Sunny Sly Siam

On the 10th November, we left NZ for Hong Kong. We flew into Thailand via Hong Kong, as our Air NZ flight back to London stopped in Hong Kong, so we just extended our stopover so that we could have 10 days in Thailand, and then return to Hong Kong, to continue with the remaining leg of our journey, back to London.

We were surprised by our first impressions of Thailand – it really isn’t an outstandingly different country, there are very few high rise buildings, and they are all very spreadout. In many ways Bangkok is quite similar to Cairo, but without the sleazy men :o) It felt like a mix between Egypt and Fiji.

However one of the first things we did notice, and were quite surprised by, was that everyone has new cars over there – these people earn very low wages, but can still afford new cars – according one of our tour guides, a nice car is a big status symbol for Thais.

On arrival at the airport, we quickly found the bus we needed and transferred to Koh San road – this is the main tourist area of Bangkok, and well worth a look!

A tuk tuk zapping by

Khaon San Road, Bangkok

It is very busy, has lots of T shirt and souvenir stalls, basically a big street market, with heaps of people dying to bargain with you! I was impressed at the range of goods, as in Egypt they had a lot of souvenir sellers, but nothing I really wanted to buy. I think one of the best bits about Thailand is they always have the things you want to buy, for example when you are in a hot country, you want cool drinks and juicy tropical fruit. These are all available in Thailand – we honestly ate so many fresh pineapples and watermelons we lost count, because for 50 cents NZD you can buy half a pineapple, precut and cored! Delicious!

Bev demonstrating how delicious the pineapples were - just before he dropped it on the pavement!

We also enjoyed the cheap vendor food – Noodle soup, fried rice and pad thai could all be purchased for $1.50 NZD, and this was enough for your lunch or dinner – it tasted fantastic, and the best bit was we didn’t get sick from eating the local food like we did in Egypt.

Yummy noodle soup cart

They also have Scottish restaurants in Thailand - With Double Filet of Fishes and Double Big Macs!

We found the people selling stuff at the market good in terms of engaging you if you appear interested but not harassing you (again like we had in Egypt – no one would leave you alone, and it really put you off bargaining with them). They did however get offended when you tried to barging too low with them, but I got over that and just tried low anyway :o) There are quite a few places in Thailand that you can get suits and shirts sewn for you for really cheap prices. The people however seem to never have enough business and it is these people that tended to try the hardest to get you to purchase something from them.

They were very clever at getting your attention; I think their tactic was that as soon as they engaged you in conversation they have you. One guy was particularly clever, as I walked past with this delicious pancake that a street vendor had made me, the guy (it wasn’t immediately obvious what he was selling) goes – “Pancake”, and pointed at my pancake, and I said “yeah, nice pancake” and gave him a big smile, he then gave me an even bigger triumphant smile and said “Nice suit” – damn it how do they do that! He had me sucked in over a conversation about a pancake! Haha impressive!

We meet up with Bev’s cousin Dee and her fiancée Mark at Koh San Road, and got a room at the hotel they were at – at a mere $25 NZD a night it was excellent – a decent bed, air conditioning and a bathroom (with western toilet) is all one needs in Bangkok. We didn’t have hot water, but in that heat, it is an unnecessary luxury, and the fact that the shower is above the toilet seems to be common practice – weird (just had to remember to take the toilet paper out of the bathroom before showering, otherwise soggy paper!).

We explored Bangkok a little, the first night we happened upon a cool market full of the locals (no long noses were around, as Mark and I decided to call our fellow europeans), they say that Thais no longer eat at home anymore because buying food off the street vendors is just as cost effective as making it at home, and this was definitely noticeable at the market – everyone was buying all sorts of cooked delights, including deep fried locusts, cockroaches, frogs on a stick etc.

Mmmm fried bugs

Sausages and toads for dinner anyone?

We weren’t so game as to try these local delights, but we did try a couple of less risky items, such as a sweet meringue wafer type sweet, and the best thing we tried was this lime leaf wrapped morsel, that included a wedge of lime, some peanuts and tamarind sauce – very delicious mix of sweet and sour. We later read in the Lonely planet that they recommend trying these because they are so nice! There was a real carnival atmosphere at this market, and you could pay to play a few games, such as shooting balloons with a bow and arrow, throwing a ball at a level which made a thai girl fall into a barrel of water etc.

We also saw a few temples, however we weren’t terribly interested in these, and there were a lot of locals around because the Thai King's sister had just died, so they were all paying their respects. In some ways this was kinda cool though, because the locals were all making these cool floating flower displays out of flax (or something similar, maybe palm leaves) and arranging flowers on them, they were then placing them in the river, it was very interesting to see this custom – so very different to our own.

Floating Flower Arrangement

The second night that we were in Bangkok, we arranged for an overnight bus to Phuket. In hindsight, we should have read the lonely planet before booking transport, because this will have told us that booking overnight buses from Koh San road is not a good idea, as these buses are actually illegal, and they often don’t take you where you want to go! We had looked into getting a train down to Phuket, but the problem is the train only went 2/3rds of the way to Phuket and then you had to get a bus from the train station in Surat thani to Phuket – however, we found ourselves stranded in Surat thani nonetheless, despite many assurances from our travel agent in Koh San road that the bus was direct to Phuket!

At 6am the driver’s music blared on the bus, and we awoke to a Thai guy asking us which location we were heading to, we said Phuket and he said off the bus! So bleary eyed we collected our stuff and hopped off the bus in the middle of nowhere! There were 7 of us, all hoping to get to Phuket, and we were loaded into a little tuk-tuk truck and taken to a travel agents. We were told that our connecting bus would collect us at 7, 8…..anyway whilst at this travel agents (owned by a woman and her sons), the owner returned to her shop on her scooter, but as she was about to hop off her scooter, the adjacent travel agent came running out of his shop with a broom handle and sconed her one on the head! They then had a rough and tumble scrap right in front of all of us on the road outside the shop! We had no idea what to do or even what it was all about.

The lady was a lot stockier and bigger than the guy she was fighting, so she was clearly dominating the fight, had she not been “winning” so to speak, we might have been more willing to step in and break up the fight. However all of the locals came out to have a look, but nobody stepped in to separate the pair. Eventually the ladies son came out and jumped on the mans head (not pleasant) and the man retreated. A car then arrived with a Thai guy, wearing an English football shirt carrying a very large gun – we started to dack our pants at this point – what the heck! But it turned out that this was the local policeman! He sauntered around, putting on his Khaki jacket, and making play for his gun when the travel agent lady didn’t play ball! The next thing we know, another tuk tuk arrives to pick us up, and takes us to yet another travel agency.

By this time we were getting extremely agitated - so much for our direct bus to Phuket! The next travel agent basically said that she had been asked to have us in her office because of the fight that took place – I am guessing the Policeman told them to get rid of us, (protecting tourism and all that), but this second agent didn’t want anything to do with us, but couldn’t tell us when our bus was coming. In true dodgy Thai styles, she said that for a further 300 baht each ($15) we could have a bus immediately. Now I know $15 doesn’t sound like much but, basically it is the principle of the whole matter, we had already paid for a direct fare from Bangkok to Phuket, yet this lady was trying to wheedle another $15 out of us each!

So we refused, and kept hassling her – Mark and this other British girl even got to the point of sitting right in front of this lady and telling her that if she didn’t arrange for our bus they would be “best friends” for the next couple of hours, and when she ignored them and pretended to write, they asked her “What are you writing”.

I am not sure whether it was this persistent hassling or whether by luck our bus did arrive within 10mins of this constant harassment! But by this time it was around 9.30am! What was interesting was when we hopped in the mini van, there were two Brits already in the van and they had travelled by train (as we had considered), and had been also waiting hours for their bus which they had paid for, but they had buckled and paid the $15 each for an “instant bus”, only to find us joining them! Dodgy thais!!

Another couple we were with had their bags gone through overnight, where the lonely planet had also noted this to be common occurrence while the travellers were sleeping in the upper deck. We decided after this experience that Surat Thani would be our new word for something crap! For those of you who want to avoid this rigmarole I suggest either flying from Bangkok to Phuket (or directly into Phuket from outside Thailand), or they recommend booking your own bus tickets from the national bus terminal.

Anyway eventually we made it to Phuket town, we then caught the local bus (a truck with a crate on the back) out to the beaches. We settled on Karon, which is south of Pattong beach. By this stage we were shattered – we had been up since 6am after sleeping on a bus overnight, we had only had a few snacks such as chips and peanuts that we could buy from a service station to eat, and it was about 2pm, and stinking hot! We found somewhere to sit down and have a meal so that we could try and think straight. After lunch we dragged our luggage along the beach front until we found a place to stay. Mark thankfully negotiated a good price for two rooms for us.

We were surprised at the beaches in Phuket – we had thought they would be crystal clear like the beaches in Fiji, but they were no different to say the Mt in NZ – the water wasn’t a really cool blue, and it wasn’t crystal clear, however it was really warm – just like a bath – it was so nice to go swimming after more than a year!

We had expected to see heaps of lady boys, and young thai girls with crusty old European guys, and we did see a few, but not as many as we had thought. That whole industry is really disgusting, and it is so sad that it is Western men driving the trade - enough said. We were trying to work out how it is one picks up a thai girl, because it wasn’t immediately obvious, but we decided it probably started by asking for a massage or a massar (said really nasally by the thais).

One thing that was particularly funny however, was that the Thais thought Bevan and Dee were thais also – I guess both have quite tanned skin for Chinese, so I assume people thought Mark had picked up a thai girl for “companionship” whilst in Thailand, but what they must have thought of me I am not sure – a crusty European girl picking up a thai boy?? Must’ve thought I was a bit strange! Haha

Mark and Dee and us sitting on Karon Beach in Phuket

We did a day trip out to Phi Phi Island which is off Phuket (an island itself), and has the crystal clear waters that I had assumed Phuket would have. It had absolutely gorgeous beaches, and some of the movie “The Beach” was filmed there.

Phi Phi Island - absolutely gorgeous beach

We feed some monkeys some bananas, and Pepsi (prob not the best idea) and did some really cool snorkelling both off the boat and off the beach– a great day out and well worth it. The day ended with an elephant ride – which I must say was a real highlight for me, they are so incredibly smart. You could buy a plastic bag of small bananas for your elephant if you want, so I did, and of course the elephants know what is in the bag, completely conditioned to the sound of the bag rattling I am sure! So our elephant wouldn’t walk more than a few steps without reaching its trunk backwards for another banana haha! I’m sure it probably knew exactly how many were in each bag too!

Overall we had a great time relaxing in Phuket, it was really nice to lazy at the beach on the deck chairs and under the umbrellas that are all laid out for you to sit on (at a hansome sum of $5 each per day!) I even managed to get a tan! Although not terribly noticeable when positioned next to Bev as he just went super tanned!

The next day we returned by overnight bus again (this time we followed the Lonely planets advice and went to the national bus terminal) to Bangkok. We could tell that the bus was not a scam because it was just full of locals, and the hostess couldn’t speak english! Mark and Dee then left for Chiang Mai, and we had a few more days in Bangkok. We did two day trips, one to Ayattaya – an ancient city, which was once the capital of Thailand, with lots of cool ruins etc. This was great, because as luck had it, we were the only ones on the tour, so we got a guide all to ourselves.

Ayattaya - Ruins

Boat trip along the river in Ayattaya

The other day trip was to the floating markets and Tiger Temple. We thought the floating markets were a bit touristy and tiger temple was very much exploiting tourists for their money, but both were worthwhile, and I am glad that we went.

Aww nice Kitty

Hmm, even nicer Kitty

Us squinting into the sun at the Floating Markets!

Elephant kisses!

We left Thailand on the 20th November, for a one night stay in Hong Kong, and then on to London on the 21st November.

We returned to the UK substantially browner and with full Vitamin D stores!

Lots of love

Jam and Bev

Home Sweet Home

Hi Everyone,
Well yet again we haven’t been very good at keeping our blog up to date, but hopefully this will change!
The last time we wrote, we were in the count down for going home to NZ.
So I’ll pick up from here.

In the week leading up to leaving for home we had to figure out a way of getting rid of the bed that we bought for our UK flat – as the flat wasn’t furnished when we moved in, which is quite unusual over here. The bed was just a cheapy that we picked up out of necessity, so we were quite happy to be getting rid of it. We thought we would donate it to the British Heart Foundation shop down the road from our flat, so Bev went down and asked if they could come and collect it, and they said they only take beds that have a special fire retardant sticker on them – yep you can’t even donate something without there being a rule associated with it! – we had no idea as to whether ours did or not, so we started to sweat about what we were going to do in the event that it didn’t have a sticker (we couldn’t just burn the thing in our back yard like at home) – we had visions of us doing a midnight run down our street with the bed in tow and dumping it in front of someone’s house – maybe in Palmerston North…..anyway we were pleased to discover the bed had the required sticker, so we avoided having to proceed with the midnight plan.

I managed to convince my work to hold my job open for me for a three month period (in the process of gaining a promotion!), however Bev decided he wouldn't push for his job to be kept, and given the banking climate in London it wouldn't have been possible.

Following a 24 hour flight with a 2 hour stop over in LA again, we reached NZ at 6am in the morning, to be met by Mum and Dad and my Auntie, Uncle and 3 little cousins. We knew we were back home in NZ when the baggage claim guy announced the broken conveyor was fixed over the loudspeaker by saying “Your bags is ready now”. LOL
It was nice to see nothing had changed since we had left, and it felt like we had never left, it really felt like our year in London was a dream.

There were a few things that we noticed about being back home though – no one walks anywhere, there is only one or two people walking past your house a day, I didn’t remember my parents kitchen being so large and spacious, and sunshine comes in through the windows – which is so nice.

My parents have a spare car, so Bev and I used this as our car whilst home which was great – I so miss the independence having a car brings me. On the first day home, we went to use the car, but because mum and dad don’t use the car very often the battery gets a bit flat, so we had to in true Rangi kiwi styles push it down the street to get it to start haha only at home in NZ!

The one thing we miss about NZ in the UK is the lack of customer service, and we weren’t disappointed going home – every shop that I walked in to had a pleasant shop assistant that wanted to know how I was, what I was up to, what the name of my great grandmothers pet cat was etc.

We arrived on a Tuesday morning, we had an appointment for our visa biometrics in Auckland on the Wednesday and intended to travel to Wellington to hand in our application on the Friday. On the Wednesday we got to our biometric interview half an hour early, and instead of turning us away and making us wait for the half hour, as it was her lunch break, the nice lady said that she would see us straightaway and just have her lunch break after us! Only in NZ! As the biometric process was compulsory for anyone applying for a visa, we found it quite hilarious that the method of confirming that we had our biometrics taken was a flimsy blue post it sticker in each of our passports – no official stamp or anything! Good Ol NZ. We managed to get everything signed and sealed that needed doing, and got to Wellington at 1pm on Friday – only to find out that the visa office closed at 1.30pm on Fridays – good thing we didn’t muck around on our way to Wellington! Whew! The guy told us the visa, if straight forward would take 20 working days to process, and he was pretty accurate, it arrived on my parents doorstep 18 working days later!

We really appreciated NZ food! You forget how huge our portions are when eating out. On the 2nd day we caught up with Bev’s sister and went to a Chinese restaurant and ordered 1 dish each thinking it could feed us perfectly, but we forgot how huge the portions in NZ were and ended up with twice as much as we thought! We have notice that kiwis are generally noticeably more stocky and round compared to people on the otherside…much more noticeable. We found that the NZ lifestyle was a lot more of an American lifestyle, such as driving our bigger cars around, living in spacious bungalows. It was so nice to have a spot on coffee and perfect steak again, the Brits just don’t do good coffee or steak. All we seemed to do at home was eat - mmm nice NZ food!

Mmmmm NZ Lamb Roast - the best!

Appreciating NZ food - Dinner at Mission Estate in Hawkes Bay - mmmhmmmm!

Bev was missing London soon after leaving the UK, worried that we wouldn’t be able to come back, but soon forgot about London when he felt completely relaxed setting foot into wide open spaces, As soon as we hit NZ we just felt our stress levels drop instantly. Space is a premium in London, so being crammed up for a year and suddenly arrive home, you’re amazed at the vast amount of space we have, from seeing lot of horizon, to how wide the roads are (misjudging them too when you almost get run over because you forget how wide they are), to the size of mums kitchen bench! We were so surprised to go to Queen street and central Wellington to find then to be much smaller that we remember…as if they had shrunk – it was like “where is everyone?”

It was so nice that everyone could understand us and it’s so easy going and everybody’s laid back and efficient! You notice the kiwi accent A LOT when first arriving back. You can really hear it (terrible in some cases). It was really hard getting used to Kiwi accents again from hearing the odd kiwi every now and then to a whole country of kiwis especially the high question mark endings that we tend to do. Bev even had to secretly watch some Coronation street just to get his British language fix! (Weirdo!) NZ is not stressful at all in comparison, everything is so much easier and life doesn’t feel like consistent fire fighting.

The weather at home was sooooooooo NICE! Even though it was unsettled spring weather, it was extra nice when the sun came out it was just clear clean blue full horizon days. The days were far nicer than the majority of summer days we had seen in London! (What summer days!). We weren’t use to squinting so much arriving back into the country. And even when it did rain, it was nice to hear some proper heavy rain on the roof again, and plenty of it (and not be worried that we would be caught in it).

The feeling of experiencing what you really appreciate and what you missed for a year is just awesome. After a month you get use to everything again, as if you never left. So going back to London it is a nice feeling to think that everything will be the same when you return again, that looking forward to experience that feeling of appreciation again. The feeling we got from tasting that first service station mince and cheese pie,

Screw the jet lag, a pie will make it all better! Bev after less than 1 hour on NZ soil!

fish and chips and being able to see stars brightly, being the only one at the beach, biting into the tender NZ steak, finding a sock that you missed putting in the washing machine, and being able to lift the lid on the washing machine and drop it in and sitting on the sand at the beach at sunset. Ahh heaven!

Aw and how could I not write a whole blog on what it felt like to see my cat Jess again!

"Ohh people to play with me again - excellent!" Jess playing with a toggle

I was sure that she would take one look at me and snub me – but she purred really loudly and gave me lots of smootches and to further dissipate my insecurities, she sleep in our bed with us for the first few nights of being home – the most high honour of them all (considering it took her a whole year to feel comfortable doing that when she first started living with us) – she remembers us YAY! Much to my dad’s disgust she picked up with us as if we had never left, with my dad being the convenient feeding human thing, and me being her mum again – aw but to have to leave her again was extremely hard!

It was so nice to go home and just have what felt like an unlimited amount of time to trip around and do heaps of things we had been craving over the last year. Bev really wanted to go Snowboarding so he went up Whakapapa for a couple of days,

The gorgeous weather Bev got whilst up the Mountain!

whilst I really wanted to see Gisborne and East Cape as I had never seen that part of NZ. So me and my brother went on a road trip around Gisborne – it is so pretty, I can’t believe how gorgeous our country is and how spoilt we are, and how accustom and how much we take it for granted because we can see it everyday, any day if we like. We also went to Cape Kidnappers while we were in Hawkes Bay, it was such a beautiful day - and the Gannet Colony is just amazing!

Gannets Smootching



Cape Kidnappers

Ah East Coast Beaches!

We also went to a wedding while home, which was really cool, just hanging out with friends (Bev’s high school friends) some of which we hadn’t seen in 4 years!

One of the hugest blessings we had whilst home was that both of us were able to pick up three weeks worth of work – Bev at my parents work helping with their company website, and me with my old buddies at LIC. It was so nice for me to work back at LIC again, because it was an easy way to catch up with all of my friends – esp since they were all working, so I got to spend more time with them then I would have not working, and also it showed me what I could have been doing if I stayed – a bit like the movie sliding doors really, not to mention having an income to spend whilst at home! In addition, an opportunity has arisen for me to do a PhD in animal behaviour and welfare in Hamilton- which I have always wanted to do so this is extremely exciting! The details will need to be decided over the next year, so watch this space :o)

Catching up with Corey at Burger Fuel....mmmm Burger Fuel! (Thanks to Jamie for taking the photo!)

It is funny the hankerings you get after being away from home for a year – one of things that I really wanted to do while home (and did) was to mow a lawn and do some gardening – I am the lawn mower and gardener in our household, and I guess it is things like these that you just do every couple of weekends that you don’t realise how much sanity they bring to your everyday life, and more importantly stress release.
There is something so simplistically satisfying about mowing a lawn – my dad always says that he missed collecting firewood when he moved to town for the same reason!

Anyway this is turning into a novel, so I will end it here by saying going home was so refreshing for us both, and really put us in good stead to come back to the UK. We really needed a relaxing holiday where there weren’t any unknown variables and we could just enjoy all the things we love about NZ. The weather was also fantastic, so we truly felt like we had had a summer by the time we returned to the UK (two weeks in Thailand helped too). Once our visa came through we pretty much booked everything we could straightaway - so to those of you we missed catching up with - sorry! But we'll probably catch up with you in a year anyway :o)

We left NZ on the 10th Nov, for two weeks in Thailand – see our next blog for this!
Lots of love
Jam and Bev

Another one bites the dust

Hey everyone,
Well in two days time we will have been over here a whole year! In many ways I can't believe it has been a whole year already, but in others I really feel that a long period has past! Only two weeks now until we head home to renew our visas - I can't wait!

Thinking about it today, we have done a lot in just a year, however in many ways we have just scratched the surface. I remember thinking as we left NZ I wonder how much I will change after a year or so overseas. I think I have definitely changed, my views on the world, being a kiwi etc have all become clearer, and I feel that I understand a whole lot more now. I know that probably sounds cheesy, and it is pretty hard to explain. As a kiwi I have always been extremely patriotic, but when you are overseas this lifts to a whole new level. But in saying this, you also learn things about what it means to be a kiwi - ie we are extremely laid back, we are multi-skilled, hardworking and we are very good at thinking outside of the square, these are a few traits that come to mind - oh and being friendly!! However there are also some less attractive traits that we possess ie being narrow minded (this includes those of you that haven't been outside of NZ and OZ or you north islanders that haven't even been to the Sth Is!) and not fighting for good causes (ie just letting an issue go instead of fighting for it).

It has also been cool to see how other countrys do things ie Dutch cycling everywhere, public transport, the huge push for sustainable development here in the UK etc.

In many ways it makes me want to make NZ better - I want to invest what I have learnt back into NZ (however I am now starting to understand why Kiwis are immigrating to OZ - because my attitude has previously been - Australia - Nah, its full of Australians!!) Haha.
But seriously a huge issue for NZ at the moment is that people in my age group just aren't returning to NZ because there aren't enough opportunities or well paying jobs for us. I believe we should all do an OE, don't get me wrong, but there should also be something more than family enticing us home again afterwards. I say this, however knowing that I will definitely come home to NZ when I have cured myself of this travelling bug, but there are a lot of kiwis my age that don't feel the same about coming home to NZ. I read an article recently that said Australians get paid 50% than Kiwis! Go figure!

I think I am yet to encounter a second stage of learning/changing, and that will be coming home to visit, for example you idealise NZ in your head as being this wonderful paradise - my brother reckons when he went to Japan, the whole year he said things like "well in NZ that would never happen, things are so much better at home" etc etc, but when he got in to Auckland airport he got chosen at random by customs to have his luggage searched, and he was like "Grrr maybe annoying stuff does happen in NZ"
So it will be interesting to see how my impressions of home have changed/been altered.

Anyway thats enough of a rant and rave about that! Bev and I have made a mega list of all the things we want to do whilst home. Calling into a service station for a pie after being picked up from the airport will be one of the first things haha! Oh and going to the Mt, I am so hanging out for the beach - I don't care that it won't be summer - I just want to spend some time at the beach! Aw and hanging out with my Kitty I so can't wait to see my little ball of fluff!

Last weekend we went camping in the New Forest which was really cool - except for the shite weather! It poured with rain on our train journey to Brockenhurst, and then when we arrived at the campsite, there were giant puddles on all of the sites!(although this served us well as we could see where all the low lying areas and dips were because of the giant puddles that had formed there). So we had to pick very carefully where we were going to pitch our tents (Dee and Mark came with us). The New Forest has semi wild ponies running around freely which is really cool, they just randomly walk through the camping ground, the small village high street, everywhere! We awoke both mornings with a start, to a horse neighing very nearby! The horses are owned by commoners (haha that's the word the taxi driver used! Only in the UK!), and basically they just round the horses up once a year to count the number of foals that have been born, and check their health. So people basically own these animals to set them free - kind of an odd concept, but quite nice at the same time.

After arriving Friday night, we went out for dinner at a very cute pub. On the Saturday morning it was still raining, so we walked into town, and found a nice cafe to hang out and play cards in until the rain cleared. We then went for an extremely enjoyable 15km walk through the New Forest, seeing plenty of horses, wild deer etc on our way - very nice and relaxing.
Then on Sunday we just packed up and headed back to London - all in all a very nice weekend away, and we were very lucky that our tents proved to be very waterproof given the weather! The only soggy part of our weekend was us, as we kept getting wet when we left the shelter of our tents! So much for camping in an English summer! I had to laugh though, because all of the girls at the camping ground had Wellies (gumboots for us Kiwis) except they weren't your standard red bands, they were pink with little love hearts and butterflies and girly things like that on them! Haha it would be funny to buy a pair and come home and get a job at LIC or AgResearch and turn up to a farm trial wearing some British wellies! I don't even think the animals would take me seriously! :o)

On Wednesday night we went and saw the Feelers - it was really cool, and I even got to shake James' hand! The sad thing is James looks like he's aged 20 years, since putting on weight and now that he is balding - he made us feel really old! The worst bit was we decided to catch the night bus home (tubes stop running at 12.30am) but we just missed the bus we needed and the next one wasn't for another 45min so we got another random bus, and then walked some of the way, so it took us ages to get home - on a school night! The trials and tribulations of using public transport!

This weekend is just a quiet one, this morning I watched the All Blacks collect the Tri Nations title (GO AB's!!) - I was standing next to these Brits who came in somewhere around half time, and they were egging on OZ cos most of us at the pub were Kiwi, just to wind us up(that's what they said - kinda like a soliloquy in a play). Which reminded me of that horrid World cup quarter finals match when the Brits were all supporting France, because they had all placed bets on France winning! Grr that made me so mad esp since the Brits can't stand the French! So when we won today (I was trying to think of something clever to say to them - like "do you even know what a try is, and no I don't mean a drop kick", but I just said "and that is how it's done!" and then left - haha they looked a bit taken back by that - either that or they didn't understand a word I said haha, wouldn't surprise me!).

We so often get mistaken for Aussies over here, it drives me insane! I helped out this women at the tube station the other day (I get so frustrated with how unhelpful everyone is here, so I always make a point of helping someone if I see it's something I can easily help with ie which tube line to take - cos it would have been so helpful if someone had done that for me when I was a newbie, and I am proud to be a friendly Kiwi - so if they go away thinking wow Kiwi's are nice, I have done something good for the world, anyway I helped this lady the other day, and afterwards I thought uh oh, that lady was probably thinking dam those Aussies are helpful haha! But after thinking that, I thought this could probably go the other way too, and if I am rude to someone, they will probably think "those aussies are so rude!" :o)

Bev is currently off playing cricket somewhere and I am starting to contemplate packing up all of our stuff (but as you can see I found a valid distraction).

So that is about all of our news for now! We have 8 more days of work to get through and then a bit of packing and then home! YAY!
See you soon!

Lots of Love
Jam

Rain Rain Go Away

Hey Everyone,

Man we are getting so slack at keeping you up to date! Hopefully this blog will fill in most of the gaps!
We have been doing so many things, even though we have been trying to save lately as we have recently found out that the new changes to the visa we need to apply for to remain in the UK for up to three years requires us to come home to NZ to apply! Whilst it will be really great to come home to NZ, it is such a pain, as we could have spent the money we will now have to spend on coming home going somewhere we haven’t been before! However, we really can’t wait to go home and see our families, Jessy kitty and friends :o)

We fly home on the 28th Sept, and will be home at least a month.

So this is what we have been up to anyway:

Leeds castle
The day our kiwi friends headed off to Spain, we decided to do something a bit more exciting ourselves, so we headed out to Leeds Castle – a castle that we had been meaning to visit for ages. It was a really great day out, (except the argument that we had had with the train ticket booth lady about whether we could go out to Leeds castle that day or not – turns out we knew what we were talking about!). Anyway, we got to Leeds castle just in time for the Falconry display which was fantastic to watch. Leeds castle is the first castle we have been to with a moat (and although not very exciting inside the castle as it is all restored), the grounds are fantastic, and it was a great chance to escape busy London for a quiet, peaceful and quaint village in Kent (South East of London). We really cherish these days when we can get out of London, as you feel yourself totally relax!

Jam at Leeds Castle

The falconry display at Leeds Castle

We went to the Phantom of the Opera with a group of friends - however I was quite disappointed by this show - definitely my least favourite show that we have been to. I don't quite know why I found it so disappointing - perhaps it was our seats (quite far away) or just the story line of the show. Anyway we enjoyed a good night out afterwards so that was good.

Ben and Jerrys
Some of you may not know, but Ben and Jerry’s is a delicious ice cream brand made in America, however I think it does pretty well here in England too. As it was their 30 birthday, they decided to hold a festival, which our kiwi friends invited us to, with a great twist – all you can eat Ben and Jerry’s ice cream!! We went in with an excellent tactic – eat the ice cream but throw away the cone so that you can eat more ice cream, except Bev was quite taken with the taste of the cones too……..haha.
Lets just say we won’t be eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for awhile – it is a lot richer and creamier than tiptop. The day was an extraordinarily hot day – so perfect for eating icecream, and they had some great British bands playing too. I even got sunburnt - shock horror!

Bev getting Hen pecked at the Ben and Jerry's festival! (they weren't very happy when he told them he was eating a chicken sandwich!)

Greenwich
Bev and I decided to check out Greenwich before church a couple of weekends ago. It was really cool, investigating a new area of London, walking through a tunnel that goes under the Thames, and trying tasty food at the Greenwich markets. However the highlight of my day was mocking Bev because he keeps referring to Greenwich as Green Witch, and then he was talking about this thing called the Cutty Shark that he had no idea about – until I told him it was the Cutty Sark and it was a ship! Haha. Unfortunately, we ran out of time so we didn't get to see the Maritime museum but we will have to go back and see this another time.

Bev in the tunnel under the Thames River

Greenwich looking towards Canary Wharf (where Bev works)

A cute squirrel - I watched it pick this muffin wrapper out of a rubbish bin and then cleverley eat all of the crumbs off it (far more sophisticated than Steve Harcourt eating the whole thing)

Bev’s Birthday
For Bev’s birthday last week, after a refreshingly lazy sleep in, I surprised him with a trip to the British Wildlife Centre which was about an hour out of London (it is surprising how many places you can find within an hours train ride of London). I thought our plans might have been thwarted by bad weather, however it stayed fine for all bar 2mins of our day out so that was great. The wildlife centre was really cool, it had British wildlife – just as the name suggests! So we got to see foxes up close, a badger, owls, polecats, otters, stoats and weasels (its hard to appreciate these since they are such mongrels in NZ).

We also got to finally see a red squirrel – so cute and ginger! (they have been displaced largely by the american grey squirell) But it was so sad we almost wish we hadn’t – as they were showing terrible repeat behaviours (it sux to be an animal behaviourist sometimes!). We then came home and quickly got ready to go out for dinner with a bunch of friends at a posh thai restaurant overlooking the Thames in Putney – very nice!

Eastbourne camping
This weekend we enjoyed two nights camping in Eastbourne (1.5hrs train trip from London South East) with Bev’s cousin and fiancée. It was so nice to get out of London and go somewhere different. We were quite worried about the weather as it was forecast for heavy showers(have you noticed that this is a theme of this blog), but it was fine during the day, and only rained at night. This was fine as we had borrowed a tent from Bev’s workmate, and it had an excellent fly on it – so no soggy camping! YAY! We were deeply disappointed though, as my workmate had told me they had sand at the beach we were staying at, but no, just more awful pebbles! However it was so nice to just chill, go out for a yummy breakfast, investigate our new surroundings, and walk down to an airshow that was on. As soon as we got to Eastbourne we just totally relaxed – ahhh.

Randon tidbits:

London has the grossest largest slugs ever – seem to be quite a few around at the moment ewww!
You have to look at it twice to see whether it is a dog poo or a slug – that’s how big they are! No wonder their wildlife do so well over here!

I don’t recommend being in a country that is not your own when an Olympics is on – because all you hear about is how wonderful the country you are in thinks they are! Grrrr, especially when your own country has no medals for the first week of the Olympics! You won’t believe how much crap I got about that! However, my faithful American friend greeted me enthusiatically this morning to inform me that we had five medals!

I have worked out why the Brits are always so pasty white – summer doesn’t exist in the UK –so far we may have had a month of nice weather(made up of a few days in early may, a few in july and that’s about it!) – The rest have been grey overcast days and rain. Don’t come here if you want a summer!


Anyway that's about all our news - we hope to see heaps of you when we are home in NZ!

Will try to do at least one more blog before we head home.......only 6 weeks to go! (and counting)


Lots of Love
Jam and Bev

In the Summertime.....

Hi all,

It’s been a while! Summer is well and truly here. We’ve have some fantastic British summer days and some not so fantastic British cloudy drizzly days. We have been so insanely busy! But that’s how it is over here in summer, being out and about with so many things to do, and being invited to so many things too…have got to cut down on spending!

I have been busy sport wise; I’ve been loving the cricket and hockey 7’s in England. There is something pleasant about being in England and playing Cricket, it’s nice to get away from the crowds and going to a beautiful open park with well established trees and bush and spend some time in the sun chasing a ball around. We have also been hauling ourselves out of bed too early (by our standards) to watch the All Blacks’ play on Saturday mornings…well worth it when we win though!

The week after we were in Berlin, we have had my parents come over for 2 weeks (start of June). They arrive tired with barely any sleep on the flight, and also arrived with a full suitcase of chips and biscuits from NZ! Hong Kong customs questioned why they were taking so much food towards the UK. It was interesting to see my parents’ initial reactions to life in London. They initially said that they could not believe how green the place was and how many brick houses there were here. We ended up going to Chinatown for dinner on the day they arrived, because my uncle arrived on the same day to visit his mate in Manchester. However, it was rush hour when we headed back after dinner. The look on dads face was classic when a guy squeezed into the tube next to him…I’m guessing he didn’t believe anyone could fit into that space! They had to learn quickly to hop on and off the tube very quickly too, else they would have been at the next tube stop on their own without realising it!

This gave us a chance to see more of London ourselves too. They got to see the usual London sights: Buckingham palace, Big Ben/Westminster, a ride on the London Eye, Tower of London, Hampton court, Thames boat ride, and we attempted to show them some vege markets….but we were horribly late and got lost. Their favourite place was Chinatown, where they hung out most of the time!

Bev's parents outside Westminster - Big Ben in the background

At Hampton Court with a dressed up lady

We then took them to Paris for a long weekend, because we wanted to show them that in a small amount of distance, there is a huge difference in Western cultures here, ie. Food, lifestyle, and language. We also wanted to show them another country too, as they had come such a long way. We took them to the usual tourist places including Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, a French perfume shop, a boat ride on the Seine, Arc De Triomphe, and the Latin Quarter for dinner. We tried to convince them that French food was really top notch, but it was not to their tastes, a lot of the food was too creamy.

Us all at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower

Behind the shoulder of the portrait artist, drawing Bev's dad (sitting in background left of photo)

We ended up tiring them with massive walks to see sights, something that Jam and I have gotten use to. But we did have one relaxing morning in Montmarte in a courtyard of portrait artists. We soaked up the relaxing atmosphere, and while Jam and I got caricatures, Mum and Dad got a portrait done. Afterwards we enjoyed delicious crepes and an ice cream. Mum and Dad thought Paris was really beautiful, and enjoyed some of the quirky French characters. However, they did not enjoy Gypsies.

When we arrived back into London, my parents went up to visit my uncle in Manchester. When they got there, they discovered that the Chinatown was not as good as London, so they came back earlier. Overall, it was nice to have them here and show them a bit of our life in London.

Two weeks after my parents left, myself and a group of guys and gals form my hockey club went to Lille for a Hockey tournament, in France. All I got to say is: what goes on tour stays on tour, and that’s all I got to say about it…..nah, kidding. We were an invitational team of 29 teams - 27 were French, 1 Belgium team, and we were the only “English” team – and me, the only Southern Hemisphere person of the lot. A friend in our club in London is a French guy who belongs to a club in Lille, who organised us to go to his French club for the tournament. This was pretty exciting going on tour to another country, especially of one of a different language. It was a great laugh for both myself and the French people I bumped into because of the language barrier and we both were a novelty to each other. Personally it was the best trip I’d ever been on. There is something really fun about turning up to a foreign speaking country, playing your favourite sport, enjoying the atmosphere of the music and sun, a bit of dress up, and really teaming up to stick it to the foreigners! Lille was a bit different to Paris, it was hard to find someone who spoke English.

Tarzan with his modern day axe

Wimbledon
On a perfect Tuesday evening during the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament, we decided to check out what the excitement was all about. We headed in after work to get cheap tickets to watch a game on court 1. We enjoyed watching the quaint etiquette of the ball handlers and pomp and ceremony of the umpires. It was a fantastic afternoon to bask in the late sun, and enjoy a very Posh British event of strawberries and cream, and Pimms. It was very amusing that every steward/ticket person/souvenir shop worker/food outlet person had a very proper posh accent. We found this very amusing because Wimbledon is only 5 minutes down the road, and we found a population of posh people pretty much next door. We found it so convenient to travel to the event down the road, because it’s probably the only place/event we’ve managed to commute to that was well below the 45minute average mark.

Strawberries and cream whilst watching Wimbledon Tennis

A few weeks on, some more kiwi mates arrived to stay with us for a week. They had been doing Turkey, Italy and Greece for the last 3 months and were here to kick off his UK visa. Their introduction to the UK was quite funny: firstly the Monopoly pub crawl the day after they arrived. And 2ndly experience of what happens when you make eye contact with tube commuters – big butch dude says to his bull dog “what’s that guy staring at!?”. The pub crawl was organised by the TNT magazine, Kiwi/Aussie/Saffa (short for Sth Africa) travel magazine. We went around 10 pubs located on the British Monopoly board. Our kiwi mates and us dressed up as cops and robbers, and a dice. We were quite disappointed that not many others got dressed up and that we didn’t get any photos of us in the magazine! But it was a great day out. With a bit of kiwi ingenuity in my costume, I was mistaken many times for a real police officer! Haha, I think I missed my calling! I made a stack of go to jail cards, to which Jam had heaps of fun handing out, especially when we walked through a market, bumping into a guy selling pirated DVDs! Jam handed him a go to jail card, which he accepted surprisingly gracefully! LOL!

A force to be reckoned with!

We’ve had a few good BBQs since the weather has warmed up, learning the difficult art of coal BBQs! It’s a horrible memory of how much of a contrast winter is every time I spot my coat hanging on the back of the door (it’s so thick it can stand up by itself!), and how we had to armour up in gloves and a warm hat!

It’s also been nice waking up at 5 (every second week I have to do an early shift for my job) with full day light and still having light right up to 10pm…..WOOOHOO! An extra few hours of light to play with. You really enjoy going out to the parks in the evening….I never thought I’d enjoy going to a park so much before! But it’s because of the well established trees that make it, and also the open green spaces are a contrast to the concrete jungle we live in. Although we have posted on our blog for so long, the amount of daylight is starting to fade. It was at its peak at the end of June, but is still the middle of summer. We’ve been for a couple of walks to explore the greater Putney area and now have discovered how swanky Putney really is! We discovered Auckland waterfront like bars and restaurants in the area….and wow!

So as you can see we've been pretty busy! Will try and get our next blog out soon!
Lots of love
Bev and Jam

Beer garden Berlin

Beer Garden....mmmmm

Sooooo Berlin - as you can tell from the title, we discovered the German beer garden! Aw we so want to have one of our own! Think hot summers night, social hub, tables and chairs, relaxing outside under big established trees and stars, drinking nice German beer and eating good food - convinced? I hope so!

FRIDAY

We took Friday off work - the day began crazily early, at 4.00am! We had to walk to find a night bus to get us to the meeting point for our tour. We then travelled to Stansted airport (approx an hour out of London), then flew to Berlin. We arrived to a sweltering 30 degree heat and soaked every minute of it up - the weather was just perfect for the whole weekend, heaven for the flagging vitamin D levels.

We knew we had flown in to Germany immediately - as we saw a guy at the airport with one of those classic german moustaches - you know the ones that are greased and rubbed together at the ends to form a straight point! Wish we'd asked him for a photo with us!

Once in Berlin we were met by a bus, and we toured around Berlin on this for about 2.5hrs or so. In this time we went to the Olympic Stadium - where we learnt that it was actually Hitler who instigated the whole running through different countries with the Olympic torch thing!

Us at Berlin Stadium

Jam at the Berlin Wall

We also saw heaps of the Berlin wall, and were shown round a number of sights. However, given the ridiculous hour we had woken up, our tour guides lulling voice soon had me nodding off :o)

Feeling extremely tired (and hungry) we checked into our hotel room, and made plans with our kiwi friends (we had met them on our Paris trip and organised to come on this trip with them). We decided that all we could handle was finding the beer garden - given the gorgeous heat and weather. So we traded our London woollies - ie jeans and sweatshirts for shorts and t shirts and ventured into town. We started with a kebab nearby our hotel - and did you know that the Doner kebab was created by Germans?? There are heaps of turkish food shops in Germany, and we were mighty pleased to discover that food is really reasonably priced in Berlin - made a nice change from Londons atrociously overpriced slops.

It was so nice to relax in the sun at the beer garden, and after a beer and some nice cake (strawberries set in red jelly on top of a shortcake base) we had replenished our energy levels.
The beer garden is situated in 300 acres of park (half my parents farm!) and it was so nice walking through all the established trees - until we happened upon a naked guy showering -(think outdoor shower like at the beach - except no togs) haha yep, one side of the park is dedicated to nudey sun bathing - heterosexual, and the other side is nudey sunbathing homosexual - further up is family bbq section - not to be mixed up!

Any, once our eyes had recovered we carried on to see a few famous Berlin sites, including "Chick on a stick" - or Golden Angel (pictured below),

the Brandeburg gate(pictured below),

a Soviet Memorial (made by the Soviets before the Allies arrived in Berlin at the end of WWII, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (pictured below).

We then decided after all that walking it was time to have some dinner, and a good opportunity to try the German sausage - or worst (pictured below left - Bev ordered a supposed meat loaf - which just turned out to be a ham steak!).

SATURDAY

The next morning after sleeping like babies, we went on a Bunker tour, which was located at the underground station closest to our hotel - very handy. It was really interesting to learn the history (as both Bev and I are very unhistoried), and I think the most interesting bit was that this wasn't from the Jewish perspective - the bunkers were made for nazi's to hide in from the bombings. I could talk about this for ages, but it was pretty interesting! Also learning how much the Germans measured - to work out how many people they could fit seated on stools in one room they worked out that the average length of the seated persons bum to knee length is 54cm.

After this we travelled to the Jewish museum -which I found incredibly interesting/moving. It had heaps of stories about Jewish families and random facts about them and their families trials and tribulations, and the most sobering of all - how many out of their family survived.

After this we headed into the centre for some lunch, and found a nice restaurant near to some monuments we wanted to see. From here we decided to try and find a tea house that our guide had pointed out on our bus tour, and successfully found it. This was very relaxing, it was turkish styles - so everyone sat on the floor on cushions and totally veged out for an hour or so.

(see picture evidence below)

The Berliner Dom (Church)

After this refreshing break we went and saw the Berliner Dom(see above) - a really cool Cathedral, then checked out the Reichstag(see below) - very cool parliament building with an awesome glass dome at the top, which you can walk up and get a nice view of the city.

The Reichstag - Parliament building with dome at the top

Overly enthusiastic Pretzel seller - Bev and I totally wet our selves laughing at this guy for ages! (still didn't buy a pretzel from him though - they taste yuck!)

At the top of the dome, you can lie down and look out the hole at the top at the sky - very relaxing especially when you have walked 10km in one day.....zzzzzzzz!

Bev and I at the top of the Reichstag dome

From here we walked back to the Beer garden

The four of us gaining a second wind thinking about the beer garden and a yummy dinner

for a relaxing evening of more German beer, yummy as pizza's made on a kind of naan bread and half a marinated chicken mmmmm! Yum.

Bev and Corey

The two Suzanne's (we hadn't meant to be name, hair colour and clothes colour co-ordinating!)

An attempt at capturing the awesome atmosphere in the beer garden!

On our way back to the hotel from here were saw a movie set that had been set up around the Chick on a stick - they had film crew and big commercial lights all set up - our tour guide said that a lot of movies get filmed in Berlin, because it can look like London, and more modern cities all in the one location. (see picture below)

SUNDAY
On Sunday, our feet were nearly ready to drop off, so it was a perfect time to go on a bike tire of Berlin. This is probably the second most highlight of the Berlin trip (after the beer garden), as again the weather was great, it was so relaxing riding around a flat city - and you can get everywhere so much faster on a bike than you can walking! We worked out that we had walked at least 10km the previous day - so no wonder our legs weren't working anymore!
We had this really cool tour guide on our bike ride - he was a german guy that had spent a few years in America, so he had the whole Californian beach bum thing going on, but was extremely good at relaxing and entertaining. Our favourite bit was his descriptions of what the Soviets decided to do with East Germany. He always gave two options for us to choose from. Option number 1 (this would always be something sensible) and Option number 2 - blow it up and concrete it over.....which one do you think the Soviets chose....Option number 2!

After this we had to quickly make our way back to our hotel to meet our tour group to go to the airport and fly back to London.

So overall what did we think of Berlin?

Berlin was really cool - it is the first city (that I Jam) actually thought - "I could live here" - after talking to my dad about this he wonders that is because my paternal great grandparents were from Germany/Poland and perhaps it is one of those random sensing where your roots are from moments - so am not sure??
We really like the size of Berlin - 3 million people, meant that there weren't the huge London crowds etc. Lots of old monuments mixed with new buildings, and cheap food. Not to mention the weather and the beer garden!!

What random things can we mention about it?
They have these really cool little men as symbols for the pedestrian crossing lights in Berlin
We found the Germans extremely friendly, we were asked if we needed help no less than three times when Germans saw us stumped looking at the map - pretty impressive considering this hasn't happened in any of the other countries we have been to - Egypt, Netherlands and Paris.

We found that the Germans weren't very eager to speak English to us - perhaps even more reluctant than the French, however we also found that a lot of them couldn't speak very much English anyway - a stark contrast to the Dutch who happily flicked between the two languages for us, and the French who are happy to if you try some French first - perhaps the Germans would have like us to try speaking in German first??

The only downside of Berlin is that it is a swamp - it therefore has bad swampy smells that you get a hint of every now and then - but at least it has a natural excuse for bad smells - London just smells!

To keep Berlin free of swamp water, it has heaps of unsightly above ground water pipes - really strange.

The Germans love David Hasslehoff - he is more famous in Germany for his singing than his role in Baywatch haha!

Berlin is basically bankrupt (hence the reasonable price of food) - it is still recovering from the wars, and the inequality that was created between East and West Berlin. And because of the East-West split that Berlin had, there is no real centre to the city as there is two of everything ie two town halls etc.

Anyway thats about all there is to say about that! Now we just have to catch you up on our 2nd Paris trip - watch this space!
Lots of Love
Jam and Bev