JanCol 1.0

Auckland and Papeete

2009-06-20T19:13:00.001-07:00

When we purchased our airline tickets, we got two stopovers thrown in. We decided that a stop in Auckland might be interesting. Originally, we thought we would tour around the northern part of the island, but we had done so much touring already that we decided to just stay put and enjoy what Auckland had to offer. There is a nice harbour area here and our hotel/apartment was in the centre of things. We walked all around the area, visited some parks, did some shopping, went to "My Fair Lady", visited an aquarium, and took some ferry boat rides to other areas nearby. We didn't go up the Tower below and if you look really closely, just below the rim is a speck. That speck is someone who paid to jump off the tower. They pay to do this????!!!!

The downtown harbour area and the container port.

We visited a volcanic island that was relatively new - 400 years old. There are
guided tours and very strict rules about what you can do over there. The last
boat back to Auckland leaves at 4:30 and if you miss it, you spend the night
there all by yourself. Nobody lives on the island. We saw a lot of this
volcanic rock. Check out the video at the end of the blog.

Then we had the opportunity to go to Kelly Tarleton's Aquarium. Here , we saw penguins in a pretty interesting enclosure. They did not seem very stressed at all. Some of the pictures I took while travelling past their habitat in a snow machine. There also was an historical museum of the trips taken by explorers to Antarctica. It was a very educational and fun experience.

Oh!!! Penguins.

It is real snow and the temperature is kept at a level where
the penguins do not have any stress.

These penguins are lying on the snow in order to keep cool.

Mark, one of the handlers, feeding the penguins. They are marked so
that the handlers make sure they all eat and are given their
vitamins as well.

In the aquarium section, you can walk down a glass tunnel
and see all the fish swimming above and around you.

See. Horses.

Here is the view again of Auckland from the settlement called
Devenport. It is a small suburb of the city. Very laid-back. We
walked up this hill which was used as a site for the defense forces
during the war. There are bunkers all around and a very interesting
interactive video in the museum.

Then, it was off to our second stop-over, Papeete, in French Polynesia. We decided that we could splurge and stay in a nice resort on a black sand beach.

The sand was black, but very fine and it got very warm in the sun.

Sunset from our balcony at the resort.

We went for a walk up a mountain road that went behind our resort.
Here is the picture. I never took pictures of the papaya trees or
the banana trees which were growing in the woods. We had
a fresh papaya that had fallen off the tree. Very ripe, very sweet and
very good.

Our resort is just around the bend of rock where this guy is standing.
The next picture would be of him in the water. He and his buddy
were jumping off the cliff when the waves would come in. Notice the large rocks.

This is the garden area of the City Hall of Papeete. You can
also see other parts of the city behind.

You can sure see the French influence here.

How many Bip Bip Burger Joints have you seen? An interesting name.

Paul Gaugin, the French painter, moved from France to Papeete.
We never made it to the museum honouring him, but he
is honoured(?) in many other ways as well.

Here is the downtown market. We went here and bought fresh fruit
and snacks and lunch both days we visited. It is a very busy place
when the Paul Gaugin cruise ship is in town, also more expensive.

Fresh tuna steak anyone? Arone would love to visit this store.

Another honour for M. Gaugin.

Footprints in the black sand.

This was our last picture taken in Tahiti. This is the pool area
at sunset.

So our trip was done. 2 months away from home. Mountains, wildfires, animals, great friends, driving on the other side of the road, multiple modes of transport, almost 4,000 pictures. Great memories and a knowledge that we will have to get back there.

Volcanic rocks and more volcanic rocks

Penguins (sorry, no audio)

Our beach and the waves

Bondi Beach and Sydney

2009-06-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

Bondi Beach. This was our first view of the beach as we arrived back from the airport and a quick visit to the city. Of course, this is the beach which had the sightings and munching of a couple of sharks. We didn't see any.

This was Greg's favourite poem recitation throughout our trip.

The skyline of Sydney.

How many tourists have this picture? I think I have at least ten different views.

The view of downtown from the path of our short 10 km walk.

the pathway. Sometimes, it was a very gentle walk, at other times,
we had to climb up over rocks. Of course, the temperature was in
the low 30's.

A very modern toilet at the end of the walk. Music played, there were directions,
and warnings as to when the door would be opening. No long visits here.

View of the Harbour Bridge from our ferry ride from Manly Pier.

From our balcony, we could see a bit of Bondi Beach.

Sunset of Sydney from our balcony.

We saw a lot of school kids on trips during our holiday. Note the uniforms
for these students. All elementary students must wear a hat.

It is possible to climb on the harbour Bridge. Two of the people on our
Outback tour had done this: Mats and Annamieke. Just walking across the
bridge was enough for me.

Check out the disappearing staircase.

In the downtown area, we visited a Chinese Garden to refresh our memories of our last trip together.

This kookaburra was sitting in a tree right beside us.

We saw this same pattern in a garden in Suzhou.

In the downtown harbour, these aboriginals were entertaining the crowd.
If you bought a CD, they would pose for a picture. The music is
a mixture of traditional music with some techno as well. Quite different.

Pools are built right into the cliffs in some beach communities.
The water is from the ocean, not heated.

Fishing from the rocks. The waves broke right at his feet.

A sports competition for young wanna-be lifeguards. They have
classes and competitions all the time. It becomes a great desired job.

Can you imagine having a beach house here and just walking down
and snorkeling every day? A retirement dream.

Of course, I always run into volleyball whenever I travel. There
was a small tournament going on during our 3 beach walk.

Check out the name of this restaurant.

This is the last picture I am posting of Australia. We said goodbye to Greg and Marilyn that night and then headed off to Auckland. I did make up a collection of our better pictures into a DVD movie that lasts over 4 hours. Any time you are really bored, contact me and you can borrow them. I bet I have no takers. Oh well, they are just for us to reminisce about another great holiday.

2009-06-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

After our short stop in Alice Springs, we were off to Brisbane. Only spent enough time there to pick up our rental car and off to Coolangata on the Gold Coast. We were looking forward to spending a week on the beach with a bit more luxury than our trip to the Outback. Our resort was right on the beach and we were on the 12th floor with two balconies, one was wrap-around. We had views of the ocean and the mountains.

This was the view from our balcony. There was a market
in the park on Sunday. We spent some time there and then
walked to the beach and suntanned(burned, just a bit)

We did a bit of touring the next day to the interior rain forest and some
mountain areas. We went to a cave where we saw some bats.

On the Monday through to Thursday, there was an international
surfing competition at our beach. There were great waves due to the Cyclone off shore
and the competition was quite good. It was won by a local surfer. People were
quite pleased with that. We didn't have to go down to the beach, we could
watch everything from our balcony.

Footprints in the sand.

During one of our walks, we came upon a lot of surfers enjoying
the waves.

The walk would take us about one hour and we climbed up and
down the coast and had great panoramas.

This is a view of the small urban area looking inland. We climbed up
a small lookout which we could see from our room.

On our way to Sydney, we stopped at a few places that Marilyn had suggested.
This was the lighthouse at Byron Bay. From here, we saw a huge pod
of dolphins frolicking in the waves.

The beach view in the other direction from Byron Bay lighthouse.
Very few people on this beach.

It was a bit windy, but very warm and Jannose wanted to try
her flying skills.

A seafood restaurant at Nelson Bay. No people lined up, but there were
some birds waiting to eat.

We went on a dolphin watching cruise on a catamaran. We
saw a few of them, but the greatest part was just hanging out
enjoying the silence as we sailed out in the harbour area.
Very relaxing as you can see from the picture below.

That night we went down to the harbour again and waited for the
sunset. This was just one of the twenty pictures that Jannose
took during the 5 minute period.

So, this was the end of our little mini-adventure from Adelaide to Sydney. We had landed in Sydney and Greg and Marilyn had picked us up and we had headed for the Blue Mountains and eventually, Melbourne. We were headed back to Sydney and so were they to meet us for our last five days in Australia. It was a bit sad for us to realize that our time in Australia was winding down. But we had five days in Bondi Beach to look forward to with our friends. Good times!!!!

The Outback

2009-06-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

Ayers Rock or Uluru, as the Aboriginals call it. I think this looks like an advertisement for the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

It rains rarely in the Center. But, guess what? It poured on this day, our early visit to Uluru to see the sun rise. NOT! We walked all around the rock and the rain started about halfway. Most everyone who was not prepared got soaked. And note, there is no where for the water to go. It just flows down the rock and over the path. Annamieke, a girl from Holland, has a video of the people who were watching a lovely waterfall which turned into a mini flood. They are running away like in a movie.

Notice the water running off the rocks in these two pictures.

But then the sun came out, and it was a glorious day. So nice to be a tourist when the weather cooperates.

This was our little group of Adventurers. We came from all over the world.

This was our last campsite near Kings Canyon. It looks nice during the sunny day, but at night, it was very dark here, with washrooms and showers which were not very nice.

Note the bug hats and netting. Some people braved the bugs, but not I.

Off to the hike at King's Canyon. Again, another early start due to the heat and a very tortuous climb to start with. But the views were outstanding.

Watch out for the cliff. As they say in China, 'no climbing over'.

The canyon has some very interesting drop offs. I stayed quite far away from them.

This is as far as I am going.

Sometimes, we were reminded of the Grand Canyon.

We walked to a small swimming hole where a few brave souls went swimming. They said that the water was surprisingly warm.

We got to one point where you could lie down on the cliff face and look over the edge. This was as close as I got. I couldn't even let Jannose join the group looking over the edge.

Then, we arrived in Alice Springs. We climbed up a small hill which had a panoramic view of the town. This was the end of our tour with the group. We saw a lot of them while wandering the streets of Alice.

Thought that this was an interesting name for a day care facility in the area.

Outback-Here we come!!

2009-05-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

Up at 5:00 am in order to be ready for pickup at 6:15 to go on our Outback Tour. After 20 minutes, we were at their head office and were put onto a coach with 22 other people. 24 tourists from all over the world and an Aussie driver/guide jammed pretty tightly into this coach. Left the office about 30 minutes late heading for our first stop, Quorn. this was to be our base for two nights. This interesting little town has been the set for many different movies. It truly was a western, outback town.

At one of our short breaks, we came upon this Aussie Mobile Home.
I don't think this is what Greg and Marilyn are looking
to buy this year, but I bet it could be bought for just a few dollars.

This saying became the motto for the next six days, as we walked up
mountains and into valleys and around rock formations.

Here are the movies that were set in the area. My favourite
is Gallipoli.

Up early the next morning, and off to the Flinders Ranges. I don't like
heights and this was quite a climb. I tried to get the perspective in this
picture. It was a safe climb but just a bit unnerving.

Are we there yet????

Look closely and you can see some of the group hidden in
the trees. Another group staying at our motel were up at 4:30
so that they could be at the top for the sunrise. Lucky them?!

Finally, we got to the top.

Our kids would never believe I would do something like this.
But, it was fantastic. Everybody encouraged everyone else to make it
to the top. We had snacks and then, headed back down.

Mats(from Sweden) and I pointing out from where we came and trying to
find the Ranger Station at the bottom.

I took this picture in the gift shop. This is Willopeda Pound,
the mountain that we climbed.

Lunch time after the climb. We were all quite hungry.
On this tour, we prepared, as a group, all the meals.
It was interesting to have barbecue/picnic areas like this
wherever people traveled. There was free propane as well for
cooking. We mostly ate sandwiches and salads for lunch. Evo made
sure that the three vegetarians had enough to eat.

We climbed up this stairway to see some cave drawings done
by the Aboriginals in this area.

While driving on to Coober Pedy, we came across this salt lake.
We stopped and got to walk out and check it out.

The salt is collected and then used. There were piles all around the shoreline.

We managed to make it to Coober Pedy. This town is the site of an opal mine. The temperature when we arrived was 45 degrees and it was very windy. This is normal for this area. Nearly 70 percent of the population live underground. They don't need air conditioning for that reason. The population is around 8,000. Tourists come to this area to see the mines and buy some opals, which we did. There are some hostels and hotels and B&B's here, but most are underground.

This is a view of the downtown area from the hill above our hotel.
The fronts of the houses behind the last street hide the underground
house just bored into the hill. The people who bore out their houses
get to keep whatever opals they find while expanding their homes.
For that reason, some of these underground homes are quite large.

We are on top of some one's house looking over the town.

This was our underground hotel room.

After the long day, some of the group played pool in
the bar area, also underground.

Making lunch on the way to the Olgas. The emu was hungry.
Do you see the lovely fly screens we were forced to wear
in order to keep the flies off our faces. There were a real pain sometimes.

The emu just kept on searching for a piece of bread or some fruit.
He was very persistent. He sneaked up on Jannose and Mathieu
one time and almost grabbed something right off her plate.

We finally arrived to the Olgas. This formation is similar to Ayers Rock, but much smaller.

An interesting night picture from near our campsite near the Olgas.
This was our first camping experience. We slept four to a tent; we shared with a
couple from England. they were a bit older than us, but were experienced
with this type of tour. We were coping, but were realizing
that this type of tour was not really for us.
BUT, THE SCENERY WAS AMAZING. AYERS ROCK WAS NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last few days before the Outback

2009-05-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

As I said in the last post, we decided to fly to Adelaide rather than drive. Saved some time and flights are so cheap on their discount airlines. We rented a car and headed off the the Barasso Valley, a large wine area east of Adelaide. We stayed in a small German town called Hahndorf. We had a couple of nice meals here and walked around the town looking at some of the arts and crafts from the area. We visited some small museums and galleries. The people here were very friendly and loved to talk about their town and area. We had a very nice time here but it was very quick.

This was the highway into Hahndorf.

The German Arms Hotel where we had our evening meal.

We went up a mountain outside of Adelaide close to Hahndorf and
had views of Adelaide and a resort town called Glenelg. You can take
a train from Adelaide to get here. It is a very happening place
during the summer. There are some very large hotels/resorts
with a lot of restaurants along the beach.

We headed to the east and visited Victor Harbour and Granite
Island. We walked along this causeway out to the island
and then did a circle walk around the island. Penguins roost
here and come up at night from fishing all day. We weren't able to
stay for that event, but, from the picture below, you can see that
they are the stars of the event.

We spent the night in Glenelg and went down to the beach to
take a sunset picture on the southwest coast of Australia. This
was probably the best of the 12 pictures that we took.

The next day, we headed off to Adelaide. Marilyn had told us about this castle/home built in Adelaide. It is called Carrick Hill. The very rich owner of the home had it built for him and his wife from the bricks and interior panels and wood staircases, etc. from a castle that was being demolished in England. They visited the castle while on their year-long honeymoon and loved it so much that they had them take most of the items from the castle and ship everything to Adelaide. It took most of two years to build it. We had a personal tour of the castle. Unfortunately, pictures cannot be taken inside. We had to be content with pictures of the grounds.

So, now, we're in Adelaide. We had to check in to our hotel and then return the rental car. We picked a hotel close to downtown because our Outback Tour pickup needed to be from downtown. Did I say that I hated driving in big cities? What a crazy time!!!

Once we got rid of the car, we went walking. A small shopping
centre in downtown Adelaide.

We went for a long walk and came upon a pedestrian mall near our
hotel. Had to take a picture of this sculpture and Jannose's
favourite animal.

We visited the University downtown and went into the Public Library.
The three levels here are filled with little nooks and crannies with
old and new volumes on shelves all the way to the ceiling.
Pictures with my camera don't do it justice.

We took this picture just before the Fringe Parade. You can see people sitting
by the side of the road, waiting. Notice the walking billboard in the crosswalk.
We stayed for the parade and saw some quite interesting characters.
Then, it was off to our hotel for a relatively early evening as
we were then off to the Outback.

Back in Melbourne

2009-05-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

Marilyn picked us up at the airport and we went back to our B&B&L&D at their house in Berwick, a suburb of Melbourne. It was so nice to be able to sit and relax in one place for a while. Of course, there were plans to go south to a national park and see penguins and other things. Unfortunately, the fires were now down in that area and it was closed to all traffic. So, we decided to do some touring around Melbourne and go down the Great Ocean Road.

Greg and Marilyn's home. Note how dry everything is. The
drought conditions sure helped bring about the wildfires.

One of the greatest things about touring around the area was that we
did it in Greg's Mustang convertible. No wind problems in the
front seats, but the people in the back got a bit wind-blown.
We drew a lot of looks as we cruised around and many pictures were
taken by a lot of others. Greg's car has appeared in commercials throughout
Australia.

We traveled down to the harbour entrance to look at
the fortifications built for protection during the wars.

Home for rent. Great views! Quiet tenants downstairs.

This is the entrance to the Great Ocean Road. it was built
by the soldiers who returned from the First World War.

Many tourists drive on this road. This was the very first
time we ever saw reminders as to which side of the road to drive.

We stopped at a Caravan Park to see the parrots and Koalas.

This was probably the closest we ever got to one.

This is some of the Western Coast of Australia. The Great Ocean
Road follows along for many miles and the views are breathtaking.
My pictures do not do the views justice.

We climbed up a small mountain/hill near Appollo Bay for these views.
Heath went here the next weekend for a bike touring race.

Here are a couple of views of the Twelve Apostles, some rock formations off
the coast.

Then, we were off to an area called the Grampions. There had been fires in this area about 6 years ago. Before our climb, we stopped at a small coffee shop which also sold Port and souvenirs.

Would you drink this stuff? Read the label closely.

A couple of views from Boroka Lookout and the Grampion Mountains.

Back in Melbourne, we did a day tour of the Market and the downtown area.
It's a good thing that Greg was driving.

Old and New. The original train station, still in use today and
the skyscrapers behind. This is the view from Federation Square.

Some of the buildings we saw during our drive and of course, the Ute.
(Australia's answer to Alberta's pickups)

On our last Sunday in Melbourne, Greg and Marilyn set up a tour for us to go to the wine area and to see the devestation caused by the fires. We traveled with four other couples. People in the wineries were very happy to start seeing tourists as the fires had stopped many visitors from showing up and buying their products. Some of the pictures below show a bit of the damage caused by the fires. Of course, some of the vinters had not picked their grapes yet and were a bit worried as to whether or not, the wine would have a smoky smell/taste. They wouldn't know until the next year.

Jannose saw this in one of the winery shops.
She made me take a picture of it.

Because Greg had already driven us down the Ocean Road, we decided that we could fly to Adelaide rather than drive. We would then rent a car for a few days and then catch up with our tour to the Outback. On our way to the airport, Marilyn brought us to a new Botanical Garden devoted totally to Indigenous plants of Australia. Below are a couple of the pictures that I took.

Then, on to a plane and off to Adelaide and then the Outback.

Tasmania Part 2

2009-05-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Tasmania, what a great place!! The next time we visit this part of the world, we will spend at least two weeks on this small island. There is so much history here, the scenery is wonderful and the people that we met were so friendly and helpful.

Here are some remnants of the first penal colony
on Sarah Island up the Gordon River. For a great read, try the book
"For the Term of His Natural Life" by Marcus Clarke.
The book chronicles the life of a prisoner sent to this area.

Sunset on the Gordon River.

You can take a little train trip on this steam train to Queenstown.

We climbed a viewpoint in Strahan for a view of the Harbour.

We also did a Rain forest walk in Strahan and came upon this waterfall.

This is the twisting, switchback road out of Queenstown heading towards Hobart.

We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast in Hobart. this is the view from
their deck.

Triathlon Australia were putting on a triathlon
which started and finished in Hobart harbour.

We went to the large Market in the Harbour area. Many, many things for sale here.

We found some walking tours in some brochures. This one
took us to old Hobart town to view some of the original
homes in the area.

We seemed to always be going to viewpoints. This is atop Mount Wellington.
The drive was quite interesting; more hairpin turns and no shoulders--oh, well,
I was feeling more confident in my driving.
Doesn't this telecommunications tower look like a missile?

When we got to the top, the clouds rolled in, but then
disappeared almost as quickly. Here is the view of Hobart.
Our B&B is on the small peninsula, near the centre of the photo.

Then we were off to Port Arthur for the day. This town was set up for those convicts who tried to escape from the other prisons in Australia.

This is a depiction of what the settlement looked like in its prime.
The government of Tasmania was not very proud of this
part of their history and tried to let the past disappear. But the
people of the area started to promote the area as a tourist site
and soon, the government realized that it was an important part of
their heritage. Port Arthur could take up one whole day visit. Very
interesting place.

Above is one of the isolation cells which were used
for prisoners who caused trouble.

This is the prison block with the normal cells.

This tourist destination also has fishing in the area. This young girl
is posing beside her tuna that she caught off the boat. -18.5 kilos

That is a lot of sushi.

A view of the Tasman Bridge linking the two parts of Hobart. We
travelled over the bridge a few times, although, the first time, Greg's
GPS had us swimming in the water. The bridge actually did collapse during
it's construction.

On our last day in Tasmania, we visited the Botanical Gardens. It
was a wonderful stop and we left Tasmania with some very good pictures
combined with relaxation.

Tasmania

2009-04-30T21:13:00.001-07:00

We did lots of walking and then decided to do some more driving. Marilyn had told us about the small village of Ross. We arrived and parked in front of an old hotel and walked around the village. One of the places we came to was an old female prison area. We could walk in some buildings. Notice how worn the steps are.

On the outskirts of town was another bridge, built by the convicts.
Their sentence in Australia was not an easy one.

Interestingly enough, at our stop in Launceston, we stayed at
the Ross Bakery Inn. Below is a stairway in the front lobby.
Many ovens and reminders of the bakery are visible. We stayed in the
family suite above the stable.

We were very much in the centre of town and so we walked
to the Gorge walkway. It was very well developed so as not to be
too strenuous.

There was a suspension bridge there as well.

It is also the site of the longest single span chairlift.

Here is the exterior view of the Ross Bakery Inn Hotel.

We came upon this little lizard without a tail. They will
leave their tail behind if confronted by a predator in hopes
the predator will go after the tail rather than the lizard.

On a walk around Dove Lake in the Cradle Mountain National
Park, we came upon a beautiful rainbow. The short walk here
was only 6 kilometers. It's amazing that we gained weight
on the trip.

We had a hitch hiker on our trip. Look closely at the taillight and
you will see a huge spider. Theranger said that it wasn't poisonous but it
sure was big. I hated the show 'Arachnophobia".

We did get to see a live wombat in this park as well. This
guy was not worried about Jannose walking up close to him to take
the picture.

Jannose also took this picture of the baby Wallaby.

We went to a Tamanian Devil Interpretative centre. We found out a
lot of information about them. They look very cute and huggable as long
as it's not feeding time or you infiltrate their space.

Then you get this reaction.

In Strahan, we went for a little snack and of course, had to buy
this Ginger Beer.

It went well with these all-dressed fish burgers. They contained:
a fried egg, pickled beets, fried onions, pickles, lettuce, tomato, cheese, pineapple.
I forced myself to eat it all. And then, we headed on a boat cruise
up the Gordon River. I bought a CD of some local musicians containing
stories and songs about the river.

Before going up the river, we made a dash out of the harbour to
the ocean. The captain wanted us to see how difficult it was to enter the
harbour. That's why I took this picture. We were on a twin
Catamaran so the ride was very smooth.

We came upon these circular traps. They are used for raising(farming)
salmon. Tasmania is noted for its salmon. I didn't realize it was farmed.
We had it on the buffet on the boat tour and it was fantastic. In the lower picture, the
salmon are being fed. One of our guides used to work on the salmon
farms and said that it was very difficult work. There were about 10 circular
nets just in this area alone.

Melbourne to Tasmania

2009-04-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Melbourne. We were very happy to get to Greg and Marilyn's house so we could relax before our trip to Tasmania. I was going to be driving and was a bit tense about that. I practised a bit because I followed Greg to the rental company to drop off our rental. He said that I was always a bit to the left as I drove. How did he know my political beliefs?
It was very hot in Melbourne. It was going to be almost 40 degrees the next day (Feb. 7) so we planned to stay inside out of the heat for the whole day. Their son, Heath, was coming over that evening for a BBQ. We put on some old videos and did some computer stuff. We closed the drapes and exterior awnings to try and keep it cool in the house. When Heath arrived, he said there were some fires very close by. We went outside and saw a lot of smoke. There were fires within 1 and a 1/2 kilometers of the house over the hill. We could see the helicopters flying back and forth dropping water on the fires. Greg decided that we had better get ready to evacuate. I was going to have to drive his Mustang, Jannose would drive the Subaru, Marilyn the Ute, and Greg the truck with his equipment loaded on it. We repacked our suitcases, Marilyn grabbed papers and photos and everything was at the front door. The winds reversed the fire upon itself and we were safe. We then had supper(tea) and then I let the boys know that we were okay. I didn't take into account the media portrayal of the fire, the thirsty koala and bodies in the street. They contacted External Affairs to find out where we were and if they could collect the insurance money already. We were already in Tasmania by that time, a long way from the fires. We did travel by that area 9 days later and saw the destruction.

This is the view from the back yard and if you look closely, you
can see the helicopter directly in the middle, just above the tree, in all the smoke.
It was a scary time for all of us.

On Sunday, we took the train into Melbourne and met Shaun and
Rebecca, two transplanted Brits that we had met last year
in Bangkok. They met us in Federation Square in downtown
Melbourne. We went to an artist market and then walked
around the area before taking a boat trip down the river.

An interesting bridge.

Do we have clearance, Clarence?

Melbourne also has a super-size Ferris Wheel. Unfortunately,
the architects didn't take into account the extreme heat and some
of the steel has warped. Not being used now for a while or perhaps
forever. The locals joke about it as a circular mass of scrap metal.

A couple of very interesting bridges.

This is the entry to the downtown Casino. Honest, the
walkway is flat.

This is the home of Aussie Rules Football in Melbourne.
Unfortunately, the grass doesn't get enough natural light to
grow so they have to use these artificial lights to encourage
growth. Greg's favourite team plays out of here. They have tailgate
parties just like we do in Western Canada.

A picture taken as we are driving for the first time in Tasmania.
Jannose took this picture as I am driving. Do you see the
large shoulder for each lane? Me neither. Sometimes, I even drove
on roads that had no center line. After three days of driving
like this, Jannose ended up needing some chiropractic care.

Our first stop in Tasmania was a town called Bicheno.
We went down to the ocean to check out this blowhole and it was there we saw our
first penguin(below). this baby had been abandoned by
its parents and had spent the day on the beach access. We hoped that it would be gone by the
next day.

Bicheno was a whaling town and we climbed this small mountain
called Whaler's Lookout for views of the area.

The next day, we headed to a National Park. While walking to
the beach, we passed these pine trees. We thought that the
water on the needles looked kind of neat.

You won't see these signs in Canada.

Three views of the ocean area from the Coles Bay Lighthouse.

We found a few wallabies in the parking lot.

Then, we climbed up and over a mountain in order to see
Wineglass Bay. We could have walked another 2km to get to
the beach. Didn't.

This is the viewpoint of Wineglass Bay. Check out the size of these
rocks. It was a great climb to get up there and the views
were worth it.

It seemed that we saw fantastic things around every corner in Tasmania. We spent one week here but it wasn't nearly enough. Next time, we spend two weeks here.

To the ocean and Melbourne

2009-04-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

We spent three days touring the Blue Mountains and Canberra. then we headed towards the ocean. The temperature has been hovering around the 30 degree mark ever since we landed in Sydney. We are getting used to driving on the other side of the road but still need to pay attention when crossing streets.

This was our first view of the ocean as we came from Canberra.

We are table # 8. Where is table #9? In all small cafes, you
order and pay at the kitchen area, they give you a number and
then deliver the meal to you.

Mussels, anyone?

This is the front lobby of a small hotel we visited. It was originally
built as a house for a rich sawmill owner. He went broke and eventually, it
became a very posh hotel. They have a private beach and beautiful grounds.

Ever been doing something, and you have an audience
paying very close attention to what you do? The guys cleaning
the fish feel like they can't go fast enough to keep
the birds happy.

Saw this caravan parked by the pier. Had to take a picture:
Memorial colours, Eskimo colours and Australia colours.

This was our first close-up view of Kangaroos. It was on a golf course
at Mallacoota. As they were really close, somebody took
about 15 pictures. Here is one of them. Later, we came to the golf course
restaurant for dinner, and found almost 20 of them eating their
dinner on the fringe of the 18 th green. They are very used to
golfers and allowed us to walk to within ten feet of them. Greg took
a picture of us and it may soon appear as our new picture for the blog.

Then, we went to the docks and watched some sport fishermen
come in with their catch of 'flathead'. This is a very popular fish
for fish and chip dinners.

The next day, we went to an underground cave. Here are a couple of
pictures of that experience. The best thing was that the temperature
in the cave was around 15 degrees, not the 37 outside.

As we continued our drive towards Melbourne, we drove through some
farming area that reminded us of the Okanagan. Note how dry
the area is.

At Lakes Entrance, we visited the beach. Very few people at the beach.
This guy had been there with his two boys and their dog.

Our first view of a koala. We kept calling them koala bears.
They are not really appreciated too much by the people here
because they strip these gum trees of their leaves and can kill them.
They also get drunk from the eucalyptus oil and get noisy
and sometimes fall out of the trees. In order to help them from
falling out of the trees, they have very sharp claws in their paws
which they use to keep in contact with the tree. but, sometimes, they fall
asleep(get drunk) and fall out of the tree.

There...Have I spoiled your view of koala now?

This was one of our last stops before we arrived in Melbourne. We arrived in Berwick, Greg and Marilyn's subdivision, on February 6. We would spend a couple of days with them there, see some sights in the area and then head off to Tasmania. Were we in for a surprise.....

Mountain climbing again?

2009-04-28T21:03:00.001-07:00

Day 2: Let's climb another mountain. but this time, we'll take a chairlift up to Mount Kosciuszko. This is the highest mountain in Australia. We took the chairlift to the top and then walked to the lookout. It was a 5 km walk. Piece of cake. This was our first experience with the flies. They were all over. They weren't too much in our faces, but sure liked to sit on the shirt of our warm backs. Never got a picture.

The walkway to the lookout and summit is nicely developed so you are
not walking on the grass and hurting the environment. Of course, a
large section uses metal grates and we were told that the path
closes down if it starts to rain as they get very slippery.

Have water bottles, will travel. Are we having fun yet?

The path seems to go forever.

Views of the top of the mountain.

I tried to take some artistic shots and so it took a lot of time
to set them up. I don't think any of the group
realized I did that just to catch my breath.

Descending into the mist.

Possible head-on collision? Bikers ride up on the chair and
then ride down the mountain.

No collision. He made it and before us.

Echidna by the side of the road. He has these sharp quills
but doesn't launch them like a porcupine, they just
make it hard for predators to attack them.

Stopped for a lime and bitters at his little pub. You can
see the regulars on the left.

But then the police arrived. We told them we weren't drinking.
They might have been surprised because that was
why they stopped.

Dead wombat on the road. We saw a lot of road kill -- kangaroos,
wallabies, wombats, echidna. But we did see all of the above
live as well.

Two months down under

2009-04-26T20:13:00.001-07:00

G'day mates. If you have been a follower of our blog, you know that on our last trip before retirement, Jannose and I went on a cruise to Alaska. On the ship, we met a couple from Australia, Greg and Marilyn. We had lots in common. The 7 days on the cruise went by very quickly and before we said goodbye, we said we would meet up again.

Well, that happened in China last year. They joined up with us for the three week portion of our China tour. At the end of that tour, they asked when we were coming to Australia. We said one day.

Well, after being home for about three weeks, we started thinking that, perhaps a visit to Australia might as well take place as soon as possible. We contacted them. they were a bit surprised but Marilyn was excited enough to start helping us out with the planning. We got a flight via Air Tahiti Nui which gave us two extra stops with our ticket. That meant that we could go to Auckland and Papeete. But I digress.

We flew into Sydney. That was a bit of a problem as Greg and Marilyn live in Melbourne. but we thought we would just catch a connector flight and they could pick us up at the airport. Didn't happen. They flew up to Sydney, rented a vehicle and we did a six day tour travelling from Sydney to Melbourne. We have picked out some pictures to give you a chance to see a bit of the country. By the way, two months isn't even close enough to see half the country.
First stop were the Blue Mountains and then Canberra, the capital.

A view of the Blue Mountains. The blue haze in the sky
comes from the Eucalyptus trees there.

A waterfall near the top of the cliff area.

This is the walkway that one uses to make the
10 kilometer trek from one side to the other.

You had to go down to the bottom of the valley
in order to traverse the valley and climb up the other side.

We weren't able to do the whole thing. A combination of the heat,
our first day after a 17 hour flight, and excitement did us in.

The Three Sisters. We have a Three Sisters Mountain
area near Canmore. This was much steeper.

Next, we headed up to a forest area and came upon the

first bridge built by convicts in Australia. (1833)

Then it was off to Canberra, the capital city. Our first stop was the War Museum. What a fantastic place!! Marilyn was a great tour guide and planner.

If you have seen the movie Gallipoli, you will recognize this sculpture.
The Aussies believe that it was this battle which helped
to give them recognition by Britain.
Sound familiar with regards to Vimy Ridge?

A Wall of Remembrance with names of soldiers and poppies.
Notice how different they are around the world.

In 1927, Will Longstaff, an artist, was at the Menin Gate Ceremony which we
attended on our last school trip. He was so taken by the ceremony
that he did this painting to commemorate the event. All around
the Arch are the helmeted spirits of the soldiers whose names are on
the walls.

The Last Post to close the Museum every day.

We then went to a huge tower which overlooked the city to get an idea of the structure of Canberra. The city was planned with separate sectors and lots of green space.

Then, it was off to Government House for a tour and self-guided visit of the grounds.

Here is the Legislative Chamber where elected members sit. The
Prime Minister and his Cabinet sit on the left side on the
green bench. When they speak, they get up and walk to the
podium on the large table in front. No hiding behind desks.

This is the Senate Chamber.

The Rotunda of this building. Beautiful.

The flag of Australia on top of this structure. Greg needs
a bit more fibre in his diet.

Off to a museum of Australian History. Interesting sculptures at the entrance.

The first car made in Australia, the Holden. One of my rental cars was
an '08 Holden, 50th anniversary vehicle.

China Transport

2008-12-19T13:56:00.001-08:00

China is a huge country. We were exposed to so many modes of transport here. I have taken a few of the pictures that illustrate this theme. Of course, the one method of transport which showed us so much more of the country was through walking. We walked through parks, through the downtown areas, in small villages, around the Terra Cotta warriors, and, of course, on the Great Wall. What an experience!!!! We had a great time on this retirement trip. I hope you enjoy the pictures. They are not in any real order.

This is one of the original trams for the Victoria Peak Tramway.

We rode on one of these electric double decker buses. They were very popular with great views.

Not much clearance.

Would not want to drive here. Many special lanes just for transit and lots of pedestrians.

This was our double decker bus. Got to sit up front at the top, eventually.

Vehicles and traffic in Hong Kong.

It is possible to take this tram from one part of Hong Kong to the other. Unfortunately for us, we were there during a typhoon and it was unsafe to use it for the time we were there. We will just have to go back.

The bamboo poles are used in construction for scaffolding.

There are many inter island ferries in Hong Kong harbour.

This is the cruise ship terminal with a Star Cruises ship in port.

The tram coming into the Victoria Peak Station in Hong Kong.

Some of the fishing boats in Hong Kong harbour.

We took a double decker bus up this road to Victoria Peak.

Here are some spare tires headed off for recycling somewhere.

We travelled down some canals in Suzhuo in this little junque.

Someone else's transportation in the small river village.

Sometimes, you just walk to work with your produce. Note all the bicycle traffic here.

Our coach driver parked here and caused a bit of a traffic jam and there was almost a fight between the female driver of the car and our driver. She wanted to take him on.

Junques in the Hong Kong harbour.

If you only have a little bit of merchandise to move, just load it onto the back of your bike and head to the shop.

Waiting in the locks to get through the Three Gorges Dam.

Another cruise ship company's boat. They are called Dragon Boat Cruises.

This was our River Cruise Ship.

When you have a lot of rivers around, your transportation reflects that.

We had a ride on these boats up a tributary of the Yangtze. When we came to rapids and shallow water, the crew got out and pulled the boats against the current upstream

We saw some pretty nice-looking cars on the roads. Always, lots of traffic.

Check out all the different modes of transport here.

Oops! Have to get that tire repaired. Just leave the vehicle here and come back later.

This was our shuttle back and forth to the airport in Bejing when our flight was delayed.

Who needs a transport truck??

Some of the people on our boat tour took this chairlift up to the top of Ghost City.

Light Rail Transit in Chongquing.

Had to take this picture of a jeep at the American Museum in Chongquing.

You can see some of the different river cruise boats lined up to start the Yangtze River Cruise.

Similar to the Tuk-Tuks of Thailand.

We never rode in this three wheel truck. It was parked in a lot by a very untidy hotel we were shuttled to because of a flight delay.

A rickshaw tour of the original area of Beijing.

Bicycles and cars sharing the road.

We had a little boat ride on the lake by the Winter Palace.

You could also rent little boats and paddle boats here.

Travel in Singapore and Thailand

2008-12-18T18:51:00.000-08:00

The Beach Boy's song summarizes quite well our transportation while on tour. We didn't use all of these modes of transport, but you might enjoy seeing how people in Singapore and Thailand travel.

A floating restaurant on the river in Bangkok.

Riding around Bangkok with Shaun and Rebecca, two Aussies also from Melbourne.
What a day we had with these Tuk-Tuks.

Traffic in a huge traffic circle by our hotel and the Rapid Transit station.

Elevated highways.

Our bamboo float ride to finish off our day long tour from Chiang Mai.

These boats are used to go between the islands around Phuket.

I thought this one was a little low in the water.

One of the contractors at our hotel in Phuket drove this vehicle.

A drag race in the making.

Note the writing on the door.

How often do we get to see a Soviet-made car?

A flock of Volkswagens being hauled down the highway.

This was not a very relaxing ride for us. That young girl kept jumping up and down in the back of the pickup while we were following them down the highway at 80 km/hr. We finally had to pass them because we were worried she might fall off and we would run right over her. Her mom in the back with her didn't seem to be too worried.

This was a popular mode of transportation.

Nicki and Jannose with Nicki's Tuk Tuk driver in the morning as she headed off to work.

That's a lot of crap. It is used to make paper and the picture frames that we got of us on the elephant ride and the bamboo river ride.

Off to market with their vegetables and fruit in these four-wheeled wheelbarrows.

A delivery truck and opposite, motorcycles.

This is his place of business. The stand is attached to the motorcycle.

We could have taken this little barge for a cruise down the river.

The brown water was not too inviting.

Our transportation to the cooking school. We cooked some great dishes but, as yet, haven't duplicated them at home. May just have to go back when the political situation is a bit calmer.

They had an F1 night race in Singapore. This was a bus stop ad for the race.

These are the cars for the Singapore Flyer. Glass all around for a great view.
And I'm not that fond of heights, but it was a fantastic experience.
Took twenty minutes to do the complete rotation.

Vehicles on a road in Singapore.

Sang-taus on the streets of Chiang mai. Very cheap,
just like little buses except you sit in the back area of the pickup.

Bangkok Airport. We came through here four times on our holiday. All fights to Thailand go through here so now you know why it was such a big deal when the protesters occupied the airport last month.

Tinglish/Chinglish

2008-10-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

No trip to the Far East would be complete without a collection of images that beg the question "Who helped them with their English?" I have posted these pictures from our trip for your entertainment and edification. Enjoy.

(What is briefness food?)

These last two pictures were taken at the Three Gorges Dam Observatory. Of course, there will be no turning over.

Last, but not least

2008-09-06T20:45:00.001-07:00

Hong Kong. Only a part of China for a very short period of time. The British influence is very prevalent here with place names, international businesses and construction, but there are some interesting little blips.

Where in Canada or Australia or Poland, would you see a poster like this asking the public to comment and rate the construction of a restroom facility?

A view of Stanley Market, where many knock-offs can be purchased at supposedly very cheap prices. We didn't find things that cheap there.

We took a harbour cruise on our first day there. They were just starting to experience the beginnings of a typhoon that day. It was raining quite a bit but we did our tour anyway. Took some pictures of the commercial and residential buildings ringing the harbour.

Our guide also explained that some of the fishermen could not afford to live in the buildings and so their accommodation was their fishing boats. They are just moored in the middle of the harbour.

The Jumbo restaurant was the backdrop in the first James Bond movie(I think) It isn't a floating restaurant now like it was when first built.

The rain had just stopped for a few minutes. Good thing we brought our rain suits(garbage bags). Of course, with the rain came much cloud cover and we were also going up to Victoria Peak. We took a coach up and then we were taking the tram down. It is appearing in the mist. We could hardly see anything on the trip so we went up again a couple of days later. The views were amazing.

One of the original tram cars for this tourist area. They have built a huge shopping area called the Galleria. We spent a bit of money here but we mainly went up for lunch in one of the restaurants there. More pictures of the buildings in Hong Kong and Kowloon harbours. Compare the density of population with that of Canada.(once a Social teacher, always a social teacher)

We did a tour on the second day which brought us to a nice beach. Of course, the typhoon had come and gone and few people were there, just us tourists. I don't know what I was thinking when Jannose took this picture, but it must have been something important.

On our tour, we passed by this Medium Security prison. Note the exercise yard and the great views that the prisoners have. Better not let the Conservative Party hear about this place.

The tour was taking us to a fishing village that was over 500 years old. There were many shops where you could by some fish delicacies like below. We didn't.

The canals throughout the village of Lantau. This was a great tour-no factory shops here.

Drying fish from the previous day's catch.

We watched these kids playing in this square. They were having a great time.

The tour also took us to the top of a Mountain where there was this statue of Buddha. We were taken in the coach so we didn't have to use the stairs in the picture below. The statue is up so high on the mountain that it was tough to get a clear picture because of the clouds.
I don't have any pictures, but after viewing the Buddha, we went to a restaurant run by the monks of the Monastery. They are vegetarian and so all the dishes were vegetarian. And so good!!!! Very little waste at this meal.

We took a harbour tour that started at 7:00 and stayed out in the harbour for the light and laser show an hour later. Got some very nice pictures. Here are a couple of them above.

Whenever we went walking in Hong Kong, we always ran into Markets of some kind. This one had as its focus electronics and tools.

This Market had many different clothing stalls.

Jannose and I weren't too interested in what this guy was selling. Greg, in the background, gave him his full attention. (He was burning off the hair from the pig snouts.

Again, lots of clothing for sale. We had no more room in our suitcases.

Look at the size of the advertisements on the buildings. But none as large as the Calvin Klein ad below. I think that is a 30 storey building.

The pictures above were taken on our return trip to Victoria Peak when the weather was better. We took many different forms of transportation in Hong Kong. I will have another post of transportation modes later.

These were all taken from the top of Victoria Peak or on the way down. Note the tall buildings and the population density. The engineers who built this city basically demolished the mountain and put the rock in the harbour and then built on both parts. Amazing.

So ended our tour. Singapore, Chiang Mai, Sukhothai, Phuket, Bangkok, Beijing, X'ian, Chongquing, Shanghai, Suzhuo, Hong Kong. A great start to retirement.

Shanghai'd in Shanghai

2008-09-05T18:08:00.001-07:00

I can't move this picture, so I have to start my information here. This is the view from our hotel room in Shanghai. Just had to show the traffic and the construction. The building on the bottom left is a school with a school yard set up for soccer and basketball. Note the amount of traffic and the construction in the area. We went for dinner at a restaurant about 5 minutes walk from our hotel. The guide said that the staff spoke English and they had English menus and the food was great. The food was great, the menus were in English but the staff spoke very little English. I had a card from some Chinese friends which explained that we didn't eat meat, chicken, etc. That helped a lot. We went back a couple of days later and forgot to show the card and got a great eggplant dish, which looked good in the menu picture, but contained pork.(oops)

We went and visited a garden area one day. Beautifully spaced rocks and trees and flowers. Very peaceful and quiet, even with all the tourists all over the place. The pictures are below.

Oh look!!! Another Starbucks. You couldn't go more than two blocks without seeing a Starbucks or a 7-Eleven.

On our way to visit a market and temple, we went past a smaller market area where our guide said we could buy knock-offs. At that precise moment, the police arrived and confiscated and stopped the sale of items until they could see that they weren't knock-offs. The sellers had spies and people posted at all entrances to places like this so they wouldn't get surprised by the police. We saw many examples of this in China. Not so much in Bangkok, though.

On one of our coach tours, we went by the Stadium in Shanghai which would host the soccer games of the Olympics.

A statue in the park. Note the large buildings behind.

Moving merchandise to the stalls for sale to the public.

The YuYuan Market for shopping and also a temple. Our guide took us all to a back stall down an alley where we could by Gucci purses, gold jewellry and watches, all for very cheap. (Knock-offs) and very high pressure.

Again, another peaceful setting. Gail Seemann loves dragons and so does Arone, our son.

Four views of the downtown business district of Shanghai. This is from the area called the Bund.

A subway entrance in the Bund area. We never took the Subway although we used the tunnel entrances to go from one side of the street to the other, in order to eliminate pedestrian crosswalks.

Some pieces of art in one of the temples we visited near the market.

Our coach was parked outside this factory shop, which also contained a restaurant where we had lunch, and there was a bit of commotion because he was blocking traffic. There was a huge argument and the woman passenger in the car almost came to blows with our driver.

But this man never got to sell any of the produce and fruit he had in these baskets.

SPLIT PANTS, AGAIN (sorry Greg, just had to put the picture in)

Then, we visited a small co-op village by a small river.

Three pictures of the Shanghai Acrobatic Show. This was a fantastic evening and I can't wait to see Marilyn's video of the evening. There was no way I could take enough pictures that weren't blurred because of all the movement.

Shopping on Nanjiing Road, the main shopping road in Shanghai. Very High End shops, but we were still offered cheap Rolex watches.

I saw this poster and knew that Daorcey and Natalie would love it.

Then, on a special trip, the four of us went to the commune. We were supposed to take a train to the city and then have a tour. We ended up in a van for over an hour to get here and almost two hours to get home. But, the visit to the city was great and we got to see what life must have been like just after the Communists came into power. Above is the map of the area and below are some pictures around the city.

We went on a little ride down the canal of this city. These dwellings look pretty original. Our guide said that hot water is very expensive, so it is used sparingly. That must be why Jannose saw the airport workers washing their hair in the airport washrooms.

Note the girl wahing her hair in the photo above. There is a pail beside her and there are water stains coming up the stairs. I would suggest that she got water from the canal. I don't have the picture in here of the guy urinating into the canal just up from where she lives. Oh well, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

We also visited the Humble Administrator's Garden. Pictures are below.

Greg, Marilyn and Jannose and I in fromt of one of the many beautiful buildings there. Notice that we are all smiling. We weren't three hours later after our van ride back to our hotel in Shanghai.

Below are pictures of the interesting buildings of Shanghai.

This was a sculpture in our hotel lobby. The woodwork was very interesting. It was a huge piece of art.

The skyline of Shanghai as were heading to the airport to leave to Hong Kong.

Moose, Mooses or Mice?

2008-08-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning, August 8th, quickly eating breakfast before going off to work. A movement caught my eye and it was a moose by the clothesline. I dashed off to grab my camera and then had to walk to the front of the house to follow the moose. Took a couple of pictures and then took a movie of the big beast. check out the video.

We have had our share of wild animals here at the acreage this year. Porcupine ate the bark all around an ornamental crab tree and I think it is dead. Deer are munching the fresh vegetables in the garden and so had to put up some fencing to keep them out.(Those are our veggies. Of course, the boys wouldn't have complained about losing the beets, just the peas.) Three weeks ago, Jannose spotted two skunks in the back yard sauntering past the deck. We have seen them a few times since then, walking in the back yard. As long as we don't surprise them, we'll be fine. But, Jannose has spent some time reading up about them.

Also, the hummingbirds have been at the feeder. Check out this picture.

And the other birds munching at our Bird and Breakfast.

Add that to the robins and their nest outside the front door.

So, that's what retired folks do, eh?

Three Gorges Dam

2008-08-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

In Chongquing, we visited a display which presented information on the Three Gorges Dam. This was to help prepare us for our cruise on the Yangtze River. There were some very nice pictures and a mural but we weren't allowed to take pictures of them. The structure on the far right of the model is the elevator which will move ships from one side of the dam to the other in less than an hour. The five locks will take over three hours. We were told by our guides that there is no charge for this service.(only in a communist society) The dam will provide 5% of China's elecrical power when finished by November 2008.

This display was very informative. You can see the locks and the difference in elevations. Note the wonderful park areas here. One thing I noticed in China was that there were a great number of planted trees everywhere. The designs here are very reminiscent of the gardens at Chenonceaux or Versailles.

The view of the locks from the front of our cruise ship.

We were able to walk around the area of the dam. Note the cutouts on the bricks on the left. This is a little waterfall design. Of course, in November, when the water level will rise to its uppermost, this area will be all under water. The water level will rise to two or three meters from the top of the dam.

The water bubbles out of the top and then flows down to the base of the observation tower.

The water level will rise to cover these flower beds.

This work crew is taking apart the original area at the dam site.

The locks at the dam. Again, note the grass and the designs.

Look closely and you can see a ship on its way up to the next lock.

There was a very nice, quiet park near the Dam Display. It was nice to walk here and be away from all the crowds.

Yangtze River Cruise

2008-08-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

We have taken two cruises on the oceans. This was to be our first river cruise. I got a DVD from Viking Cruises on the Yangtze River. Our tour company used a river cruise and our ship was called the President Cruises No. 6. It definitely was not like the Viking boat or our Holland America Cruise to Alaska. Here is our ship below. I included another picture of the company called Dragon Cruises. Their ship was decked out like a dragon, although it did look a bit more modern than ours.

One of our stops was the Ghost City of Fengdu. We got off the ship and climbed all these stairs and then took a small minibus ride to the entrance to the city. Some people could take a chair lift to the top or you could walk the stairs. We walked. (Well, we had already walked on the Great Wall--this was a piece of cake.

There was a pagoda at the top of the climb. The city was quite interesting.

We watched one of the citizens of this area move the rock on top from down below. It was almost impossible to move it without knowing the proper method of rolling it around and using the centrifugal force to get it on top.

All along the Yangtze River, we saw farmland like this. Land is used whenever possible. Of course, these farms have been set up because of the forced movement of the citizens to make way for the Three Gorges Dam.

Caskets are placed in these caves on the side of the mountains.

We saw many, many bridges along the trip. There are 65 bridges now built with 50+ in various stages of being built. There are plans for another 73. This will ensure that the citizens are able to travel through the countryside after the dam is finished.

Here is a group photo of the 19 who braved the President Cruises No. 6 Yangtze River Cruise. We saw some great scenery and got to see the dam. Will post those pictures next.

X'ian cultural evening and dumpling dinner

2008-07-21T18:28:00.000-07:00

After our visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors, we headed back to our hotel, changed, and then headed off to a presentation of the chinese culture. We were treated to a dumpling dinner. The food and the entertainment were fantastic. We got special vegetarian dumplings while the servers kept the food coming. We were presented with over twenty dumplings each. Yes, I ate all of them. And then, came the soup. What a great meal. It was also Emily's birthday that night and our guide arranged for a birthday cake for her. She'll remember that birthday for a while.

Here is a sample of some of our dumplings. They were all specially shaped and all tasted great.

I don't know how many cooks were in the kitchen area, but they were feeding at least 150 people and we rarely were without food on the table to eat.

Annie, from Montreal, and a specially decorated dumpling. Can you guess what is in the dumpling?

And then there was soup. Note the hot sauce on the right. There was no food left on the tables this evening.

The introduction of the entertainment with the Emperor and his wife.

The backdrops and scenery were amazing and the dancing, singing, playing of instruments were of first quality. This was our second cultural evening, but you'll note that I didn't put any pictures of that one in Beijing--not that great.

Very colouful costumes and backdrops.

Our seats were right in the front so we had a good vantage point for all the pictures. Marilyn has a video of a lot of this, so we have to go to Australia to get a copy.

The grand finale with the soldiers parading around for the Emperor. We had visited all the places that were shown in the backdrops.
After X'ian, we were headed for Chongquing and our cruise down the Yangtze River. I'll post those pictures next.

TERRA-COTTA WARRIORS

2008-06-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

Today, we are off to visit the Terra-Cotta warriors. For almost everybody, this is their reason for the trip. One of the guys from Vancouver was very worried that we wouldn't make the visit because of our missed flight from Beijing to X'ian. But, our guide said that missing out on this visit would never be an option. We were primed to get there as soon as possible that morning. But, "Let's go visit a factory store where they make copies of the warriors. It will introduce you to what to expect and, of course, all souvenirs bought here have the government stamp of approval and are official. And, there will be a discount for you." How many times have we heard this already?

So, off to the factory and some silly pictures while waiting for the tour to commence. Scary, eh?

This worker is working on the small size warriors. They are made from the same clay as the original life-size ones. You can tell this because your fingers don't get black from these ones. Ours did, and the guide couldn't explain why. Oh well.....

You could buy these life-size statues and they would be shipped directly to your home. Didn't even enquire as to the cost.

They let us take pictures throughout the factory/store.

Some of these workers were artisans. He is applying lacquer to a panel.

The Terra-cotta warriors were ordered to be built by the first Chinese Emperor. He wanted to have an army of soldiers to protect his tomb. He had thousands of life-sized soldiers built of clay and then covered by wooden structures and then covered with dirt. He was not very well liked by the end of his reign because of how he treated the workers, etc. Of course, the workers had to be killed when they finished a section because he didn't want them telling his enemies where he was buried. He died before all was finished and the people found out where these warriors were. They dug up the entrances and then went in and demolished as much as they could. They then set fire to the wooden structures and they caved in on top of the warriors. This all took place over 2200 years ago.

On March 29, 1974, three farmers were digging a well and one of them found a clay head of one of the warriors. The government decided that this would be a great tourist attraction and proceeded to dig out the area. They enclosed the area in three very large exhibition halls. Those people who excavated the area then had to put together the parts of all the warriors due to their earlier destruction. The first exhibition hall was opened in 1989 and the other two were opened in 1994. Many heads of state have visited this area. In our book, there is a picture of former president Clinton with his family among the warriors. Normal people are not allowed to go into the area. We must look from the outside.

Heads were separate from all the warriors and were placed on the finished body later.

Emperor Qin also had two chariots for his travel to the other world. They also were destroyed and have been put together like a huge puzzle.

A kneeling archer on display behind glass. We bought a copy of this one. (of course, at the factory store. Who would want a non-government factory copy?(even if they are 1/2 the cost)

There were a lot of pictures like this of how the excavation progressed.

Here are a couple of the chariots in colour.

Below are views of the exhibition halls. They are called Pits. There are three of them that are excavated now but there are plans to open others. We even got the chance to look at some areas that they were still excavating. They work at night when the exhibit is closed.

The Pits are huge structures.

The warriors were placed in formation and separated by dirt walls. The wooden roofs were placed on top of the dirt walls.

What a great visit!!!!!! Oh, and what of the farmers who discovered the site? They were given a gift of 39 dollars each by the government. Only one is living now. He has a job at the gift shop signing the book about the Terra-cotta warriors. I have a copy at my house if you ever wish to look at it. Of course, the best way to see all this stuff is to go there. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

IMAGES OF BEIJING

2008-06-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

One day in Beijing, we took a tour of the Hutong area, the old neighbourhoods where the people have lived for many, many years. The area was being replaced with new housing and new neighbourhoods before the government realized that they needed to repair and restore this part of their heritage. It is an ongoing process although the area is much smaller now than it used to be. Our tour started with this bicycle rickshaw. I felt sorry for a couple of the drivers who had some very large people to ferry around.

We were bike #30 and had to make sure to get the same driver to get back to our starting point.

We eventually ended up in a small courtyard which housed three families in accomodations which opened up into this courtyard. The lady in front is retired and she and her husband give presentations and tours to tourists. Their two sons also share this courtyard space although they all have their own private areas in which they live. She gave us a lot of information, translated by our guide, and answered many questions about her life here. Our guide also spent his university years living in the Hutong area. After her presentation, she allowed us to wander through her living quarters. Below are some pictures of the rooms.

Our group listening intently. Doesn't the Japanese girl in the black jacket with white stripes on the sleeves look like Erika? Emily celebrated her 24th birthday on the tour.

The Kitchen.

The living room and display cabinet.

The living room from another angle.

When walking back to our rickshaws, we went through an area that was rebuilt and had to stop and visit with a small dog.

You can see the renovations taking place here.

Very narrow alleyways.

Sometimes, they demolish the complete house and then start from scratch but reuse as much of the building material as possible.

We also visited a park in the morning. Here, we saw many people exercising, dancing, visiting and playing.

This long building(covered walkway) was filled with people playing cards, mahjong, knitting, painting or just talking. If Dean lived here, this is where he would be all the time.

There were a group of people playing instruments and someone was singing as well as dancing in front of these others. The man in front doesn't seem to pleased with me.

This group were exercising using flags as props. They had music playing and there were certain steps that they were following. It was very interesting to watch them. They always invited us to join and try what they were doing.

This lady was teaching a group of others how to do the ribbon exercises. She was very good.

These girls are doing a form of Tai Chi with a paddle and a birdie. A couple of times we saw guards stationed around parks that we visited. There were a lot of people at this park, some young but a lot of retired people. There were grandparents who were looking after their grandchildren, people who were exercising prior to going to work and a lot of retired people who wanted to get out into nature and visit with their friends. They were very friendly for the most part.

This became a running joke for our group. The young child is wearing split pants. He has no underwear. Our guide says they wear these during training. When they have to go to the toilet, they just squat and do their business wherever they are. A bit unsanitary sometimes. We saw this happen on sidewalks and steps of buildings. Should have bought a pair to bring back to someone who will be toilet training their child.

75% of the world's cranes are in use in China. Just a few of them in this picture.

Very unique architecture.

A downtown street and office buildings.

Still building.

Note the traffic and the large buildings in the distance. Also, note the smog. the Government legislates that 240+ days per year will be smog-free. We must have been there on the other days.

More traffic and stores. We could have shopped all the time.

These cars are under a freeway entrance. It is a car park but also holds some cars which have been in accidents and need some repair.

Next stop, the Terra Cotta warriors of X'ian.

Great Wall and Ming Tombs

2008-05-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

What a day!!! We got to climb the Great Wall and then visit the Ming Tombs - the tombs of the 13 Emperors of the Ming Dynasty.

One of our first views of the Great Wall. It took many, many centuries to build this fortification to keep out the invaders of the north. Total length is 6700 kilometres. This section that we walked upon is the most well-preserved section.

Greg and Marilyn and Jannose and I pose on the wall.

We walked up the section that was the hardest. Sometimes, there were steps and at other times, just a smooth section.

We couldn't believe the steepness of the steps. At one point, Jannose and Greg started running up the pathway, but that didn't last long. Very STEEP!!

No steps here. Marilyn and Jannose are standing straight up. Good thing it wasn't raining or snow on the Wall. Terry and Nicki said they had snow when they were here two years previous.

This was a city on the other side of the wall. Good thing I got over the fear of heights. The roller coaster in Singapore may have cured me.

The Wall follows the lay of the land and the top of the mountain. Here, Greg is bargaining with a vendor who is selling books about the Great Wall. We bought two of them for about six dollars. They were nine dollars each in the store at the hotel. Great pictures in the book. Bought the second one for my brother who had been here last summer and never got one.

Here, you could put on some period clothes and have your picture taken. There were vendors all along the Wall selling crafts, books, purses, t-shirts, hats, watches. They had to carry up all their wares each day so by the end of the day, there were good prices to be had.
Quite the experience!!!!!!

This map shows the burial places of all the Emperors buried here.

We walked all along the route but if some people were tired, they could take the little golf cart. There were sculptures all along the route which had these arches all the way along. There was a large arch at the entrance and then about three others.

The route led here and inside the temple was this large sculpture of the Emperor.

A very busy day with lots of exercise. I think I took almost 100 pictures this day alone. We showed all the pictures of our whole trip to Arone and Kristi and Dean and Diane and the show went for almost two hours. You are getting the condensed version. We will put together a Power Point presentation down the road. Marilyn had her video camera so we hope to get a copy of that, perhaps when we get to Australia.

Welcome to China

2008-05-22T15:21:00.000-07:00

Beijing: Host city of the 2008 Olympics. Had to take this picture in an 'official' store for merchandise. Erika will really love this picture.

The Cube for the swimming events. It has already been used for a few months for competitions.

The Bird Cage for the Opening and Closing ceremonies. It was used a week after we left for a practice event. Amazing construction techniques. We couldn't visit them but our coach driver drove by a couple of times so that we could take pictures. It will be great to watch the Olympics and see these places.

Tian An Men Square. A quick 360 movie. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't cooperating. Note that there are no tanks around, but quite a few soldiers.

A hallway in the Summer Palace for the Emperor. He had this park-area built so he could get away from the hustle and bustle of the Forbidden City. On the ceiling are some great pictures.

This is an artificial lake, only 3 metres deep at the max. People can rent little paddle boats or take a dragon boat(like we did) from one section to the other. The bridge in the foreground goes out to a little island. Note the crowds for early April. The lake is drained every winter.

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The entrance to the Forbidden City. My kids will like the picture of chairman Mao.

Once inside, you notice all the space that the average Chinese citizen was not allowed to visit until Communism took over and the reign of the Emperors was finished. The Forbidden City is almost 2 kilometres long and 1 and 1/2 wide. All cobblestones and many, many buildings like these.

This is the view from the other side which leads to the Summer Palace which you can see in the background.

This sculpture was found inside the Concubine's courtyard. The sign below wasn't in this area, but in other places. You couldn't scratch the metal on the dragon anyway. It wasn't referring to old people either.

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After lunch, we headed to a Jade Factory. We were allowed to take all kinds of pictures of the sculptures, furniture and paintings with Jade accents. This was our first visit to an 'Official Government Store' where we were given demonstrations(5 minutes) and then time to shop(1 hour) We found out later that the guides get a huge commission on everything that is purchased here. There is no bargaining allowed, but they give you a ten to twenty percent discount. Yeah, right.

This picture was teasing us for the next day trip to the Great Wall. Loved this picture but not enough to spend 300 dollars for it.

Here is the Happy Buddah. He's happy because he gets to eat everything he wants and nobody calls him "hoover". Because of the huge meals and amount of food we ate during the three weeks, we, Greg and I, often were called the HappyBuddah. Annie, from Montreal, really enjoyed that expression.

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So ended our first day in Beijing. We got to experience the traffic, the street vendors, the construction, etc. We arrived with some preconceived notions about China but were pleasantly surprised. Yes, there were lots of people but not huge masses. There were bikes on the roads in special bike lanes, but not thousands. The mass transit system seems to work very well. There are lots of cars though (Beijing adds 2000 cars daily to the traffic), with some very expensive Audis around. But, there is a lot of pollution in the air. The coal powered plants aren't very clean and the older cars and motorbikes and scooters also contribute to it. We really didn't see blue sky because of the weather and the pollution for two weeks.

Next post will be the Wall and the Terra Cotta warriors. That was our greatest day in China.

2008-05-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK : 3 quick days

Foating restaurant on the river in Bangkok

A quiet respite from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, the Thompson museum-Nicki's suggestion.

Views of our river taxi ride. 3 dollars for the two of us and we were on the river for an hour and a half.

Accomodations in front of the temples.

The next three pictures are of the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

An interesting bridge.

Some of the houses were pretty basic along the river.

This was the view from our hotel room. Note the elevated roadways and also directly below us is a temple with living accomodations for the monks. Couldn't hear the noise from the traffic in our room at all and the Monks were very quiet as well.

Inside a large park, we came upon these people doing exercices to music. They are on a roadway in the middle of the park.

A small wat that we visited prior to going to the
Grand Palace.

Shawn and Rebecca and Jannose beside our Tuk Tuks. We
went on a tour suggested by some people we met at a market.
Nicki said never to do things like that, but we had a great time.
Shawn and Rebecca, also from Australia,(we seem to meet
an awful lot of them lately) were on their way to India and then were
trying to get into China through Tibet. Haven't found out yet
if they were able to or not.

We didn't buy these pants. You can't go into the Grand Palace with shorts so the Jewellry Shop where we bought some rings bought us these ones. We got to pick our colours. I chose the purple ones. Shawn needs to work on not chopping off heads in pictures although we were all laughing a lot concerning these pants.

2008-05-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

Phuket (holiday #3)

As we were gone for 6 weeks, it was like we had a bunch of mini-holidays. this one was for 8 nights on Karon Beach in the Phuket area. The tsunami hit this area and as a matter of fact, the resort we stayed at was planning its grand opening the day after. Needless to say, they were busy housing those who were displaced by the waves as the resort is up on a hill overlooking the area. Beautiful place. We lay on the beach, played in the waves, swam in the rooftop pool, ate some great meals, saw some shows, did a day trip to Monkey Beach and went snorkeling. The time went by very quickly. Here are some pictures:

Waves on our beach.

Sunset

Thai Volleyball -- Everything but hands

Noisy boats for travel between islands. They have a huge V8 engine and long propeller shaft.

Lunch snack on one of our walks.

Snorkelling for the first time. Very cool.

Used Sea kayaks to get to the beach. Also first time.

There were a lot of monkeys when we first arrived. After a few minutes, more tourists arrived in very loud boats and the monkeys took off into the trees.

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Here are some pictures of areas we visited on our boat trip to Phi Phi Island.

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The following pictures are views from our balcony and the rooftop pool.

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Below is the beach where we picked up a condition called 'sunburn'. You would think that I am old enough to know when to get out of the sun. Oh well......

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Oh look, another gas station?!!! (30 baht is less than a dollar for about 3/4 of a litre of gas) These little stations were used by the tourists who rented motorbikes.

2008-05-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

SUKHOTHAI

We did a little road trip from Chiang Mai to Sukhothai which was the ancient capital of Siam. There are many ruins of temples and other buildings in this area. We rented bicycles and traveled around. Started in the early morning and were done, literally by 1:00 as by then, the temperature was around 35 degrees. Here are some of the pictures.

It was quite a climb to get up to this Buddha below. But the view was amazing.

This is the Keyhole Buddha. The statue is huge.

Just a couple more pictures. The site was unbelieveable.

Our Tour Guides, Terry and Nicki

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Some views of the Tharaburi Resort where we stayed in Sukhothai. Note the little geckos which munched bugs in the bathroom/shower areas. None were ever in our rooms. Great place for 35 dollars a night including breakfast for two people.

The reception area
(I used the computer on the left for my posting from Thailand)

Here is the pool area. When we arrived, we were the only people there.

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A little gas station on a small side road. Look closely and you can see the two pumps.

The Sunday Market in Chiang Mai. Enjoyed this one lots.

Our Tour Guides in front of their home in Chiang Mai. Will only be there for a few more days, then off on holidays and back to Canada and then off to Warsaw. World Travelers.

Chiang Mai

2008-05-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are in Chiang Mai. This is the river in the area. You can take an afternoon cruise on the river(not very blue water) and we even saw dinner cruise boats. We didn't do that but we did stop for a coffee here at Wawee Coffee. Great coffee. We had to sit inside because of the deafening noise of the Cicadas. You couldn't carry on a conversation.

Some more views of Chiang Mai, the buildings and the method of transport, the Sangteuw ( a pickup with two facing benches). It cost 50 cents for a ride to wherever you were going.

Dinner with Terry and Nicki in an Italian restaurant on the river near where we had coffee the day before. Great meal and great company. They were awesome tour guides. We look forward to visiting them in Warsaw for Terry's next posting.

Two more views of Chiang Mai.

This is the Sunday market in the old downtown area. Mostly artisan work and local handicraft. There were some bizarre t-shirt designs and food stalls.

One of our tours set up by Nicki was a raft ride. The tour guide said we might get wet, so we shouldn't bring a camera. Note how relaxed we were. There is this festival in Thailand called Songkran. See poster below. It involves a sort of blessing with water. Near the end of our trip, some locals waited for us near the end of the ride and just soaked us. They sat in the water on both sides and just splashed water on everyone. We were sopping wet and then went immediately into the van and back to Chiang Mai. Terry says that this happens in the streets of Chiang Mai and the smart people head away for a short vacation rather than be there at that time.

Here is Terry and Nicki's house in Chiang Mai. Each room has its own exit door. It was a great place for us to relax and get acclimatized to Thailand. Of course, the dogs and roosters next door made for a noisy time in the morning.

Two more pictures of the area of Chiang Mai. I bought new glasses on this main road, two pair for 200 dollars, including frames and special coatings.

Elephants!!!

Nicki set us up with an elephant ride. Here he is behind me coming into load us up. Memorial Staff: Note the Tilley hat.

The ride was almost one hour. We went across the river and then up a mountain side. Our elephant driver was forced to lead the way as some of the other elephants didn't want to climb up the trail. The view at the top was amazing as was the trip down; had to hold onto the seat so as not to fall off.

Met two couples from Calgary on this trip. They are on the second and third elephants in this picture. I sent pictures to Davin and Cryssy, who are still on holidays in Europe now. He has some more pictures of us on our elephant throughout our trip that we will get when they are back from their trip.

Afterwards, we both fed our elephant some bananas. Look closely, and you can see the banana in his trunk.

We also went to a Thai cooking school. We met at the office downtown and then went off to this market to buy the items for our six-course dinner. These baked fish and the live fish were not part of the dinner.

Pom is the owner/chef of the cooking class. He runs a restaurant in town. He gave great demonstrations and walked us through each dish. He also was a bit of a comedian. Kept us entertained.

This was the first dish we made - fat noodles with a sweet and sour sauce. This was our appetizer at around ten thirty. Then, we made three more dishes which would be our lunch. Each portion was this size.

Here are two of the three dishes that we had for lunch. They gave us tofu instead of chicken or pork to go with the vegetables. Cooking Thai-style like this was a piece of cake. Pom, or one of his assistants, gave the demonstration and then all the items in the dish were proportioned out for us(or even chopped up). All we had to do was put them into the wok when they told us and stirred when they told us and finished when they told us. Even I could cook this way. And then, we went off and ate, and the assistants did the clean-up and we were ready to cook again. Thai cooking is EASY. The third dish involved a piece of fish, cooked with spices(very hot) in a banana leaf. I added more spices and it was very difficult to eat it, but I did. Greg gave me the nickname "hoover". I just don't like to see food go to waste, so I put it on my waist.

After this lunch and then salad and dessert, we were very full.

Next posting will deal with transportation in and around Thailand and a short visit to Sukhothai, the ancient capital of Siam.

Singapore - the beginning

2008-05-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

Three days in Singapore-not really enough but it gave us a taste of what the holiday would be like and eased us into the Far East.

ISN'T THIS WHAT RETIREMENT IS ALL ABOUT? HAVING A COFFEE IN AN AIRPORT WAITING FOR A FLIGHT? YOU BET.

One of our first views of Singapore. It is a huge totally westernized city. Our guide said that if you ever wanted to eat or drink something at any hour of the day/night, something would be open.

One of the IT guys where I used to work is a huge Formula 1 fan. Dahryn, imagine being here to watch the F1 race at night?!! I need to find a copy of the race so I can say that I was on the track. That is a replica of a real F1 car on the bus stop.

Had a tour of Singapore one morning. Saw this guy and his snake. He wanted to wrap it around me or anyone else who was in the area. What did Indiana Jones say: "Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?"

We also went to China town. Could hardly wait for the real thing.

The weather in Singapore is ideal for growing orchids. We went to an Orchid Garden in a huge park. The flowers were amazing. Wish we could grow them here.

Okay. The tallest Ferris Wheel in the world, for at least one year. I was the one who suggested it, honest boys. Heights and I don't really get along too well. But I figured, what could go wrong? Nothing for our trip, but I have heard about people being stranded on the London Eye for a couple of hours. Now that I think about it, I would not have wanted to be in that pod with the little kid for two hours. His parents had no control and he was busy running around the pod and jumping on the floor and letting loose with the odd high-pitched scream. But the views were amazing!!

The Merlion is the symbol of Singapore. It is a mythical being which combines the Lion of Great Britain and the Mermaid to represent the original fishing village status of the original Singapore.

Next stop - Chiang Mai and a visit with Terry and Nicki.

thai one on

2008-03-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

Thailand: What an amazing place.

I still can't wipe the smile off my face from the elephant ride and the bamboo raft trip down the river. Our tour guide said we might get wet so we shouldn't bring a camera. Good suggestion. The Thai have a festival in Chiang Mai called the Water Festival. In the downtown area, over a three day period (which becomes seven), everyone delights in soaking everyone with water from the moat, the river, or from barrels with ice water. Great fun and they don't discriminate as to who gets soaked. Business people in suits, tourists, Thai, drivers of cars or motorbikes, doesn't matter. As we were finishing our raft ride, two groups of children lined the raft route and proceeded to splash us as we floated by. SOAKED. And then, we immediately piled into the van for the ride home. a fantastic day.

We are staying with our friends, Terry and Nicki who have been here for almost four years. They are very knowledgeable about what to do and where to go. After the past few days in Chiang Mai, we drove today to Sukothai, ancient seat of the government of Siam. We are in a small resort very close to the Historical city and are going to rent bikes tomorrow and drive around and into the ruins. Will continue taking pictures-am into the second 512GB flash card.

Have seen amazing things and had some great food and great experiences walking around the area. Have met many people at the cooking class we took and the raft and elephant trip. Canadians, Aussies, French and Spaniards. Many people are traveling through this area because it is so inexpensive and beautiful. the people are so friendly and helpful that is impossible to have a bad experience. We have met so many people who are backpacking across South East Asia. Their stories are great to hear.

Notice that I have no pictures with this post. I will try and download them with Terry's computer Sunday or Monday evening before we leave for Part 3 of the tour: Phuket. And after that, China.

Kids, notice that this blog is not very creative. Perhaps, later.

Alaska, here we come

2008-03-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

Pre-retirement Trip #2

We are wanting do as much travelling as possible and preparing for retirement. In keeping with that theme, we went to Alaska on a cruise last year in July. We were able to do a 14 day round-trip from Vancouver. It's best to that if you have the time, in case you get rain or clouds or fog on one of the days in port or cruising. We had a wonderful time saw some interesting scenery and met some great people. I have included some pictures.

Note the bright colours.

The next day

Jannose, with our friends who we met on the ship

We ended up spending the next 5 days with our Australian friends. We did many hikes and independent tours together, the above hike to the Ketchikan water reservoir to the waterfalls in Skagway to the Micro-brewery in Juneau. We had so much fun together. Our next holiday, in April in China, Greg and Marilyn are going to join us. Look out China--Aussies and Canadians together. The Great Wall, Forbidden city, Terra Cotta Warriors, Yangtze River Cruise, Shanghai, Suzhou, Hong Kong. We can hardly wait.

This blog is going to be my on-line diary and we hope to be able to upload pictures for our friends to check out.

Tah Dah!!!!

2008-03-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

I have been practicing for retirement for over a year now. Travel was always the number one thought for retirement. Teaching for over 33 and a half years was a great time. I really thought it would be hard to leave this profession. Leaving the people and the students probably was the hardest. My staff put on a great production for the four retirees.

These four played the roles of the four retirees.
The actor playing me is wearing a Volleyball
referee shirt, eating vegetables(carrot, cob of corn,
and an eggplant-yes an eggplant(raw) He said
he didn't feel that great that evening.

Like I said, I have been practicing retirement for a little while. Last March, one of the other retirees and myself(with our wives) took 21 students to France and Belgium. We visited many of the battle sites of WWI and WWII and also took the group to cemeteries. We visited the Legion and they gave us some commemorative wreaths to lay at these places. We were able to set up groups of three students to place the wreath at each of the cemeteries we visited.

Laying a wreath at the
Beaumont-Hamel battle site

The group at Juno Beach Centre in
Normandy

Our group at the Menin Gate in Ypres. Each night,
with the exception of the time of German occupation
during WWII, a ceremony takes place here to
remember the fallen soldiers of WWI who do not
have an actual grave. We got to take part in the ceremony
thanks to our Tour Guide.
One of the highlights of the trip.

Of course, I was still in my last year of teaching. But if you talk with the secretaries at school, they say that all I ever did was travel. I needed to retire to get that done.

First post... yeah, how creative

2008-03-08T13:26:00.000-08:00

Hey, this is Daorcey here... you know, from www.canmorewedding.blogspot.com.

So, now that my parents have retired (sort of... ok, only one of them), it's about time they entered the 1990s and got a blog and email. Yes, the intertubes will never be the same.

I'll leave it up to them now. Really, it ain't my blog... I suspect I'll be doing tech support from time to time, though.

There you go. Welcome to JanCol 1.0... title to be changed eventually in favour of something more creative.

- Daorcey