Author archive
11 July 2026
I took one brief final walk around the scenic areas of Gdansk before breakfast, then left for the railway station around 0930 to catch the train around 1000. It was an uneventful ride in a conventionally-configured train to Warsaw Central, taking about 3h10. Time went quickly as I tried to find alternative accommodation in Beijing, […]
10 July 2026
Going to Malbork On the way here yesterday, I had spotted from the train, huge awesome brick castle. I looked it up and decided that it would be feasible to visit, if I consider myself to have seen enough of Gdansk. After an awesome night sleep, I woke at 0645 and was out at 0715 […]
9 July 2026
More of Lodz After my quick nightstop in Lodz, I move on to Gdansk by train today. But I have some time in the morning to explore a bit more. I walked to the south of the old city to a development called OFF (as it was off Piotrkowska Street). It’s a drinking and eating […]
8 July 2026
Leaving Belgium I reached the airport around 1045. Fearing the long waits that Kim experienced yesterday, I was delighted that everything went smoothly. It was a slow walk through crowds to get airside but there was no waiting for security. And because I was flying to Poland, another Schengen country, there was no immigration. I […]
7 July 2026
World Cup I woke up to news that Belgium had defeated (4-1) the USA in the World Cup. That wouldn’t normally mean much to anyone else but Belgium but it was significant to many people today because a few days ago, President Trump had contacted the FIFA head to have the red card given to […]
6 July 2026
I ordered an Uber for Kim to take him to Centraal station around 0745. He reported that it was chaos at immigration at Brussels airport, taking 90 mins to go through immigration. There had been only 3 officers processing a large hall of passengers. About 1000, I made my way to Centraal myself on foot, […]
5 July 2026
Dry run Today is our only whole day in Brussels. We weren’t too fussed about seeing and doing everything as we had been here 12 years ago. We started the day with a dry run (or walk) from the hotel to Centraal Station. The exercise turned out horribly for a few reasons: I wasn’t sure […]
4 July 2026
To Brussels by train (the hard way) Today we move on from Brussels to Amsterdam. The reason for our visit is so that Kim can fly back to Singapore (for New Zealand) on a confirmed reward ticket at much lower taxes compared to Amsterdam and other European cities. We basically applied the savings for the […]
3 July 2026
There wasn’t too much we wanted to do in the old city so we decided to time our visit in the late morning so we could have lunch, wander around and bring dinner back to eat at the hotel. Taking the train there around 1040, we headed to Dam Square where the Palace was. A […]
2 July 2026
Thoughts on leaving Ireland Even though we had thought of visiting Ireland for many years, we’ve only just done it. We seem to prioritise countries that are more different to where we live in New Zealand in terms of culture, landscape and weather. We enjoyed our stay, the scenery, the friendliness of people but it […]