Articles from this Category
26 October 2025
Swatow’s old centre Dennis left around 0530 today to catch the train to Guangzhou for some errands. Kim and I, Swee and Chen had booked to go to Swatow (Shantou) for an overnight stay to explore a different part of the region. At around 0900 Kim and I walked to the Vienna hotel where Swee […]
25 October 2025
Breakfast and wet market I woke around 0600 with only one interruption around 0130. We left home around 0700 to go to Dennis’ aunt’s place. Aunt took us for a little walk to a local eatery for breakfast. The local specialty here was the Tenghun (which is literally the same words as the Cantonese Cheongfan). […]
24 October 2025
Arriving and transit in Bejing With one sleeping pill, I slept soundly for about 4h30. With about 3h remaining till the breakfast service, I reluctantly popped another half a pill which gave me another 2h. Magic! We landed in Beijing Capital about 1h before the scheduled arrival time of 0530. It was quite cool as […]
1 August 2025
Even though we landed in Sydney in the land down under on time at 0750, the previous aircraft at the gate hadn’t pushed back, so we had to wait a little before we could park and disembark. For my two-night stay in Sydney, I’m staying with a friend, Henry. He kindly picked me up from […]
30 July 2025
A bit of a fright I had a bit of a fright this morning with my flight departure time to Kuala Lumpur which I had thought was at 1320. I had thought of going to the airport at 0945 to have brunch at the lounge but didn’t think I could last till then without […]
25 July 2025
No jetlag Three nights after landing from Europe, I’m happy to report that I haven’t had any jetlag. That’s quite unheard of, for me, especially flying towards the east. I’ve had not trouble falling asleep and have been OK to wake with the alarm at 0715 each morning. And my nature calls were nearly on […]
20 July 2025
Today is about enjoying the atmosphere (which I already was), seeing life in a different country, living my day-to-day in a different environment and escaping the New Zealand winter. I spent the morning at the gym then ate a sandwich seated in the pedestrian mall which I had missed yesterday. After a rest in the […]
19 July 2025
Leaving Romania With an 1100 hotel check-out and 1230 bus, I had some spare time in the morning to review my standby flight options from Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur. All options were starting to get worse so I booked the most expensive standby option on Qatar Airways as a further backup. I headed out to […]
18 July 2025
Getting to Iasi I made the 20 min walk from Cassandra Pension to Targu Neamt’s Flozampet Bus Station. It’s not a long walk but the surfaces of the sidewalks and roads were not smooth enough for a wheelie bag and that had slowed me down a little. The bus to Iasi left 5 mins early […]
18 July 2025
Getting to Agapia Today’s plan was to visit one or maybe two monasteries outside Targu Neamt. I had checked the bus schedule for Agapia Monastery at the station yesterday and also had an old timetable for Varatec Monastery. I walked to the bus station in time for the 0900 service to Agapia. The man who […]