Sunday, December 21, 2008

travel update - london, paris & hong kong

I know I haven't updated in a while. After Toronto, I was in London for 3 1/2 days, then Paris for 2 days and Hong Kong for 14 days. I'm currently writing from Singapore's Changi Airport... I'm heading off to Kuala Lumpur to spend time with my family and relatives for Christmas and New Years.

On a side note, I will have been stuck in this airport for over 6 hours... sadly I wasn't able to check-in early for my connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur (not too impressed with Air Asia who had guaranteed I was able to check in 6 hours prior to the departure time) so I had been stuck in the public area of the airport for the past three hours doing not much... FYI all the happening shops, internet access etc are in the transit malls and there isn't all that much in the departures and arrivals halls. I did manage to find a familiar icon - McDonalds where I was able to veg out for a while!

Anyway back to my travelling... the photos will have to be uploaded another time. Due to my time with the internet access here, I won't be able to go into great details... but here are my highlights for London:
- Tate Modern... wow what an amazing museum, and I was able to check out the Mark Rothko exhibition... the printed calendars don't do the paintings any justice.
- Regent Street... fabulous shops
- Catching up with Kate, Wendy, Shak, Vicky and Pete... some of these people I hadn't seen since we finished high school!
- Sightseeing London at night... courtesy of Wendy hiring a Street Car and driving Kate and I around town at night so I could have a look at all the touristy landmarks.

My Paris highlight:
- Walking around Paris city with Pete... this guy insisted on walking everywhere... my poor legs! haha
- Having to use my super rusty French... I often answered in Spanish, then had to correct myself... I reckon had I had a few more days, my French may have gotten a little better.
- Macaroons... different colours and sizes!!!! love love love them.
- The Louvre... need I say more?!
- Crepes... yummo and they are everywhere!!!
- Other touristy things I was able to check out... Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Champs D'Elysee, Notre Dame, Place de la Concorde, Invalids, Marais, Bastille...
- Tartiflette... a cheesy potato bake type dish... totally delicious and extremely filling!

My Hong Kong highlights:
- Kim, Michael and I wrote a list of the things to eat in HK... and remember that list I made in a previous post?... anyway I managed to go through the list bar 2 items (siu mai and dun lai), and even added more to the list.
- So basically I ate, ate and ate... so awesome, but need some serious detoxing now.
- Caught up with lots of people and some of them I hadn't seen in absolutely ages, so it was lovely seeing them.
- Shopping... my lovely ex-colleague Lettie even took 1 1/2 days to hang out with me and we did some serious shopping around Kowloon (plus lots of crazy eating)... the shopping was so crazy that I had to buy a big packing box from the post office and I managed to fill it completely. Lettie and her husband even came over to where I was staying to pick up the box so they could post it out for me next week!!!
- My night out with the rugby girls... started out at the football club... ended in Lan Kwai... all i can say is jelly shots are not choice of poison.

Alright this connection is about to expire so I better finish up now. I can't believe that I've been away from Perth for five weeks... and two more to go. It's been so much fun... but I do miss home at times :)