*yawns sleepily*
Jul. 4th, 2005 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynSo. We're in Australia.
Jet lag struck last night and I was awake from 3 am until 7 am, thus missing most of the morning as I caught up on sleep. Alarmingly, I'm still up beforepierot who is currently still in bed as I roam the streets of Melbourn searching for an internet cafe.
So what have we been up to?
Let me tell you.
We left London on Tuesday evening - we dragged suitcases on the underground to Heathrow, got there with two and a half hours to spare, checked in, had food, and then headed for our plane. We were travelling with China Eastern, who I thinktwicedead may be travelling with as well come autumn, so for Ben I offer a review of China Eastern:
China Eastern Airlines
First of all, I would like to emphasise that China Eastern offer by far the cheapest flights I've found out to Australia. Cheapest by a magnitude of at least 100 pounds when I was looking for tickets, and possibly closer to 200 pounds cheaper than quite a lot of airlines. When you're getting flights for two people, that adds up to a lot of money. As such, I think I got a fairly good deal.
However, I do accept that a lot of the time with airlines you do rather get what you pay for. China Eastern is kinda no exception.
The seats are cramped. Really. I'm 5'7" tall, and jez is 5'10", and we were both feeling our knees hit the back of the seat in front of us. Taller people may well have suffered quite badly. When evening came and everyone tried to set their seats as far back as possible it was definitely a bit tough on the knees. I'm not sure if the fact that the flight to Melbourne is overnight for both legs of the journey makes this a greater or lesser consideration.
The fact that both legs are overnight and most people did seem to be asleep was, I think, the only redeeming feature about the choice of film. For chrissakes, the first leg of the journey had a film which was in French and subtitled in Chinese. I was utterly lost, for the brief amount of time my headphones worked before they collapsed and went to Silicon Heaven. Then I just abandoned all hope and relied on books and boredom. I don't think the TV entertainment got any better, although I wasn't really watching, to be fair. There seemed to be some very dodgy animation on at one point. The food was also kinda 'meh'. It wasn't that bad - it was rice and there was some kind of meat - but it wasn't entirely great, and breakfast did feature a very odd version of scrambled egg with potato cooked inside the egg. It was most random.
Again, with the postive, this is the cheapest airline out there. The staff were really sweet, and it must be mentioned that as part of the deal jez and I did get a 28 hours stopover in Shanghai in a really rather plushy version of the Ramada hotel, all inclusive. Breaking up the jet lag really did help, and did stop me from being utterly insane from sleep dep when we landed.
So. Would I fly with China Eastern again? I think it depends on my financial situation. If I could afford someone else...OK...I probably would. On the other hand, for Australia on next to no money, China Eastern still get many points for giving me about 300 extra pounds to spend out here.
Away from aeroplanes, which I accept are not that interesting to many people, where have we been?
Erm. Shanghai and Melbourne.
Shanghai
Shanghai was really only a quick stopover. We got there (and I found out thatquisalan was totally right about just how vile Chinese toilets can be), we headed to the hotel, we discovered it was plush, we had showers and headed down to the hotel restaurant for dinner, which was mostly memorable for being real chinese food. In China. *nods earnestly*
Then there was bed.
The next day we got up and left the hotel. This was memorable for me discovering just how bloody hot it can get outside the sheltered air conditioned inside of airports and hotels. We got a taxi into Shanghai city, and roamed around while I got redder and redder in the face. Having heard many stories of China fromquisalan, I think I was expecting something different, a little stranger, a little less like New York or London. However, I think if I'd really wanted to see somewhere like that I should have gone somewhere other than Shanghai, which is really a fairly modern international city. Most of the street signs were bilingual, in Chinese characters and in English. Everywhere was clean and scrubbed down, and the people on the streets were all dressed in jeans or in suits. I think we saw more McDonalds, KFCs, Pizza Huts, Starbucks and Haagen Daazs than we saw Traditional Chinese Type Shops (tm). Again, we may have been in the wrong parts of Shanghai (I'm sure xambrius can correct me on these kind of things) - all we did was get a taxi to the bottom of the Beijing Road where it appeared that the museusm and memorials were and hope.
We did get a picture of a Chinese mall formelsner, just to make sure Mike knew we had been concentrating on the important things.
Then we got a taxi back and discovered we should have checked out of our hotel an hour previously. We scrambled!
Melbourne
And then on to Melbourne!
We've been here since 7 am on Friday morning now, staying with Nick and Mandy who are two friends of Jeremiah's from WAY back. This is a good and nice thing, in that it means jez gets quality time with an old friend. It's a somewhat odd thing in that they have no internet access at home and are prone to organising us focussedly enough that I haven't had time to hunt down an internet cafe before today. You maybe shouldn't expect too much in the way of communication from me while I'm out here.
However, so far Melbourne has been lovely. It's first of all rather nice to be somewhere cool - although not that cold. Australians tell me this is the depths of winter. It feels like a rather mild September to me. I sent a nice boy from Queensland into near sympathetic hypothermic shock by wandering the streets in my black dress with a shawl thrown over it at night, while he shivered in a coat, gloves and scarf.
Melbourne is also oddly not as foreign as I was expecting it to be. A lot of the brands on the shelves are identical to those we have at home. It isn't as big (in terms of buildings etc) as most US cities I've been to, and while it isn't exactly dripping historic buildings, neither are a lot of UK cities these days. It's got broad streets, lots of trees and parks and some gorgeous shopping. Oh, and a cafe dedicated entirely to chocolate. Chocolate drinks, chocolate food, chocolate pizza...oh...it was heaven. I'm told I can't spend two weeks there. I think this is most unfair.
And so, that's us. We're here. I'm in an internet cafe at the moment looking at flights to other parts of Australia. At the moment time and money is making me vaguely doubt Ayres Rock and wonder if Sydney might not be a better bet. It is looking as if we are fairly firmly booked to stay in Melbourne until at least Friday, which means we don't actually have massive amounts of time to fill in. We've got about a week to travel in, and Sydney and the the coast could probably fill that in quite nicely. Still, it would be a shame to not make it to the outback.
I'm also pondering the Camarilla. Rather scarily, we've made it to two games so far. Even more scarily, I've had a really good time. I suspect this may be linked to 'shiney new people' syndrome, and I suspect this does not mean I should weaken in my resolve to keep gone, but I shall ponder such things in a later post.
For now, the zoo awaits. I'm told there are koalas, monkeys and a lot of penguins.
Onward!
Jet lag struck last night and I was awake from 3 am until 7 am, thus missing most of the morning as I caught up on sleep. Alarmingly, I'm still up before
pierot who is currently still in bed as I roam the streets of Melbourn searching for an internet cafe.So what have we been up to?
Let me tell you.
We left London on Tuesday evening - we dragged suitcases on the underground to Heathrow, got there with two and a half hours to spare, checked in, had food, and then headed for our plane. We were travelling with China Eastern, who I think
twicedead may be travelling with as well come autumn, so for Ben I offer a review of China Eastern:China Eastern Airlines
First of all, I would like to emphasise that China Eastern offer by far the cheapest flights I've found out to Australia. Cheapest by a magnitude of at least 100 pounds when I was looking for tickets, and possibly closer to 200 pounds cheaper than quite a lot of airlines. When you're getting flights for two people, that adds up to a lot of money. As such, I think I got a fairly good deal.
However, I do accept that a lot of the time with airlines you do rather get what you pay for. China Eastern is kinda no exception.
The seats are cramped. Really. I'm 5'7" tall, and jez is 5'10", and we were both feeling our knees hit the back of the seat in front of us. Taller people may well have suffered quite badly. When evening came and everyone tried to set their seats as far back as possible it was definitely a bit tough on the knees. I'm not sure if the fact that the flight to Melbourne is overnight for both legs of the journey makes this a greater or lesser consideration.
The fact that both legs are overnight and most people did seem to be asleep was, I think, the only redeeming feature about the choice of film. For chrissakes, the first leg of the journey had a film which was in French and subtitled in Chinese. I was utterly lost, for the brief amount of time my headphones worked before they collapsed and went to Silicon Heaven. Then I just abandoned all hope and relied on books and boredom. I don't think the TV entertainment got any better, although I wasn't really watching, to be fair. There seemed to be some very dodgy animation on at one point. The food was also kinda 'meh'. It wasn't that bad - it was rice and there was some kind of meat - but it wasn't entirely great, and breakfast did feature a very odd version of scrambled egg with potato cooked inside the egg. It was most random.
Again, with the postive, this is the cheapest airline out there. The staff were really sweet, and it must be mentioned that as part of the deal jez and I did get a 28 hours stopover in Shanghai in a really rather plushy version of the Ramada hotel, all inclusive. Breaking up the jet lag really did help, and did stop me from being utterly insane from sleep dep when we landed.
So. Would I fly with China Eastern again? I think it depends on my financial situation. If I could afford someone else...OK...I probably would. On the other hand, for Australia on next to no money, China Eastern still get many points for giving me about 300 extra pounds to spend out here.
Away from aeroplanes, which I accept are not that interesting to many people, where have we been?
Erm. Shanghai and Melbourne.
Shanghai
Shanghai was really only a quick stopover. We got there (and I found out that
quisalan was totally right about just how vile Chinese toilets can be), we headed to the hotel, we discovered it was plush, we had showers and headed down to the hotel restaurant for dinner, which was mostly memorable for being real chinese food. In China. *nods earnestly*Then there was bed.
The next day we got up and left the hotel. This was memorable for me discovering just how bloody hot it can get outside the sheltered air conditioned inside of airports and hotels. We got a taxi into Shanghai city, and roamed around while I got redder and redder in the face. Having heard many stories of China from
quisalan, I think I was expecting something different, a little stranger, a little less like New York or London. However, I think if I'd really wanted to see somewhere like that I should have gone somewhere other than Shanghai, which is really a fairly modern international city. Most of the street signs were bilingual, in Chinese characters and in English. Everywhere was clean and scrubbed down, and the people on the streets were all dressed in jeans or in suits. I think we saw more McDonalds, KFCs, Pizza Huts, Starbucks and Haagen Daazs than we saw Traditional Chinese Type Shops (tm). Again, we may have been in the wrong parts of Shanghai (I'm sure xambrius can correct me on these kind of things) - all we did was get a taxi to the bottom of the Beijing Road where it appeared that the museusm and memorials were and hope.We did get a picture of a Chinese mall for
melsner, just to make sure Mike knew we had been concentrating on the important things. Then we got a taxi back and discovered we should have checked out of our hotel an hour previously. We scrambled!
Melbourne
And then on to Melbourne!
We've been here since 7 am on Friday morning now, staying with Nick and Mandy who are two friends of Jeremiah's from WAY back. This is a good and nice thing, in that it means jez gets quality time with an old friend. It's a somewhat odd thing in that they have no internet access at home and are prone to organising us focussedly enough that I haven't had time to hunt down an internet cafe before today. You maybe shouldn't expect too much in the way of communication from me while I'm out here.
However, so far Melbourne has been lovely. It's first of all rather nice to be somewhere cool - although not that cold. Australians tell me this is the depths of winter. It feels like a rather mild September to me. I sent a nice boy from Queensland into near sympathetic hypothermic shock by wandering the streets in my black dress with a shawl thrown over it at night, while he shivered in a coat, gloves and scarf.
Melbourne is also oddly not as foreign as I was expecting it to be. A lot of the brands on the shelves are identical to those we have at home. It isn't as big (in terms of buildings etc) as most US cities I've been to, and while it isn't exactly dripping historic buildings, neither are a lot of UK cities these days. It's got broad streets, lots of trees and parks and some gorgeous shopping. Oh, and a cafe dedicated entirely to chocolate. Chocolate drinks, chocolate food, chocolate pizza...oh...it was heaven. I'm told I can't spend two weeks there. I think this is most unfair.
And so, that's us. We're here. I'm in an internet cafe at the moment looking at flights to other parts of Australia. At the moment time and money is making me vaguely doubt Ayres Rock and wonder if Sydney might not be a better bet. It is looking as if we are fairly firmly booked to stay in Melbourne until at least Friday, which means we don't actually have massive amounts of time to fill in. We've got about a week to travel in, and Sydney and the the coast could probably fill that in quite nicely. Still, it would be a shame to not make it to the outback.
I'm also pondering the Camarilla. Rather scarily, we've made it to two games so far. Even more scarily, I've had a really good time. I suspect this may be linked to 'shiney new people' syndrome, and I suspect this does not mean I should weaken in my resolve to keep gone, but I shall ponder such things in a later post.
For now, the zoo awaits. I'm told there are koalas, monkeys and a lot of penguins.
Onward!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 03:35 am (UTC)Glad you're having a good time. Say "hi" to Nick and Mandy for me (as the the guy they met at ICC who Nick told to hit Jez from him!).
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 08:34 am (UTC)So please say 'Hi' for me (Nick is playing my character's Sire) and continue to have a good time.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 02:58 am (UTC)And I shall pass on the greetings.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 03:04 am (UTC)And it was muchly odd. Very different from a lot of the UK games.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 09:11 am (UTC)Though the power of shiny new people does make a difference, I felt that the roleplaying was better when I came across to the Uk for the first time.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-06 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 08:24 am (UTC)Granted I'd like to see you come back to the Cam but thats me..
However..
You're making me envious again (other than the Zoo part, do you have another handbrake cable to snap to avoid this trip?) sounds really quite nice and like you've chosen the right time to go (in a Matt sense, as I hate the heat) wish I could afford to go and do exciting things *mope*
As for Shanghai not being very chinese (well not trad touristy china anyway) I kinda got that feeling from the numerous posts Tim made on it not being how he wanted/expected.
I would of course ask that you got me something traditional australian but mattlike whilst over there but I think they might notice you smuggling a stuffed tasmasian devil out of the country :-)
Hope you keep having as good a time as you sound like your having best wishes to you and Jez of course and *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 02:01 am (UTC)*does her impressed with herself dance*
Hopefully I'll see you when I get back. Must try and make it out to Cambridge. It's not too far from London and that's where I am these days.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 09:19 am (UTC)Them damn penguins can be rather hard to find.
So did you enjoy Forsaken? Are they still playing in the treasury gardens?
Tanks for the China Eastern review, we will continue our plans to get work out how to take our own entertainment with us.
As for visiting the outback, why not hire a car and drive up to Sydney? There's many historic sites along the way and you can catch some bush (with added venomous creatures) along the way. If you stop at a couple of places along the way you could have quite a nice journey.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 01:59 am (UTC)Forsaken would have been better had I not been up to 6 am the night before drinking with Australians and wasn't jet lagged to all hell (and did you know jet lag can be contagious? Several other people claimed to have caught it from myself and jez that day. Most strange). I slept through the last hour of it. They aren't playing in the gardens anymore - they've got some kind of community centre which was actually quite a nice venue - it's got sofas, a nice garden with some swings in it outside and a good collection of people who were all very friendly.
Oh - and I've realised how majorly you've lost your accent! I always vaguely thought that Melbourne was obviously just a very soft accent. Having met people who live out here, I've realised it is mostly that Ben sounds English these days!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 08:49 am (UTC)And I haven't lost my accent, I just never had one. I was foreign and exotic to many Australian people for a long time, until I finally convinced them that I wasn't English.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 01:54 am (UTC)Malls
Date: 2005-07-05 07:58 am (UTC)Malls: The truly international language.
Dropped by Southcenter mall this weekend; it's the one near the NWRE 2002 hotel.
Re: Malls
Date: 2005-07-06 04:08 am (UTC)What's your address btw? Wanted to send you a postcard.
Re: Malls
Date: 2005-07-06 06:58 am (UTC)4650 SW Murray Blvd #63
Beaverton, OR 97005