We even made it back all in one piece!
THE END..... for now.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
ALIVE IN SYDNEY.
Yeah, so I lied. Turns out our next stop was Sydney after all..... after a slight change in plans due to headaches and finances, we opted to take the bus directly to Sydney instead of the scenic two-day drive.... another trip for another time...
So we arrived this morning, bright and early, 6:30AM at our hostel to meet the man who works there who is named..... BRUCE. Yes! Gen! Mike! (He doesn't bear a resemblance though...)
The bus we took was good, a nice, family run Australian company, cleaner than Greyhound, that's for sure, but there wasn't much sleeping to be had on there, so all we've done so far in Sydney is nap.
But, in other weird news and occurances, yesterday, during our extra day in Melbourne that we had instead of driving (we walked around more, looked at more of Melbourne's world famous graffiti, ate cupcakes Ami Li would love in a cafe, etc) we ran into (or more they yelled my name) Melina Chadbourne and Gordon Eccles from Nobles?!? ...... ??? This world is too, too, too small. That blew my mind.
Anyway, I'll let you know how the aquarium is since I think that is going to be our first stop obviously as all good Nashoba girls love a good aquarium.
So we arrived this morning, bright and early, 6:30AM at our hostel to meet the man who works there who is named..... BRUCE. Yes! Gen! Mike! (He doesn't bear a resemblance though...)
The bus we took was good, a nice, family run Australian company, cleaner than Greyhound, that's for sure, but there wasn't much sleeping to be had on there, so all we've done so far in Sydney is nap.
But, in other weird news and occurances, yesterday, during our extra day in Melbourne that we had instead of driving (we walked around more, looked at more of Melbourne's world famous graffiti, ate cupcakes Ami Li would love in a cafe, etc) we ran into (or more they yelled my name) Melina Chadbourne and Gordon Eccles from Nobles?!? ...... ??? This world is too, too, too small. That blew my mind.
Anyway, I'll let you know how the aquarium is since I think that is going to be our first stop obviously as all good Nashoba girls love a good aquarium.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Next stop: Sydney (sort of).
Via a random town along the coast of Meri's choosing whose name I forget at the moment because I am tired.
Melbourne is cooler than people give it credit for! It also has incredible coffee and chocolate cafes, so we spent the past few days in a caffienated sugared haze. Went to the top of the Eureka Skydeck last night, and yesterday went to the special Dali exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria and later saw "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" last night because we were so excited to be in a country with English language movies again. It was good, though leaving the movie theatre last night later, tired, confused, I could have sworn I was at the Framingham AMC. No, I am on the other side of the world in Melbourne. Oops. My bad.
Melbourne is cooler than people give it credit for! It also has incredible coffee and chocolate cafes, so we spent the past few days in a caffienated sugared haze. Went to the top of the Eureka Skydeck last night, and yesterday went to the special Dali exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria and later saw "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" last night because we were so excited to be in a country with English language movies again. It was good, though leaving the movie theatre last night later, tired, confused, I could have sworn I was at the Framingham AMC. No, I am on the other side of the world in Melbourne. Oops. My bad.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
ALIVE IN MELBOURNE.
Well this is certainly a mind fuck.
First of all, I haven't travelled anywhere by plane since February, so it felt fairly bizarre to instantly arrive somewhere completely different all at once... it seemed too easy, especially at the Narita airport in Tokyo which has to be the most easy, wonderful, calming airport in the world.... basically, just like all of Japan, which, I have decided, is pretty much utopia and the best country in the world. They have their shit together, that is for sure. And it was so simple traveling by planes and in airports that it was kind of funny.... it seemed like it should have been harder to get all the way to Australia...
Anyway, now we are here and we are super confused because it is their "winter" here which all the Australians are complaining about because it is soooooo cold and soooooooooo dark -- today was the most beautiful crisp, clear fall day which was a hugely welcomed changed after sweating our asses off in China and Japan for two weeks. I can wear my damn fake leather jacket and scarves I have been hauling around again! Wonderful!
That's it for now, but it looks like Australia is going to be great. Right now we're still just mainly confused though.... it feels a lot like being back in the U.S. but in a parallel universe kind of way.... everything is familiar but just a little bit different, a little off, a little cleaner or a little weirder.... not quite sure yet, but we'll see.
First of all, I haven't travelled anywhere by plane since February, so it felt fairly bizarre to instantly arrive somewhere completely different all at once... it seemed too easy, especially at the Narita airport in Tokyo which has to be the most easy, wonderful, calming airport in the world.... basically, just like all of Japan, which, I have decided, is pretty much utopia and the best country in the world. They have their shit together, that is for sure. And it was so simple traveling by planes and in airports that it was kind of funny.... it seemed like it should have been harder to get all the way to Australia...
Anyway, now we are here and we are super confused because it is their "winter" here which all the Australians are complaining about because it is soooooo cold and soooooooooo dark -- today was the most beautiful crisp, clear fall day which was a hugely welcomed changed after sweating our asses off in China and Japan for two weeks. I can wear my damn fake leather jacket and scarves I have been hauling around again! Wonderful!
That's it for now, but it looks like Australia is going to be great. Right now we're still just mainly confused though.... it feels a lot like being back in the U.S. but in a parallel universe kind of way.... everything is familiar but just a little bit different, a little off, a little cleaner or a little weirder.... not quite sure yet, but we'll see.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Next stop: Australia...?!?!
And this is where our trip gets really ridiculous.
The plane journeys begin!
We had a really great time in Tokyo -- we met up with not only Sam but also Coley last night, a little Nobles-in-Tokyo reunion -- that must be told about in greater detail later on as we are going to go get on the airport train now to get to Narita!
The plane journeys begin!
We had a really great time in Tokyo -- we met up with not only Sam but also Coley last night, a little Nobles-in-Tokyo reunion -- that must be told about in greater detail later on as we are going to go get on the airport train now to get to Narita!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
ALIVE IN TOKYO!
We made it to the pinnacle of our travel completely on the surface!
From SAINT-PETERSBURG, RUSSIA to TOKYO, JAPAN!
Using every form of transportation except for an airplane (and we'll soon add some of those into the mix starting on the 18th when we fly out of Narita!):
-- metro
-- bus
-- tram
-- trolleybus
-- minibus (marshrutka)
-- car
-- taxi
-- horse
-- bicycle
-- ship
-- ferry
-- little dinky rental boat
-- our feet
-- and trains of every kind, of course.
Speaking of trains of every kind, ours last night from Osaka (yesterday alone we took four trains: Kyoto --> Nara, Nara --> Kyoto, Kyoto --> Osaka, Osaka --> Tokyo) was by far the most beautiful -- the Sunrise Express! We had our own individual room-compartments we never wanted to leave. It was clean and wood and everything seemed new and smelled good and they gave us blue and white striped bathrobes and slippers and basically our lives have become the polar opposite of Russia. It's insane.
INSANE.
And Tokyo only promises to be crazier as soon as we can check into our hostel (it's 8AM and reception only just opened right now) and go out and explore.
From SAINT-PETERSBURG, RUSSIA to TOKYO, JAPAN!
Using every form of transportation except for an airplane (and we'll soon add some of those into the mix starting on the 18th when we fly out of Narita!):
-- metro
-- bus
-- tram
-- trolleybus
-- minibus (marshrutka)
-- car
-- taxi
-- horse
-- bicycle
-- ship
-- ferry
-- little dinky rental boat
-- our feet
-- and trains of every kind, of course.
Speaking of trains of every kind, ours last night from Osaka (yesterday alone we took four trains: Kyoto --> Nara, Nara --> Kyoto, Kyoto --> Osaka, Osaka --> Tokyo) was by far the most beautiful -- the Sunrise Express! We had our own individual room-compartments we never wanted to leave. It was clean and wood and everything seemed new and smelled good and they gave us blue and white striped bathrobes and slippers and basically our lives have become the polar opposite of Russia. It's insane.
INSANE.
And Tokyo only promises to be crazier as soon as we can check into our hostel (it's 8AM and reception only just opened right now) and go out and explore.
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