Articles from this Category
15 November 2007
Our flight arrived into Hong Kong slightly after 0600 and it was about 0800 by the time we go to the Novotel in Wanchai. We showered and slept till 1100 when I rang Rosalind, a friend from school for our catch-up arrangements. Rosalind and another school friend, Mary turned up and we walked a few […]
6 October 2006
Maternal great grandfather’s home Breakfast at the hotel was a repeat of the greasy fare from two days ago. I skipped the greasy rice and noodles and settled for congee and greasy vegetables. Even the pickles were greasy but they went quite well with the congee, as did the very fine ikan bilis. We had […]
5 October 2006
Getting to Zhao An Step-dad woke me up at 0510 because he thought I should have been up for my daytrip to Chan Village in Zhao An. But I had taken care of my wake-up time with an alarm for 0545. I took a taxi to the bus station. With the ride only taking five […]
4 October 2006
Gulangyu gone wrong The Chinese breakfast at the hotel was very greasy. But it didn’t put off the domestic tourists from filling up big-time on the food. After breakfast, we headed out to try some change SGD to CNY at the Bank of China across the road. I was surprised it was open being a […]
3 October 2006
Above: Chinese Opera performer on the street in Xiamen. Leaving Singapore Today I take Mum and step-dad to Xiamen for a little holiday. Despite booking the SilkAir ticket online, electronic ticketing wasn’t available and we had to collect the ticket from a counter before proceeding to check-in. The flight 1120 flight left slightly late and […]
15 May 2005
Sukhbaatar to Naushki The train appeared stationary while I was in the dozing hours before I woke properly. I got out of bed around 0830 while we were in Sukhbaatar. We had made a seemingly long stop and the toilets were locked. I had to hop out of the train to use the station toilet. […]
14 May 2005
We have a night-time departure from Ulaanbaatar to Irkutsk on the train tonight. That gave us a whole day to kill, starting with a leisurely breakfast. We then walked to town to check out the museum. It had interesting displays of Mongolian culture and history, eg. costumes, the expanse of Chinggis Khan’s empire, the Communist […]
13 May 2005
Interrupted night I woke three times through the night, each time wary that someone had crept into the ger. It was the girl from the family, coming in to stoke the fire. Not the best job in the world, having to do that several times in the cold dark night. For all the occupied gers […]
12 May 2005
Continuing to Ulaanbaatar To my surprise, we slept really well and woke up around 0900. We wandered to the breakfast car and found it to be different from yesterday’s. We now have a rickety but ornately decorated (with carved light wood) dining car. A breakfast of tea, omelette, slaw, bread and pancaked was CNY60 (NZD10). […]
11 May 2005
All aboard! We woke at 0545 for check-out at 0630, in order to check-in for our rail adventure at Beijing West station across the road. We had some muesli in the room for breakfast before setting off. At the impressive-looking station, our luggage were x-rayed before we entered and turned left into the international waiting […]