Intercontinental

Checked in to the hotel – it was a very nice welcome, but we didn't get an upgrade this time (however we did get a bridge view, which was nice!!!) 

The rest of us waited in the bar for Dan to have a shower, and we had 2 rounds of beers (for the 5 of us). 

Checking out the bar bill later on, we realised that it cost us $98 AUD - that's £67 for 10, 330ml bottles of beer.

I was overall, a bit dischuffed with the IC...it was a little bit too posh, and seemed much less friendly than the fantastic service we'd had in the Holiday Inn, Singapore. 

There was NO FREE WIFI!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!! Hence the blogging gap. How bizarre. She said 'I know you're used to that in Europe, but we don't do that here' Terrible. 

Travel to Sydney

Got to the airport and after a brief explore, we went off in search of noodles!

On our way we saw the 'honeymoon dessert' stand - very apt!

The flight to Sydney from Singapore was very pleasant and uneventful. 7.5 hours of relative peace, overnight. 

Sydney is another 3 hours ahead so, with the 8 from Singapore, that put us 11 hours ahead of the UK.

The last few times I've flown long haul, I've taken the opportunity to watch a classic movie that I've not seen before. So, last time I went to NY for work, I watched 'Some like it hot' and this time on the Sydney flight, I watched 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' – spectacular acting from Maggie Smith – I think she got an Oscar for it.

We arrived in Sydney and got through customs in record time – under an hour from landing to being in the car with Sarah and Steve.

Where did we go to first – Vic's meats – a wholesale meat seller who sells to the retail trade on a Saturday morning. They sell the most AMAZING steak, and at about 60% of the retail price.

So then it was back home to Mosman– where we met up with Alan – Steve's dad who we met on holiday in Vass last year. Then, on to one of the local cafes for a fantastic Sydney breakfast.

Next was back in to town on the ferry, one of my really fave things!! 

You can see our hotel, the Intercontinental, to the left and below the AMP building.

It's a lovely day in Christchurch today

It's just about the right temp for me!!!! Dan's a bit cold though - especially after the fairly hot temps we've had in Singapore and Sydney!

Just popped into the local shops...

...and had my nails done! A bit different this time. Navy blue, with one turquoise and one orange finger nail, matching my 2 colour holiday plan!

Do you like?

What I'm wearing - 2 days in Sydney

2 days in Sydney by liza-aldridge

It was pretty blumming hot in Sydney over the weekend. 28/30 degrees, so there was scope for a lot of beachy type wear - although it's not quite the thing to wear a bikini in town, many people were in shorts, flip flops (eeek!) and nice t-shirts. 

I chose my Ben de Lisi stripy tunic for the 1st day - it's a multi purpose top - can be worn as a beach cover up, a tunic over trousers, or as I wore it this weekend, as a top (with a belt) over shorts. V smart, I think.

For our Monday wanderings, I have broken into my other 'signature' colour for this holiday which is the sunset orange (or a deep coral) with my M&S orange shorts, my lovely long coral beaded necklace and although this looks like I'm wearing a sarong, I'm not, I have this sarong folded as a scarf around the handle of my bag.

As for the flip flops, the less said the better, they're my real pool side ones. But, my feet were rubbing a bit from the other sandals I'd been wearing, and therefore needs must! 

Singapore sightseeing

We've been slightly out of wifi access and fairly busy the last few days, so it's been difficult to blog. So the next few posts are a bit of a catch-up!

We had a lovely long day out around Singapore – walking from the hotel, towards Bencoolen Street – where the apartments are that we stayed in with Ralphie on our last visit back in 2005. (Pictures of that to come when we upload them from the camera). So many things have changed in the city. Massive building work – including digging up the whole of Bencoolen Street to put in a new train station.

We tried to retrace some steps from that first visit – looking for the food halls and temples we saw last time. We did manage to find the food market on Robinson Road "Telok Ayer Market" or Lau Pa Sat Market which is an old Victorian fish market (made in Glasgow and shipped over) which is now set up as a food centre.

Isn't it fab???

– loads of different food sellers flogging every type of food you can imagine. Pig organ soup, anyone?

We indulged our desire for noodles and dumplings in one of the stalls...

This is my favorite kind of food in the world. A big old soup made from stuff & noodles!

I think I have a photo of this from last time!

After lunch we wandered through the financial district...

and then we wandered a bit further down town.

We sat and had a nice beer in another familiar location – a bar alongside the river, where I'm pretty sure we'd been last time. This time we had the additional view of the Marina Bay Sands hotel, towering up behind the buildings opposite us on the river. You may recognise it from the F1 coverage...

Although I'd seen it on the TV during the F1 coverage, I didn't actually realise it was a ship, on top of the 3 columns. It's so beautiful!!!

There are a few more pics from this lovely day out on the camera still (these are just off my phone) so I'll publish them when we get the pics off the camera!

On the move again!

So good bye Sydney, it's been brief but brill!

En route now to Christchurch.

Hello Kiwis.

Haven't disappeared!

Blogging will recommence when we get back online.

The Intercontinental @ Sydney doesn't do free wifi!

A quiet weekend in London #1

I'm not too big on public transport but I hate even more the thought of driving down the M1 late in the evening. So, Thursday found me sat on the 19.40 from Leeds to Kings Cross hoping that the person booked into the seat next to me wasn't going to get on at Wakefield! (They didn't!)

As it was the 1^st week in December and I'd not had time yet to write my Xmas cards, I'd decided that the train journey was going to be the ideal opportunity to sit down for an enforced writing session, and I prepared my addresses (labels) and Xmas greeting (a set of mini cards from MOO telling folks to read the blog rather than using up half a forest by printing out the usual round robin) in advance.

I got started before the train set off – I was so engrossed I hardly was aware of setting off or even the time! I kind of looked around every time I completed a pack of cards – one of 10, one of 15, one of 16! The numbers went up quickly In the end I'd completed 66 by the time I thought I was ready to stop! The time FLEW!

The tube to Ealing was nice and simple – Victoria and then Circle – so even though it was a late-ish start (19.40) and late-ish into Kings X (22.10) I was walking along the platform at Ealing Broadway just before 11pm really not bad at all!

Penguins

Venice is famous for its glass. The first time I visited the city (back in 1996, with Sarah) we were looking in the glass shops, and couldn't believe what awful bad taste it was!!! Dreadful chandeliers and glass flowers and trees. Definitely skillfully completed, but I can't say I'd give any of it house room!
This time we both thought that some of the glass pieces were actually quite nice, there's a new style of glass making with sparkley bits in it which has a lovely effect. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of rubbish there - very expensive rubbish - but there are some bits we actually liked.
We did consider some of the plates or goblets but in the end we didn't manage to agree on an individual object (no surprise there!!)
So in order to buy *some* glass products as a memento from Venice, we bought some nice little glass pengies to add to the collection in the downstairs loo!

Venice Pics

Well I managed, with the help of norbert, to upload a couple of pics whilst we were away, but here is the official album repository.

Arrival

Wanderings

Birthday

Food & Drink (I'm going to do a blog post on the food!) Not posted yet

Dan's Knee (not posted yet)

Other bits which don't fit into a category!

Last Day in Venice

Well it's the last day – sat at Venice airport thinking it's back to work tomorrow! Can't believe it's gone so quickly. A week almost seemed too much, last Tuesday. Now it doesn't really seem like long enough at all. I'm glad we've had our time here though. Lots of relaxed wanderings without having to stress about fitting it all in. We even managed a complete DO NOTHING day, where we just read, ate, and slept. THAT'S what holidays are for!!

I hesitate to say, but I think even Dan has enjoyed this unusual city – the little bridges over canals which turn at unusual angles around (and under) medieval houses, lots of fab bars and restaurants (a superb one we found yesterday was called 'Hell's Kitchen' in behind St Mark's square; not called that because of the TV Show, but because many of their specials are flambeed at your table.) We went for the safer option, wine, and tapas-like starters.

The bar was on the corner of a canal, and like our hotel, had a canal entrance (I love that!) The pic is the view from our table – right along the canal. Fab.

Ice Cream Trouble

I've not ever had a problem eating ice-cream before but today, I managed to drop the whole of a 3 flavour cone down my front!

11th July

Birthday celebrations continued today with the 'Secret Itineraries' tour of the Doge's palace. This was something Dan booked and gave me the tickets for whilst we were at dinner yesterday. We got to walk past the long queue of people waiting for tickets and straight in to the ticket office – and exchanged our booking reference for some stickers (yay!) and our tickets into the museum, with strict instructions to be at the meeting point at 10:45.

Our guide, Elena, then got us kitted up with listening devices and then took us up to the main floors of the palace after first having explained that we were going to be up in the roof of the palace, into the secret parts of the building.

We couldn't take pictures up there (or, I guess, or it wouldn't be a secret itinerary!) but we were taken up into the roof space where there were rooms there occupied at one time by the chancellor. There was a secret courtroom, torture chambers, prison cells (where Cassanova stayed for 18 months) and an entire room built (by the Venetian shipbuilders, the Arsenalotti) to look like the inside of a ship, which was a 'copy room' where 10 copies of each document signed by the chancellor was blindly copied out by illiterate copyists – hence the content was unknown to them!

Fab – a winner Dan!

The pic shows the wall of the inside of the palace...the rooms were above the 3^rd floor windows, see the round porthole 'eyes' at the top, that is where these rooms were – noone knew.

Birthday Lunch - more info

So, birthday lunchings were at 'Osteria Da Franz' famous in Venice for the seafood dishes. Franz himself cooked and served.

For my starter I had tartre of swordfish, Dan had the baby octopus

Mains: Dan had seabass, I had fiori di zuccha stuffed with cod

In between was a pasta course which we shared – spaghetti in a tomato sauce with sweet scampi and chilli

After was a really really good tiramisu followed by killer coffee and biccies.

I had no idea until I looked on the website that loads of famous people go there! Check out Nichoas Cage!

Zanzara

When we used to stay in Forli in the summer, Mum and Dad would be in Nonna's bed, I'd be on a single which was in that room, at the side, and Janey would be on a put-you-up bed at the foot of the big bed. We'd go round at night, clearing the room of the mozzies (zanzara) and we'd burn one of those special little swirly candle things to put them off. Nevertheless if there was one in the room, it'd find me! Mum, Dad and Janey used to get the odd bite, but I'd always look as though they'd feasted 'till dawn on me. I'm sure the others used me as a lure so that they didn't get bitten!!! I remember once being able to trace a mozzie's journey from my neck, up across my mouth, nose and eyelid, into my hair. Bites all the way along, and me looking like Frankenstein's monster. Big swolllen lumps. Not just a little red spot. I always was allergic to them. A few years later I was living in a house with a pond. One night we sat out and I must have got bitten 20 or 30 times on the legs. The following day, my legs were solid blocks of poisonous mozzie bites. The individual bites had joined together! The doctor said I was too far gone for antihistamine, and that only cool baths and calamine lotion was going to do the trick!

So it has come as a bit of a surprise to find that not only does Dan get bitten, he's even more attractive to the mozzies than me and he's even more allergic.

Bad news for Dan but quite good news for me! First time we realised his allergy was in Italy, at the beach, a few years ago. He got bitten on the eyelid and it swelled up so much it closed his eye, and the pharmacist wanted to give him an adrenaline injection!

This time, I was forewarned about the mozzies in the summer in Venice, and so have come prepared with antihistamine tablets, mozzie spray and stuff to sooth you if you have been bitten. Needless to say, though, he was got on the 1^st night – 3 bites on the right knee. They've all come up in blisters, big'uns, and his knee is rock hard with the poison underneath. Poor guy – we keep putting cool, damp cloths on them to cool them down but I think the itching is driving him mad!

More Birthday Niceness

Phew well it's been a bit of a scorcher. Not sure of the temp but I'd say close to 30 degrees! The weather forecast was decidedly glum before we came away; predicting rain every day, and thunderstorms! Turns out it was completely inaccurate. I am glad! We saw thunder on the boat from the airport but not a drop of water since. From the sky that is. In the canals there's plenty!

The day has been lovely – breakfast in bed, prosecco, cards, balloons, a banner and a big badge! Roses too. How am I going to get them home?

Then a bellini in Quadri's cafe in St Mark's square. If I tell you that we have paid less for dinner some nights than the cost of the 2 cocktails, then you might get an idea of how silly the prices are. Mind you, it's the view you're paying for, innit?!!

Lunch was a super surprise. Dan booked a place MILES away from St Mark's square. We walked over half an hour to get there, and it was down a little side canal – you'd not know it was there unless you were looking for it. Osteria da Franz. Little did I know it's famous for being one of the top restaurants in Venice. Fish & seafood, of course. Franz himself was hosting and cooking. A lovely man, (his birthday tomorrow), and extremely welcoming.

Apparently (we overheard a lady telling her guests) that in the evenings it gets so busy, sometimes you have to wait until midnight for a free table. We were lucky – a French family, the lady and her 2 guests, and us. So we had the best of it. Franz discussing every course in detail (no menu – he just closed his eyes and described the cooking of each dish) and even the secret of the incredibly sweet tomatoes.

Walking around Venice.

I have been trying to explain to Dan that Venice isn't really like other Italian historical cities. Other than the Doge's Palace and Basilica San Marco – there's not a lot 'inside' to see. The thing to see in Venice is Venice itself. You wander round and round and happen upon little piazzas and lovely views of tiny balconies dripping with flowers and 14^th century columns! Of course, almost every corner has a canal and the 1^st time we wandered out of the hotel we happened upon such a unique little set of bridges, canals and colonnaded walkways, Dan just turned and said “it's not real” and he's right. It doesn't feel real! In fact his summary (from the boat journey from the airport) was 'old things and lots of water'. Technically correct, but I don't think he'll ever get a job with the Venetian tourist board!

Tuesday 7th Jul

Up early and off to the airport – we got to LBIA at about 8am – bang on target – and were checked in straight away (online check in having been completed in advance hence it was just a baggage drop for us). Bumped into a guy from work who was going to Dublin (Hi Ian!) and the flight was nicely on time. A few small bumps in the air as we landed in a bit of a thunderstorm. After getting our bags we headed off to the water bus terminal and after a minimum amount of confusion over which of the 3 email confirmation codes I'd been sent as confirmation for the bus tickets was the one the attendant should be typing into his system, we had ourselves some return tickets to Venice!

The water bus arrived and we all piled on. It's a fab ride across the lagoon with all the islands whizzing past, and you get a real sense of where Venice actually lies, in the middle of a huge body of water. We stopped at Murano (the glass place) then at Lido (the beach place) and then across the lagoon towards the grand canal. Venice looked stunning in the afternoon sun. We got off the bus at Piazza San Marco and I managed to navigate to the hotel without even digging out the map. I was quite impressed! Just as we were crossing a bridge and I was thinking I wasn't quite sure – Dan said 'do you know where we are?' and I was just about to say no, when we looked to the right and there was the canalside entrance of the hotel. Well cool!

We had booked the hotel through TripAdvisor and mainly because of the comments about the staff. I have to say, they didn't let us down. Charming, friendly and welcoming, we got water on arrival (much needed) and after an efficient check-in, we were in our room in about 10 minutes.

So far, nothing has been too much trouble for them – arranging the champagne, flowers and breakfast in bed for me, and even just getting extra pillows, and sorting out internet access.

Happy Birthday To Me

Well I'm just getting the holiday blogging off the starting line. As today is THE DAY...I've been allowed to use 'Norbert the Netbook' for the 1st time. So this is the 1st of many holiday bloggings. Hopefully! We've managed to get the photos from the camera onto my memory stick - and the hotel has an hour of connectivity for €3 so not bad at all. Plan is to blog as I go along and then upload from the hotel - saying that - we have seen a couple of people surreptitiously standing with laptops in several squares - I think using someone's unsecured, free, internet. Not that I'd ever do that, of course!