5am is too early to get up, get changed and drag a suitcase to London Heathrow airport. I haven’t travelled since end of January 2011, which is rare for me so I was really looking forward to hopping across the pond visiting New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago.
Unlike travelling to the east coast of the States from my home town Melbourne, which takes at least 24 hours, going from London to NYC takes about 6-7 hours or around 3 movies.
The main purpose of this trip is to attend a wedding in Chicago but before that its gorging the amazing food of all different cuisines in NYC as well as Philadelphia.
It takes so long to get passport control at NYC despite being the only plane load of people coming through at the time. Passengers forgetting to fill out forms, passengers filling out the wrong forms, passengers must give electronic finger prints and last but not least some passengers are required to eye scans. No wonder it takes so long! This old indian couple tried to push in the line only to be told to get back to end of the line and fill out the missing form, queue-jumpers!
I know NYC is coined as the concrete jungle but you have to be on a plane (window side) to really see what its like. It is mesmerising that a whole island (Manhattan) are just filled with skyscrapers and concrete buildings with the exception of central park of course which seemed out of place. Its a sight to behold and to understand what a concrete jungle really is.
I arrived at the airport trains but didn’t know where they went or where I’m supposed to go or how they work. I was looking for ticket machines and maps but nothing. Eventually I found out I had to be at Jamaica station and on the exit at Jamaica station you can buy a train pass plus pay for the airport train upon exit of the Jamaica station by paying $5 (no tip).
I had to go to 7th Ave / 51st and the closest station was 50th so off I went. The subways in New York City are quite humid and a touch on the damp side. The train themselves are all air conditioned and a relief from the humidity. I don’t know what I would prefer more, the humid subways and air conditioned trains of New York City or the hot subways and hot trains of London. I think I would prefer the former as air conditioned trains are the best thing since sliced bread. It can get quite cold in the carriages but that’s the beauty of it.
Also the New York City subway is confusing compared to the london underground. A few trains can enter on the same platform but go to different destinations. You don’t have any idea which direction the train is going and there’s never a clear map to show the next station or list of stations on those particular lines.
I had to pick up keys from my friends work colleague and it was difficult to get a hold of him. After about an hour of trying to call and email I finally got in touch and got the keys to the apartment which I was staying at for the entire NYC trip.
I was still getting used to the grid-like streets and working out the number avenue and street. The beauty about this system is that you will always know that you’re walking in the wrong direction as the numbers increase or decrease.
After wandering the streets I finally found the apartment and settled in. I packed my cameras in my bag and set off on exploring the streets of new york city. I didn’t know where I was going or what I wanted to see but I definitely wanted to sample some food. The aim of this trip was to try as many restaurants as I could and eat as much I could so my first item on the food menu was the good old hot dog from one of the hundreds of makeshift trolley stores that lie on the corner streets.
I couldn’t do sample the food on my own so I met up with my friend’s friend that evening drinking at a bar/restaurant and organising the places to eat for the next couple of days. I couldn’t wait to taste the food from the restaurants we selected!
After a couple of Blue Moon’s (beer) and a long day traveling, I was exhausted and tired so I had to retire early that night for tomorrow is another adventure.
Smiles 
December 12th, 2011 in
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While a majority of bus drivers are great at what they do, some however drag other bus drivers reputations back down to the curb. The level of stupidity some of these other bus drivers possess amazes me and they need to be re-trained and reassessed.
Take some drivers who try to squash everyone in a bus like sardines, or how some drivers supposedly forget to stop at a bus stop even when alerted by the ding noise. Some even stop at the wrong bus stop, allow passengers on and then go in the wrong and opposite direction they want to go.
But this clown bus driver takes the cake and the ice cream too.
I was waiting at my designated bus stop as per normal each evening on the running tide home when this double decker bus stopped at the bus stop. It wasnt my bus but I was just observing the bus drivers performance of stopping the bus, allowing passengers on and then moving on to collect the next herd, as you do.
This bus driver didnt know the simple rules to driving a bus or should I say stop, drop, collect and move. Instead he wanted to be a tourist guide and allow someone to ask for directions or a place of interest.
Normally a bus driver would know instantly where everything is or simply say wrong bus mate. However this driver took out a map, spoke to this person for what seemed like 5-8 minutes. Meanwhile this oblivious fool failed to look at what was behind him or see the chaos he was causing due to being a hopeless tourist guide.
What he had caused was a major bottleneck of traffic stretching as far as the eye could see and what appeared to be like half of londons peak hour traffic up his arse. Every bus, taxi and car behind him was beeping their horns like mad but this guy was in his own world clearly captivated by his immaculate interpersonal and mapping skills.
Once the passenger was satisified about the directions given, they sat down in the bus and he finally closed the bus door and moved on still unaware of the commotion he was passing on to others with the traffic and delays.
While I would like my 30 minutes back from this delay, I would happily trade those 30 mins to beat the crap out of him and remind him he is a bus driver and not a tourist guide.
Smiles
April 5th, 2011 in
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5 days of shopping? That is madness. I know its crazy and I can’t believe I did that.
Together with my friends from Australia, we basically shopped until we dropped both in Macau and Hong Kong. I’ve never done this before on my travels and I think its more tiring then hiking a mountain. You try on these clothes and then get them tailored to your specifications. This goes on every day and by the time you are done your suitcase is so full of clothes you need to ask the airline for a luggage weight policy changed.
I would bore you to death writing about the rest of my time in Hong Kong when all I did was shop, hang out with my mates, shop, drink and eat the most amazing food and shop some more. Did I mention the shopping? It’s amazing, I won’t have to buy clothes for another year at least.
OK during those days I did go to Macau and hang out at the Venetian Macau casino for dinner, and wander around Macau old town. I went to Lantau Island to eat at one of the seafood restaurants on that seafood restaurant strip. They have their very on boat/ferry that takes you there from Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) which is free.
smiles
March 2nd, 2011 in
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Today was our last day in Taiwan and the final destination we wanted to visit was a town called Wu-lai in the mountains with geothermal activity creating warm to hot rivers creating natural hot springs which are free to the public.
Wu-lai is about an hour from Taipei using the MRT train from Taipei Central to Xindian which is about 20 minutes and then bus 1603 to Wu-lai which is about a 40 minute journey (last stop on bus). You could probably take a taxi from Taipei Central but the prices vary with different drivers.
While waiting for the bus at Xindian to Wu-Lai we got a discount taxi fare with another couple to Wu-lai which ended up being $100 each instead of the usual fare of $600.
We got back very late from Wu-lai and we were very short on time but we really wanted to see and go up to Taipei 101. We did eventually get up to the very top of Taipei 101 including the open air area but didn’t stay long as we had a plane to catch. I guess we didn’t appreciate the sheer size of the building enough as we simply didn’t have enough time.
Once we saw what we could at Taipei 101 we had to make a mad dash back to the hotel and find our bus. We were only told to meet the bus dude at the front of KFC. There’s a hundred KFC’s around so we just prayed the bus driver would wait for us! We had about 20 minutes to get to the hotel and from Taipei 101 things weren’t looking good to get our 4pm bus.
We hailed for a cab and asked him to drive as fast as possible back to the hotel. If he did so I would have tipped him handsomely. Each time we stopped at a red light we lose 90 seconds as the countdown timer clearly shows. It was going to be a miracle if we were going to make it. It didn’t help that the taxi driver’s clock was 4 minutes faster and the fact that we were stuck in traffic. Slowly and gradually we crawled our way to the hotel and once we got there we bolted to the hotel to get our luggage only to find our luggage locked away in the kitchen!
So the plan was to get the lift to the lobby but just when we were about to walk in, the lady with the key came through and we managed to get our luggage out and frantically ran to the main road in search for the KFC joint. Of course it felt like amazing race but there were no rewards, only an expensive new flight was the reward or should I say failure.
As we got to the KFC the bus driver was already there waiting for us and waved us down. Somehow we were a couple of minutes early but as I sat on the bus I thought could he have left earlier than 4pm? This was so reminiscent of the bus in France that left 15 minutes early and left us with a 270Euro taxi bill to the airport but the Taiwanese people are actually nice unlike the arrogant French who don’t have any patience.
We made it to the airport, checked in, ate some more food and flew back into Hong Kong to meet up with some more Australian friends.
smiles
March 2nd, 2011 in
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Our adventure brings us back to Din Tai Fung, probably the most popular restaurant in Taipei if the queues are something to go by. Majority of the customers were herds of japanese tourists with some bringing their own rice wine inside to gorge with.
We only had to wait about 10 minutes until we got a table. Inside it was organised chaos with not an empty seat in sight. Waiters and waitresses running around delivering food to the many tables. The chefs all in one room busy making the famous dumplings namely the Xiao Long Bao or XLB for short. We ordered one too many dishes but somehow still managed to eat everything that was ordered.
On each table there is a card which instructs you on how to eat the XLB. Well let’s just say I didn’t read the instructions properly and missed out on one step. That proved to be quite embarrassing to say the least when all the XLB broth inside went all over my pants/trousers! Step 3 says to pierce the XLB so the broth goes into your spoon and then you eat it. If you don’t pierce like this idiot, then the broth will just squirt in whatever direction it pleases and in this case down onto my pants.
Needless to say I couldn’t dry my pants/trousers and even if I did it would be stained. As we finished up, I had to walk out the restaurant so the customers eating and those waiting in the long queue couldn’t see the little accident I had or perhaps they would of thought this guy just got a bit too excited over some XLB’s!
We located some shops nearby and I got myself some pants/trousers. Just to rub it in, the store offered a 2 for 1 deal just in case something like this was to happen again. haha.
Next stop we headed to Danshui, a town by the sea/coast which looked interesting to visit despite being severely overcast with rain imminent. Like any other town, Danshui had its market strip selling food among other things. You can get a ferry to see the area but since it was so gloomy there wasn’t really any point.
The only interesting thing I found there was the fishing and the numerous locals trying to catch fish on the tourist strip with relatively great success. I believe they were catching what looked like mullet but they only kept the large ones > 1kg and kicked back the ones that weren’t that sorta size.
Before heading back to the hotel we stopped by Xinbeitou to try out one of the hot springs but we got knocked back because you weren’t allowed to wear shorts but only bathers which I assume is bike shorts or even budgie smugglers. Clearly in the photos however there were photos of people in shorts. Instead of arguing with them, we just accepted their decision and just wandered back to the train station to head back to the hotel.
For dinner we decided to go to this beef noodle restaurant in Taipei city center. We thought to go without any maps or guides and boy was that a bad decision. We wandered around endlessly in circles trying to find the restaurant when they all looked the same. In the end we just went to this Japanese noodle house and saved the other place for tomorrow. We didn’t fill ourselves too full because we were going to another night market straight away near our hotel.
The market wasn’t anything special only that most of it was indoors and it was labeled the tourist night market. On the streets they sell the food whilst in the main strip there were art shops, souvenir shops, bag shops restaurants, places to eat turtle, eat snake and god knows what else to eat!
Smiles
March 2nd, 2011 in
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We slept in till midday today and then headed to the famous dumpling restaurant Din Tai Fung (DTF) only to find the queue to be sooo ridiculously long. I kinda of expected that seeing it was a Sunday lunch when I’m sure the locals go out in their droves for a dumpling lunch. Apparently DTF’s main customers are no other than the Japanese! Arigato-gozaimasu!
Instead we went to another famous restaurant called Past Small Moon (yes, you guessed it – the sign didn’t say that either) where the queues were a lot smaller and we had time to wait. The food was suprisingly delicious and didn’t disappoint. We had the noodles in soup, pork sausage, lobster egg roll, fried prawn roll and braised pork on rice. Lunch was around £12 for two, again awesome! My favorite was definitely by a hundred miles the fried prawn roll, mouth watering.
Today our main desination was Jiufen, a mountain town in the north of Taiwan. Seeing as the weather was sunny, its an ideal place to go! We scrapped our plans to Sun Moon Lake after I found out its a 9 hour round trip which I think it wasn’t worth it. Trains from Taipei Main station to Jiufen (via the Huanlien line) were $78twd each and takes about 30 minutes.
The train stops at Ruifang where you disembark and then find the bus to Jiufen which can be found directly opposite the train station in front of the lights. Just simply look out for the people queuing up by the traffic lights and just make sure the bus heads in left direction. There were alot of traffic coming up to Jiufen so we decided to hop off the bus early and somehow ended up at the tourist information center.
I wanted to climb the Jiufen peak and asked them how to get up there and how long it was going to take. The response was 20 minutes to 7 Eleven and 40 minutes to the peak. This was coming from an old lady so we managed to get up there in half that time and the sun still up but setting fast.
The hike up there isn’t that bad but you’ll still have a good sweaty workout. Remember to bring some water, buy it from 7 Eleven before you head up there. There are two paths up, one that goes around then up or one straight up. The path goes around is meant to be easier but covers double the distance whereas the shorter one has a steep climb and much quicker. We chose to do the former as we had plenty of time.
Afterwards I grabbed a local Taiwanese beer and rested my weary legs whilst eating ritz biscuits and hot waffles. We wandered around Jiufen exploring the narrow roads filled with hawker style stalls selling mainly food and other souvenirs. The food looked amazing but there was one item in particular which stank so badly that I wanted to vomit. It had a really foul smell and this item was some sort of tofu, god it was ghastly and you could smell it a mile away, it defintely grossed me out! How can tofu smell that rotten. My friend told me it actually tastes nicer than it smells. No way jose!
The next two trains back to Taipei were full so we had to wait 2 hours for the next available one from Rueifang. Ruifang is a tiny place so it was difficult to find something to do for two whole hours! So we naturally ate and ate then sat in the square watching life go by.
Smiles
March 2nd, 2011 in
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I got up at 7am and my eyes felt so heavy! I needed more sleep that’s for sure but its a busy day of traveling ahead so sleeping is out of the question until tonight.
For breakfast we went to eat at the local restaurant which is in the middle of all the residential high rise flats. Old women doing tai chi and lots of people enjoying the morning sun and fresh breeze. On the menu was noodles with beef, egg sandwich and red tea (this was quite a common breakfast for the locals). I followed this up with a bbq roast pork bun and some sort of pineapple bun. They were both delicious especially the fresh roast pork bun. All this food for around £2! Since my mate lives locally it does help when ordering food and getting around because they speak the language as out here there are no english menus so I would have no idea what I would be ordering – although hong kong food roulette might not be such a bad thing.
I’m surprise they still use bamboo and string for scaffolding in this day and age! In London its metal bars everywhere and to see that they still use bamboo here is amazing. I’m not sure how stable it is but it appears to do the job and it appears that it doesn’t matter how tall the buildings are. What will work safe or the health and safety authority think? Perhaps also the bamboo can support the HK tradesman who are usually of skinny build whereas in London the tradies are usually have a bit more meat on them so just maybe the bamboo cannot support their weight! haha.
I arrived in Taipei and took a bus from airport to Taipei main station. The bus took about an hour but felt like a couple of hours as I was tired and sleep deprived made worst by the traffic congestion. At Taipei station we got a train to Ximen where the hotel was located. It was like a maze down there at Taipei main station with 3 different types of train systems. You have the metro network (MRT), then you have normal rail going city to city (TRA) and then high speed rail (HSA) network. Just get me to my hotel damnit!
Ximen is suprisingly cosmopolitan with a younger crowd. As we got there in the evening DJ’s were playing in the open square, crowds gathered around buskers and the Ximen Market was quite packed with revellers, shoppers and diners alike. I felt Xinen was a mixture of tokyo, hong kong and penang bundled into one, its a great place!
There is no way I would have been able to find this hotel on my own. It hasn’t even got any english lettering only chinese symbols! I was supposed to find the Han She Hotel. The hotel room is really nice though, 2 large double beds and one with a tv facing it. I called shotgun on it
Dinner was at this local tiny mum and dad owned restaurant packed to the rim. It was clearly to us that going to popular local restaurants was going to be more enjoyable and a fraction of the price compared to the western touristy places to eat. However you can only go to these local places if you know chinese in this case mandarin otherwise you would have no idea what you would be ordering and how to communicate to the waiters! Dinner for 2 which was 5 dishes and 2 drinks was only £5.
We wandered around after dinner checking out the shops and streets then gorged ourselves at the Shilin Market which is a hawker style food mecca. There were so many people in the area it was a bit mad. The food was mouth watering and the narrow hallways were quite hot because of the close promixity to you and the flaming hot wok! You can get extremely close to them. People are screaming at you literally to come eat at their store. The best thing I got was a rice sausage cut in half and filled with condiments and then a pork sausage inserted in between so it was like a sausage hotdog! It was awesome!!
Afterwards we ventured somewhere near the Taipei 101 to get some night shots but sadly the Taipei 101 was disappointing at night as I thought it would be lit up during the night but sadly it wasn’t! There were only a couple of lights on the building so there wasn’t enough light to take the photo. Sad.
Smiles
March 2nd, 2011 in
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My last minute and spontaneous trip to Asia begins! I’ve got 10 days or less to see as much as I can whilst gorging in the awesome food that awaits me. Ill be in Hong Kong, followed up Taiwan and then an evening in Macau, should be fun!
I flew from London Heathrow direct to Hong Kong with my favorite airline Cathay Pacific. I sat next to an elderly couple who funnily enough worked for the NHS but now retired so we had a good chat and of course whinge about how bad the NHS is! haha. It was also quite random that she’s been to the hospital I work at for meetings.
I had no issues going through customs and went straight to ticket help desk. The ticket guy didn’t even say a word. I handed him $500hkd and said “Wong Tai Sin”. He pulled out their version of tube/train map, drew 4 circles, handed me $350hkd back and waved at the next customer! Lovely customer service when they don’t need to say anything at all and everything makes sense.
First stop was Tsing Yi. I wandered around endlessly going up and down lifts and escalators only to find myself in the same place I started. Next to the barrier gate you can measure your luggage as the barrier gate is quite narrow. I thought my bag would fit easily and it did but that wasn’t the problem! The ticket barrier is a turnstyle so I swiped my card and proceeded in, luggage first and myself second. Can you see the problem? I was stuck. The luggage was on one side of the ticket barrier, then it was the turnstyle and then it was me on the other side. You can’t swipe in twice, so I had to lift the luggage over the barrier and found the train lady. I performed some charades to explain what happened which she understood then she led me past this secret door and I was on my way to Wong Tai Sin.
Actually not quite. I was busy typing away on the blackberry and managed to miss my stop at Lai King. It was only 1 stop but I still managed to forget to disembark. Instead I ended up at Nam Cheong and had to get the train back and navigate through the maze to get back on the correct platform. I was already late as it was meeting my mate at Wong Tai Sin.
I found my mate at Wong Tai Sin and then proceeded to eat at a local restaurant. We ordered a 3 course meal at a bargain price of £8! If you were to go to a western or touristy restaurant expect to pay triple or more.
After dinner we headed back to my mates apartment where I could clean up a bit and brush my teeth. At 11pm we went to meet some friends from Australia and go for a few drinks in Lan Kwai Fong where all the bars and clubs are for the Westerners. It took hours to find each other as we didn’t communicate properly and ended up at different stations!
We ended up bypassing the western bars as they were so trashy and loud. Instead we went to an empty bar and had a few cocktails which was a more quiet affair. I Didn’t get back to the apartment till 2am and the sleep deprivation was getting to me. Mind you I have to get up in a few hours to get to the airport to go to Taiwan!
smiles
March 2nd, 2011 in
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You’re on a busy train and there’s only a couple of seats left so you decide have to sit next to someone. During your journey to work, the passengers on the train slowly begin to disembark at each station and the train carriage begins to empty.
Eventually the only people left on the train is the person sitting next to you and the remainder of the train carriage is empty. You have a few stops to go, do you stand up and move to another seat? They might take offense and think gosh do I smell? Why did he just stand up and move seats like that? The other option is to sit there until you get off and make it as though you didn’t really notice the train carriage is empty.
It is an awkward position to be in especially the person seated next to you is the same sex. I’ve often just chosen to sit still and not move. Why should I move? I’ve sat there quite comfortably, the seat has molded around my butt nicely so if anyone wants to move the person next to me can decide that move. To hell with awkwardness! The person next to me is probably thinking the same or they could be thinking there are so many seats to choose from on this carriage, why the hell is this idiot still sitting next to me. He should be moving because I ain’t!
What is the etiquette?
Smiles
July 24th, 2010 in
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