The last blog of the trip

Well. Tomorrow we head back to NZ.

It has been a great trip and we have seen some amazing things. Looks like our carry on bags are going to be massively overweight just so we can get everything back home.

Today in Bangkok, we went to go see the Grand Palace but it was closed as today is one of the only days in the year that it is only for Thai people. We met this thai person and got talking and he told us all these other places we should go see - some were only open to the public today so it is quite rare that we can actually see them. This guy even sorted out a tuk tuk driver for us and haggled him down to us paying nothing at all for the ride. The guy dropped us off at each stop and waited around for us to come out and everything. I asked him why he would do this for free and he stated that if we go to the export market (a precious stones market and shop - which we wanted to do anyway) he gets a petrol voucher so he was really happy.

It was so hot today. Around 40 degrees. When we flew in a few days back the pilot said it was around 35 degrees and we thought that was hot. Add the humidity into things and it is ridiculous. So today we nearly sweated ourselves to death. So hot.

Thats about all. I will be back in NZ at around 9:30 on saturday morning.

oh and by the way

Go the Blackcaps

What an insane series. I amangaed to watch the second agme and I thought " This cant get any better".

Looks like they proved me wrong

Bring on the world cup (and virtual cricket for that matter - anyone heard anything abou that yet?)

One night in Bangkok and the worlds your oyster...

Well. We left London a day ago and it was pretty sad. Such a nice place and nice people we were staying with.

The flight to Bangkok was fine. I basically went unconcious because of my cold that I had and slept through most of the flight. Booya.

In bangkok now. I love this place. Took the cab driver over 2 hours to drive us from the airport to our hotel (new airport too - really nice architecture) and we paid him the equivilant of $8 each. Insane. I gave him a $4 tip because I thought why the hell not and the guy got so happy and was shaking my hand and stuff.

Already brought 6 CD's. So sweet.

If anyone wantsa me to get them any cds or anything then send me an email real quick because I will only be checking them one more time before I head home. You can basically get anything you want. I think that goes for DVD's as well. Oh yeah and they have random compilations likle the best of Snow Patrol, and the best of James Blunt (hasn't he only had 1 album?).

We have got no room left in our bags for purchases so we are throwing out some of our old clothes.

About to hit the mall district, get on the piss tonight and head to the floating markets tomorrow and as well as the grand palace.

New photos up on Ringo!!!!

St Valentines

After all that stuff we did on Valentines day we thought we may as well treat ourselves to a really nice dinner. As we also thought we were quite stupid to miss out on proper spainish cuisine when we were there, we thought we wont do it with France.
So we ate some snails. They aren't bad at all, thoguh ours were heavily coated in garlic.

After that we went to the Eiffel Tower around 9pm and travelled up it. It is massive. Like really massive. And when you are in an elevator with glass walls and it just keeps taking you up, it does get a bit like a theme park ride. Sarah was shitting herself.

The view was amazing and they had little distance flags placed around the perimeter showing you what direction and how far away major cities of the world were. We were pretty impressed to find Wellington was the furhterest away out of all of them at nearly 19000 kms.

On the thursday we went to the arc de triomphe which is basically a massive roundabout. There is about 6 lanes of traffic constantly going around it and no road markings. Just as sarah was saying "I cannot believe they dont have accidents" we saw a guy on a moterbike get slammed by a car. He went soaring through the air and did a pretty mean flip. Hope he is alright.

Also went back to the Eiffel Tower to get some daytime photos and visited the Pantheon.

Its funny about Europe. They got the same shit over here that we got back home except over here its just a little different.

Example

- You can get beer basically anywhere. Most vending machines just in the street have beer in them and no real age control thing to stop underage kids buying it.

- Cops are everywhere and they have every form of transport. I am not kidding but yesterday we saw a pack of cops in police issued roller blades. There is also at least one cop on every street corner and thy just stand around really

- A big macs a big mac but they call it Le Big Mac

On sunday Sarah and I made our way out to see Canterbury Catherdal as Tim wa going in those directions anyway. The place was huge and is apparently the most spectacular church in all of Britain. It was pretty cool and had been added onto over the years so it had all different styles happening all through it.

Monday was a big day. We got an all day travel pass and went all over trying to nip the things that I have to do for this scholarship in the bud. Went to the natural History Museum first though which was pretty cool to see dinosaur skeletons and such. Didnt see a T-rex however. It alluded me.

Went out to Greenwich area and saw the Millenium Dome and the Millenium Village and West Silvertown (they weren't that exciting from a tourist perspective but I got what I needed from it for my lecture.

Yesterday we jumped aboard the Eurostar ( a bullet train) and headed to France via the english channel. On the english side the train chugged along at about 100 kms per hour but once they got through the tunnel into France (where there is no speed limit for trains really) he wound the thing up and we must have been going about 300 kms an hour easy. Pretty sweet.

Arrived into Paris at around 5pm and went and had a walk through the streets. I think I like Paris even more than I do London. Saw the Grand Opera House - a building that actually combines the styles of romanticism and classicism (two styles thought opposite at the time).

Today we grabbed some train tickets and headed to see the Lourve. For some reason they were letting everyone in for free so we were stoked not to pay (and we had to get out of the rain). Ching ching. Saw the Mona Lisa which really is all it is cracked up to be. It was pretty cool. Also saw the Venus de Milo and had a walk through the whole place. Had no idea it was actually as large as it is. It would be a good 700m - to a kilometer to walk from one end of the building to the other.

Also just went and saw the Pompidou Centre and Notre Dame Cathedral which was also pretty cool. Say a guy paint the Che Guevara head blindholded and from behind the page. It was pretty sweet so I snapped some photos.

Not much happening now. The weather is really packing up so we are going to head back to the hostel. Just got notcie that I have to move out of my flat which pains me so I will be hitting the flat websites and newspapers when I get home - unless any of you know of a room?

More photos on Web

Just uploaded some more pics:

http://www.ringo.com/profile/blairparkinson.html

Oh yeah - and we went to Piccadilly Circus. It was pretty cool but not sure what the big deal is all about

Back in London

We travelled back to London on Thursday and were lucky to get out as they were clsoing airports all over because it was snowing everywhere. Tim and Mel (the people we were staying with) were going to be out for the night so Sarah and I grabbed a hostel in the centre of London hoping to hit the streets that night to check out the nightlife. We got a fair way out of the door before we realised that being numb from head to toe probably wasn't the best mood to be in to party down.

The hostel itself was expensive and pretty shit. The room was the size of our linen cupboard back home.

That friday we went and checked out the National Gallery which was all pretty awesome. They had alot of paintings from da vinci, michelangelo, rembrandt, picasso and van gogh. We lost time there and realised that we had been wandering around for a good four hours. My favourtie artist on exhibition was probably Monet. His paintings looked like squiggles up close but when you stood a good 6m away you could see an amazing amount of detail. I literally have no idea how he painted them. He must have used a 6m painting brush or something.

Today we went to the biggest mall in Europe which was quite true to its title. It was insanly large. The carpark alone was about twice that of Bayfair. There was a pretty sweet lego store and I was tempted to purchase a pretty large lego batmobile but my consience steered me away from it.

Just got back from another pub (the amount of pubs and beers I have had over here in the few short days is pretty crazy). They had a beer which was infused or something so that it had a raw cherry or strawberry flavour and didnt taste too bad. The bad thing was that it cost about $15.

Going to Canterbury tomorrow to check it out whilst Tim and Mel play some touch and then back off into central london on Monday before Paris on Tuesday

Visuals

Ahhh. It took a little while (probably because the files are so big) but I have now uploaded some photos for you all to see on the net. Go to :

http://www.ringo.com/profile/blairparkinson.html

Should give you an idea of how it is all going and what I have seen.

A couple of days back I checked out Santiago calatravas work in Valencia. You can see some photos of it actually. My profile photo has some of his buildings in the background.

Apart fromthe shear size of the buildings, it would probably have to be the most beautiful architecture I have been within. It is so so sleek and stylish. And everything is mosaiced. Yes, that big white building - all of that is mosaics. Everything white is mosaics really.

I would recommend to anyone to come and see this place. It truly is a great sight.

On the other hand, Sarah and I have been getting some sore bellies recently and we are not really sure what it is all from. First off, the food which we brought fromthe supermarket (fresh pasta and some salami) tastes like ass. It is so salty i nearly hurled. We have had McDonalds for lunch for tyhe past three days because there are alot of them here, they are easy to order at (language barrier and everything) and we know what we are getting.

Went shopping today....Pretty boring but Sarah seemed to like all the clothes shops. She also looked at shoe shops and they was one stage where there was 4 different shoe shops all next to each other. I thought someone up high really had it in for me.

Not much else to report

Spain

On saturday Tim and Mel took us out to see Windsor Castle. It was massive. The queen really does know how to spoil herself. The building itself inside the castle walls was impressive and housed some pretty amazing things - Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael drawings among a few things. Apparently the Windsor family have some 600 works by Da Vinci. We then spent a ridiculous amount of money buying Cornish Pasties and Sausage Rolls and called it a day. The Sunday was pretty relax and Tim and I played some pretty full on touch rugby before we visited a pub that he use to work at which is some 400 years old. Henry the 8th used to drink there back in the day. Today, Sarah and I travelled to Valencia in Spain and were hit with a bit of a culture shock. I suppose we were just ignorant to the fact that not really anyone at all speaks english - not even a little bit. And all the computers are in english. In fact, it took we a while to figure out how to log on to this one. It also took 25 minutes for me to copy photos to a CD. I would be screwed if I was trying to do this in China - at least you can kind of make out words in Spainish. We have just got back from a night time walk over here that was insanly cool. The buildings and churches that make up most of the plazas are massive. Some 10 - 13 stories tall, and they dont really have those floors in between, just open height space. We are off to look at the works of Santiago Calatrava tomorrow and were recomended by our waiter at the restaurant we werejust at to hire a bike to get there which we may as well do. Off to bed now though. That touch game has left me buggered

England so far

Tunbridge Wells (where I am staying) is the kind of place my mum would love. Quaint little boutique shops that sell all that antiquey looking stuff. Sarah and I had a big walk around it on Thursday. It is such a lazy town. Checked out an old church in the centre of it that was built in the 1600's. Squirrels and foxes are everywhere around here which is pretty fun trying to lull them into a good range for photographs.

We went and had a few beers and a dinner out a couple of nights back which was good fun. The pub is definately the heart of the community over here. You go there every night just to have a few drinks and a laugh. And there is about 1 pub to every 3 other shops so they are evrywhere. English beer is pretty crap however.

I have refused to have a warm one yet.

Today was a monster day. We travelled into the heart of London and went crazy. e saw the Tate Modern which is all contemporary art - Salvador Dali, Jackson Pollack and the likes. Pretty amazing stuff when you see them for real. Especially the dali ones. There was also an exhibit (well at least we think it was an exhibit) which was a 5 storey water slide thing except without the water. An enclosed slide thing. Tim (the guy we are sgtaying with and myself) went on it and you got some serious speed. Sarah held our bags.

After that we went to St Pauls cathedral which is ridiculously large. Had a perve inside and couldn't be bothered with the cover charge so gapped. Walked a bit down the road and saw the Swiss Re Tower by Norman Foster nicknamed the gherkin. It doesnt look anything special really but it is still quite a significant building. However just next door to it was an amazing building. Lloyds of London by Richard Rogers is crazy cool. All the elevators and air ventilation pipes have been pushed to the exterior and accentuated. The lifts are all glass boxes so you can see all the internal workings of them and they shoot up the side of the building which even shows the counteweights used for them and stuff. The building was great. All aluminium clad and pretty fricken massive. He would have to be one of my favorite architects out. I just really like his style. Give it a search on Google to check it out.

Went to a market place which was basically a booze market. All the suits were drinking already at about 12 in the afternoon. You dont even need to stay within the limits of a bar. You just buy the beer and go wander around the place.

Saw the Tower of London and London Bridge before travelling on another train to see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament which were really really impressive. The size of it is understated somewhat in photographs and other stuff. The place is huge.

We got lost looking for the Channel 4 headquarters (another building designed by Richard Rogers) and when we found it I got told off for taking photos of it so I told the guy to get stuffed and stood back two steps so that I was on the footpath. What could he do about it?

To cap it all off and as it was getting a bit dark we brought some tickets for the London Eye. A massive ferris wheel thing which rotates slowly and rises each pod that it holds some 135m into the air. It was very very cool and worth the $45 I had to pay for the thing.

As for now we are just about to eat a curry and get on the booze. Going to visit Leeds Castle and Windsor Castle tomorrow which are meant to be the two best castles in England. Going to Spain on Monday to see the work of Santiago Calatrava. It may just change my opinion of my favourite architect.

What a relief

Well.

London is a breath of fresh air (in a vacational sense). I've only be here one day and already I am digging the place. The flight from LA was fine and we slpet for 18hours straight as soon as we got back.

However I cannot believe the price of things. I am buying bottles of water nand paying £1.50 mfor them and it is only until you do some converting that you figure that it is a $4.50 bottle of water. Train rides are expensive as well with an all day pass costing you about $30 to even $50.

The place where we are staying is in a really nice little town called Tunbridge Wells and we are staying with a friend of Sarahs. Great people and we are about to hit some ye olde english pubs in a bit. For a year pass on the trains (which they have - you dont use cars in London) it cost him $7500. I am so glad that I can just walk to work in NZ.

We are to go into the centre of London tomorrow and check out the houses of parliament etc. I am also going to check out the channel 4 headquarters and london eye etc as they are quite the fancy design.

I hear Jacob Oram is the master blaster now. Watched the game against England which was some extreme hitting so I am pissed that I missed his century against Oz.

Far Out

So now British airways are not striking. Meaning that I now have to miss out on the Getty Centre and Universal Studios all beacuse of their stupid reliability.

Cant be bothered. What a stuff up.

Kind of sick of LA anyways. Hasn't lived up to expectations.

HA. It is bound to happen.

When would British Airways want to strike. Just when we are flying with them. What a crock. Our flight to London was cancelled and it took a good hour and a half on the phone to finally get our flights changed from Thursday the 1st of February to this coming Monday the 29th of February. It honestly took a good 5 mins for them to understand our booking refernece number because they thought we couldnt pronounce the letter 'z' properly.

Apart from that everything is fine and dandy. Gehry studios was amazing. The place is huge and I snuck a few photos to look back on. (They didnt actually allow it but I think I got some good ones of the entire place). I will talk alot about it in the lecture so I think I will save most of that info till then.

Got stranded in South Central for an hour which was an eyebrow raiser.

Visited Santa Monica and Malibu beach and the likes. Saw a mini putt which I got amped up for but then realised it was probably the most average one I have ever seen. Worse than Snappers at the mount or that shitty one at Rainbows End.

Because of the change in flights I probably wont get a chance to visit any mini putss considering the nearest one is about a 3 hour bus ride away. Already done a few of them and they are not fun. Especially when you are sitting near homeless people who have just found enough money for a fare and have just pissed themselves.

Visited Burger King ( my first true fast food joint here so far) and I have concluded that America fast food is not actually that much tastier than New Zealand ones as I was led to believe. The cheese is a bit tastier and the king size (which I got) was monster. I am talking a drink larger than 1 ltr which was bigger than the burger and fries put together. And it was cheap. Probably about $7 NZ for the largest combo.

I also am missing out on the Getty Centre which is a bit of a shame but I figure I would rather be in London with a (pretty much) gauranteed trip home than stranded in LA.

Intial Stages

Well.

I think I am pretty much over LA.

Not to say that it is that bad but I just feel like the rest of the world is given a different impression of what this city is really like. It is all big 4 wheel drives, low height slum dwellings and expensive food stores. I am, as of yet, to find a supermarket or some place to get a lot of food in one go. The hostel is nice enough.

Its funny. I actually felt much more safer walking the streets of India than I do L.A. Go figure.

Anyways. A couple of days back we headed to hollywood ave and checked out all the stars on the footpath. WOW, what a big deal. That was the best time I have had in my life...... (I dunno if sarcasm translates easy on a computer screen). We then got conned into taking a tour of the stars houses and such which was looking at a whole lot of covered up gates really. It was alright I suppose. Got to travel it in a limo and checked out all the hot spots which meant we didnt have to do it later. Rodeo Drive was over the top oppulant but had some nice design ideas for upper class stores. It was nearly a waste of time until the driver asked if any of us knew of Antoni Gaudi and if we wanted to see one of the houses he designed. I was flawless in pulling out my camera and pushing past the aussies travelling with us to grab some photos of that.

Ahhh good times.

Just got back from checking out the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which did live up to expectations. Craftmanship got a bit iffey around the corners but overall it is a pretty amazing building. Went for a walk through it all and grabbed some nice shots. Alos saw a random building which was the LA Transport Authority building which looked pretty tops. Going to go to Gehry studios tomorrow and hit them up with some questions.

Not much else to report. Spending more money than expected... Which I suppose is to be expected

testing 1..2

Just a test