times. Couldn't sleep though... every time I try I thought I was going to swallow my tongue, or the turbulance would pick up (especially for my I have now decided) haha.

As it turned out we made good time and got to LAX only 10 minutes late (didn't matter to me) and so I sat in the back of the customs queue (massive by the way) chatting to all the other kiwis and old biddy american lady's haha Got told to come out and visit someone in Florida and meet their daughter haha! Got through customs perfectly ok - the queue may have been long, but it went pretty quickly. See what you will but it was actually a pretty pleasant experience.

But then I have to find the dreaded gate 32! Which I found out was in terminal 3. I didn't know it but I was in terminal 1 haha. I found my way over to terminal 2 and then after wandering around for about 30 minutes, I found a visitors desk and the lady there told me how to find Terminal 3. omg... talk about walking around! This place is huge and I have only seen 3 temrinals (think there are 8!). Have to take off my shoes and had a bit of fun with the metal detector haha All good there.

Now I found Gate 32 in this terminal and I got here about 13:00 (I think). My flight was due for 20:35 so I had a big wait as you can see! But worse news was still to come - I had to read the board 3 times and still asked the service desk to confirm but my flight to Vancouver was delayed 2 hours!!! So here I sit around Gate 32 in Terminal 3 in LAX. Eyes are popping out from lack of sleep -- but am determined to get there - ETA of escaping Vancouver airport = 2am

To be continued!
Matt

Hairy Matt

2007-11-14T22:35:00.000+13:00

One more post before I board the big jet plane. Just been doing the 'Mo'vember thing for a bit of a chuckle (and because I can). My efforts were pretty good. Itchy as hell, and I'll be semi-glad to shave it all off tomorrow.

Here's a gruesome pic - 14 days with no shaves. Would be scary to think what it would be like after a full month. Better than my flatmate's pitiful efforts though - he fails.

Suscessfully complete my last effort at the gym tonight, that mean 3 full on months with out missing a single session. I suspect I put on a few kilos, but a I turned a HELL of a lot of flab into muscle. I'm like a mini Arnold Schwarzenegger now (cross with a bit of Lance Armstrong). rawr!
Thanks to all the people down at "Just Workout" in Devonport for their help over the last 3 months. Tired as hell, but the results speak for themselves.

2 sleeps and 0 gym sessions to go!
Matt.

Pre-adventure adventure!

2007-11-12T10:13:00.000+13:00

After Pommy Gaz at work had upped his MPH (moans per hours) to some obscene limit, I eventually caved and agreed to go Kayaking with him out to Rangitoto island from Takapuna.
He hired some kayaks, and Steve also came along with his own. We launched at around 10am and it only really took an hour of serene water and peaceful easy kayaking to get across the water to Rangitoto. After we hit the beach and packed up our kayaks, we proceeded to walk up the very gentle slope of the Rangitoto track. It took us about 1 hour to get up to the summit - only the last part of the hill climb was steep, and it wasn't really all that bad. The views however, were amazing, just incredible. The weather was on our side and we had a picture perfect day.

I have some photos in my album, so go check them out! Gaz took some photo's too, but he was a muppet and dropped his camera in the water, ruining it for all time :-) Lucky for him it was a free work phone/camera haha. Here are the few photo's that survived the trip! (They are all Steve Kyne original's). http://picasaweb.google.com/gscottmj/RangitotoColonisation

The trip back was a little bit harder, with the wind picking up a little and making it a little bit choppy, but we still made it back in record time of about 40 minutes. Very awesome day and I will have to take my camera next time for some awesome snaps.

4 sleeps and 2 gyms to go! :-)
Matt

Had word from the other boys...

2007-11-08T13:46:00.000+13:00

Sounds like they now have a place to sleep for me and a car for me to drive around in ;-)

Also just organising the final details of the latter part of my trip with http://www.brewster.ca/ (not http://www.brewsters.ca - although I'm going to be talking to those people too!). Very good fun - I should be all keen for a bit of orderly sightseeing after 2 weeks of chaotic solo travelling.

Got my new webcam all installed and setup last night - hooked it up so that I can use it via Skype and MSN Live. Will have to take a photo of myself in a few days before I shave of the Movember growth. Can't go off to a foreign country looking too scruffy. What will the customs dept say? hehe.

8 sleeps to go (and 4 gym days to go!)

Had to be done...

2007-11-06T07:17:00.001+13:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak4n-n4NtxM

(Some of the guys at work made it up - thought I'd give them a bit of free advertising haha).

Not bad I reckon!

Spoke to the lad on MSN chat and webcam last night - good stuff. Now I have to buy a webcam before I go hahah. Got my Skype account set up too so I'm good to go! MattyJx is my Skype account details.

Cheers
Matt

10 sleeps to go!

Saw the lads off

2007-11-05T09:43:00.000+13:00

at the airport yesterday. Bruce, Kev and Daryl have all gone off to Vancouver to start work there in 2 weeks for at least 6 months. Unlike me they will be working on the mountain and be having to go to bed early haha! Hopefully they will have some accommodation set up for me when I arrive.

Went out on Friday for their leaving do, at the Cock & Bull in Botany Hub, and saw a lot of the FarmLAN guys, good to see them all again. Ran into some other guys as well and had a bit of a catchup.

Also Shaun moved in over the weekend. Good to have some company again, almost like a lan party at the house now! Will have to convert him to watch wrestling with me tho haha!

11 sleeps to go!

Sleeps Countdown!

2007-11-01T13:49:00.000+13:00

OK - Since it's now officially November I can now do a sleeps countdown!

I fly out on the 16th, which means including tonight I have 15 sleeps before I fly out and have the adventure of my lifetime!

And to top it all off, I think I am getting the fly - which is great because I'd rather get it now, than in 2 weeks time! haha! too cool!

Getting ready

2007-10-31T11:33:00.000+13:00

Things are looking up. This trip is pushing me to get a lot of things done in my normal life that I normally would procrastinate on, or never do. Like buying a proper tramping backpack, buying some really top-end tramping boots. Apart from the holiday side of things, I've now also sorted my lost drivers license out (that I lost 6 months ago - but never really needed anyhow as I don't even own a car). So I will be receiving my replacement (and renewed) license in the mail in about a weeks' time. Plus I also got my Internatioin Drivers Permit, which should allow me to rent a nice convertible or mustang whilst overseas and to drive around. Awesome!

Almost at the point where I am down to a "Sleeps" countdown... might look at that tomorrow. In the meantime, I am firming up the itinerary, organising the odd thing to do at different cities and prepping my digital camera, laptop and PSP.

Got a SAF Flatmate moving in this weekend, so even got someone to look after the flat while I am away. Very cool.

3 weeks to go!

2007-10-25T09:51:00.000+13:00

Better start a countdown I suppose! OK then, so, 3 weeks to go till I board a plane and have the trip of my lifetime.

For those who don't know, this is how it all started. About 3-4 months ago, a few ex-co-workers, decided to go to Canada for a bit of OE (Daryl, Bruce). Since they are a few years younger (but not as good looking), they have to get jobs over there and work! I, however, have a bit of cash saved, and being too old to stay over there for any great length of time, decided to take several weeks off work and go take a bit of a holiday.

It all started out as a 2-3 week trip of skiing and snowboarding with them, but now, as the weeks have gone along, that has turned in 2-3 days of skiing with them and 2-3 weeks of solo travel around Western Canada. Sorry guys!

I'll land in Vancouver and stay there for a few days, then will be heading west and then north.
Stay tuned for more.

Initial Post

2007-10-16T11:36:00.001+13:00

1st edit - Just a test to make sure everything is working ok.

2nd edit - Now adjusting the profile and setting up the template a bit better.