Monthly Archives: October 2011

First real day in Oz. Anne and Dennis gave us a trip around their local area and town of Sandgate. They are about a fifteen minute walk to the sea and in an area north of Brisbane. After lunch back … Continue reading →

Arrived Sydney 20 minutes early and transferred to another terminal for our domestic flight to Brisbane. Bizarre bus trip around the inner airport on the runway aprons past hangars with jumbo jets being worked on etc. All very strange but … Continue reading →

Starbucks again this morning to collect mail and update. Walked to the Yuyuan gardens and along the way stumbled across a huge material shop and on further inspection realised it is one of those stores that make you suits and … Continue reading →

Today is our only full day in Shanghai, so we have our work cut out to see all we wanted to see. We set off before breakfast to the ‘Cool Docks’ an area of old dock buildings that have been … Continue reading →

Arrived on time in Shanghai and immediately came to the conclusion that this city is a lot more “sane” than both Beijing and Xi’an. Sign posts outside the railway station with directions to the taxi ranks which is just not … Continue reading →

It has been a really misty murky and drizzly day today so we decided to have a lie in and not to go anywhere special. We had planned to walk the outer walls of the city but it would have … Continue reading →

Took a bus from the main railway station to the site of the Terracotta Army. At last public transport without having to stand. Seating only in this bus. The site is about 40 k out of the city and a … Continue reading →

Arrived in Xi’an a little late at about 10 am. We did get some sleep. Irene got off the train about a minute before me and when I got off I couldn’t see her so I thought she had walked … Continue reading →

Well last day in Beijing before we set off by overnight sleeper at 8 pm heading for Xi’an. Spent the day at The Lama Temple, largest Buddhist Temple in Beijing. After that a trip to The Birds Nest and Cube … Continue reading →

Caught the subway to Tiananmen Square with 5 million other Chinese only to find another 5 million had got there before us. Not only that about 2 million wanted to use the public loo plus us two. Irene did and … Continue reading →

Back at the hotel after another day of getting to know & understand China. We went off to the Great Wall at Badaling today about 60 km outside Beijing. We decided not to do the tourist route, but go with … Continue reading →

Set off from Exeter in luxury on National Express to Heathrow …. Oops sorry Brad!! By BMW. All went well, flight OK. Arrived roughly on time. Now to amuse Nick Y, we took local transport to hotel, but by Butt … Continue reading →