Travel to France, Beaujolais wine region, France.

Today we were leaving Paris, and heading south to the Beaujolais wine region! I had really enjoyed my time in Paris, but I was definitely ready to visit somewhere new. I was starting to feel really homesick, but I tried to forget about it and enjoy my time on tour. Our group seemed really great so far, although it was a bit cliquey. Nothing that bad though!

I was up at 8 am today for breakfast, and we left our hotel at 9:50 am. Today we got our day song! It was by the Silversun Pickups - Well Thought Out Twinkles. I don't think everyone was a huge fan of this song at first, but we all came to love it by the end. Before getting to services we did speed dating. This is exactly how it sounds - every one who is in the aisle seat moves back and chats with the person behind them for a few minutes. This is a great way to get to know all your fellow tour mates - it can be hard to talk to everyone when there are 50 of you! When coming onto a tour alone, lots of people tend to
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Wine tasting in Beaujolaisattach themselves to the first person they meet, and this was a good way to get everyone to branch out from their normal groups.

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Travel to South-West Thailand, Railay.

We splashed out on a aircon bunglaow with a pool which we got straight in with our new Apache pilot friend and a sweet couple from South Africa. When the Mosi's got too much we went out for dinner to another 'Mum's Restaurant' (a popular choice in name) followed by a couple of drink in Skunk bar with an Australian couple who got us excited about the next leg of our journey.

The next day we decided to walk to the view point. It was not a walk! It was a steep muddy scramble up the side of a cliff. It was nice though and despite warnings that the path to the lagoon was pretty rugged we went for it anyway. It was a bloody risky, slippery, muddy slip and slide to a not very impressive lagoon at the bottom but we made it down and back up alright.

Once our sweaty, muddy selves had made it back out of there we went straight to the beach to cool off and stayed here watching the climbers till it rained again. Once it started raining it just didn't stop and despite our hopes of going rock climbing here we called
P1110270it a day and headed to Bangkok to get ready to head for Australia.

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Travel to Hong Kong, Hong Kong Island.

Saturday I decided to take advantage of the nice weather- it was about 72 degree F- so about 22 degrees C.. The sun was out and I needed a good workout. I walked from the JW Marriott hotel to Central (IFC building) where my work is located- this was about a 15-20 min walk.. It is normally a 1 stop train ride. From the IFC building, I decided to figure out if I could find my way to my new apartment - since I will need to know how to walk back and forth to work very soon. - Note on this- not as soon as i was hoping; with Chinese New Year starting at the end of this week; I won't be able to move in until After Feb 14th :(... It does give me more time to furniture shop and make more practical decisions on that side of it.



Amazingly, I remembered how to navigate thru the walkways to find the midlevel; pedestrian escalator. Basically to get to my place- you just ride the escalator up to almost the last stop. I thought San Fran was a work out with the hill; San Fran has nothing
heading up
pedestrian escalator on Hong Kong midlevels- 2 days later my calves are still on FIRE. What a workout. My legs should be amazing after 2 years of doing this walk every day.

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Travel to United Kingdom, England, Lincolnshire, Bourne.

We can't believe that our amazing journey has come to an end! There are no words to explain just how fantastic it's been. We have seen and experienced so much together and we both wouldn't have done it any other way. It's made us appreciate so may things we took for granted including our amazing family and friends. We feel so lucky and blessed with our life, the opportunities we have had, our family, friends and people we know. We love each other more than ever and it truly has been the best honeymoon ever! For those of you out there that have considered travelling but thought you could afford it or felt nervous or a little scared...do it! Take that leap as you will never regret it! Travelling can be as cheap or expensive as you make it. We lived on £35 a day for both of us and in most countries we could have done it cheaper!

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Travel to New Zealand, North Island, Taranaki.

We set off from Wellington to Taranaki on Thurs 24th Jan on a miserable, grey day which was ideally suited to our long, boring drive ahead of us.... over 320km to New Plymouth....& not a lot to see.

This section of New Zealand is probably the most un-interesting, just flat boring farm land.

We were making our way to stay with Annie's friend Catherine in new Plymouth the following day and also wanted to get somewhere near to Mount Taranaki. Annie & Catherine worked together in Japan, India & Singapore!

We stopped a couple of times and considered where we would be staying the night but decided to crack on and get most of the journey done in one trip. Eventually we stopped in a small town called Stratford which was quite appropiate because Annie had taken Catherine to Stratford the last time that she was in the UK when she stayed with us.

We knew it was somewhere near Mt Taranaki but could not see the mountain from our accomodation at a camping/backpackers/trampers site just outside the town.

We stayed in a comfy 'bach' with shared kitchen and facilities and after driving for over 5
Road to New Plymouthhours we wandered into town through the rain and got 'provisions' from a supermarket.

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Travel to Mexico, Baja California Sur, Cabo San Lucas.

January 30 – College Station to Cabo San Lucas – Only slept a couple of hours last night and then woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. Finally got up around 3AM and did a little homework on the internet till I suddenly realized at 5AM that my plane was leaving at 06:40 instead of 07:40. So I loaded up quickly and went to the airport. One thing about B/CS is it doesn’t take long to get anywhere. I got checked in and got my boarding pass and went through security in plenty of time.

I really do believe that they use the flights out of College Station, Texas to train pilots or to break in new ones. We just about ran out of runway before the plane finally went into a very steep climb off the ground. Same way landing…the plane was tipping up and down before finally stumbling onto the runway. And just about used up the entire runway landing as well. Then the plane was making all kinds of sounds like some kind of wounded animal as it made its way to the terminal. Maybe the guy burned up the brakes or broke them or something.
The Cabo Inn

There was a 2 hour layover at D/FW airport. When I got to the boarding gate there were FMM cards on the counter. I took one and filled it out while waiting on my flight. There are two parts the visitor must fill out. One on the top and the other 2nd from the bottom. The other parts are to be left open for the immigration officials to fill out. One part if for the inbound flight to Mexico and the other for the exit flight from Mexico.

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Travel to United Kingdom, Scotland, Midlothian.

Yesterday was a busy day. We awoke to a steady rain yet the sky was mostly blue and a hazy sun could just be seen filtered through the clouds. When we arrived at Blackness Castle the wind picked up...more horizontal rain. The castle was closed anyway but I shot some pics and video nonetheless. When we arrived at Linlithgow Palace, the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots, we had the palace all to ourselves--except for a few birds who would fly off whenever we approached. The palace is mostly in ruins but that made it all the more assessable. I was able to sit in a seat of stone most certainly used by ancient royalty. Doing so got my butt wet but a wet bum was a small price to pay for such a treat. On the way to Stirling Castle we stopped at a grocery store and bought some provisions; crackers, peanut butter, fruit, cookies, etc. The Scottish Oatcakes were especially good--kind of tasted like haggis-flavored Triscuits. We had Stirling Castle all to ourselves as well. It sits atop a hill in Stirling and overlooks The Wallace Monument. This monument is to honor Scotland's national hero William Wallace and is
Stirlingplaced within a short distance of his great victory at Stirling Bridge. Stirling Castle is the location of another great victory by another Scottish hero Robert The Bruce who retook the castle from the English in 1314. After the castle we drove north to Inverness. I drove (in the rain, of course) while Charles nodded off. Our hotel in Inverness is nice. It sits beside the swift-moving Ness. Upon checking in I asked the young receptionist about connecting to the advertised free WIFI. She told be that it wasn't available. After dinner and a pub I was about to complain to a different receptionist about the lack of WIFI. He told me in a strong Scottish accent "Neigh, the lass was nought correct. We dooo haff WIFI and it goes by the name "palace" He was right.

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