THE FIRST FEW DAYS: NOW WITH PHOTOS

We're about to head off to our first WWOOF host near Reigate/Redhill, south of London. We're there for about a week, then we head to Peacehaven, near Brighton, for another week. We're not sure if we'll have internet access while we're away. Hopefully we'll get back to blogging when we return to London. In the meantime, here are some photos from the flight over and from our first few days in the UK. You can see more on our Flickr.


Lake


Snow caps and Ararat?


Dolomites (we think!)


The view from our bedroom window in London.


Sloes - ready to be made into sloe gin, I think!


Big Wood

These are all from our walk around Totteridge/Mill Hill with D's parents.


The before picture!


My first blackberry!


Some kind of science-y research centre, which we thought looked like an old asylum.


The nursery




What a view! It's pretty great that this is still technically part of Greater London. Yay for green belts (Australia, take note).



By the way, we have a new mobile number - email us if we haven't sent it to you already.

HERE WE ARE!

Just a quick update to let you all know we arrived safely after a fairly uneventful flight. There was a lot of minor turbulence on the first leg, but otherwise fairly pleasant, with great views of lights over Australia and Sri Lanka, and then of the deserts, mountains, lakes and shorelines of the UAE, Iran, Turkey, Slovenia and Italy (there was one MASSIVE mountain on the horizon at one point - possibly Agri Dagi? (Great Ararat?) Not sure).

Yesterday we went for a bit of a walk around the local area - ate some tasty felafel in Golders Green and wandered through Big Wood and Little Wood, spotting squirrels. Today we're going to go for a walk up near Totteridge - in fact, we are going to leave now!

UK10: LONDON, THE FINAL DAYS

Ooh, what an ominous title! We're getting over jetlag at the moment - yesterday was very hard! We both had naps during the day, but didn't let ourselves sleep for longer than an hour-ish, wanting to spend as much of the night as possible in bed. We went to bed at the nearly respectable time of 8:30-9pm and I got up at 3:30 while D slept until just after 7. So, we're doing OK. We're watching a lot of Poirot to keep us awake and because it is about as complex as we are able to cope with. It is lovely to hear the kookaburras outside, and the magpies warbling as we walked through Brunswick today. I always forget how much I miss Australian birdsong when we're away.

Anyway, thanks again to D for writing this up!

24th March, Wednesday.

Breakfast of champions this morning - |eft over curry. My nephews Y & T came over, and as neither of us have much in the way of energy for children (they are so tiring!), we decided to walk over to M's place, who was making us lunch. However, J's foot was playing up, so we ended up driving. Lunch was pleasant, and was followed by laid back chilling on M's couch.

After lunch, we drove home, bussed to Golders, tubed to Hampstead and had a peek in the local op shop, before taking a seat in the King William IV pub - London's oldest gay pub, apparently. J ordered a Swedish elderberry and lime cider, which was intensely sweet, while we waited for M to meet us. When she arrived, we did the compulsory crepes - however, we deviated from the norm by trying out their sweet crepes. They were incredibly messy, and we would have had pictures of us (especially D) with hilariously chocolate-coverd faces, but J realised that the camera had disappeared! OH NO! We retraced our steps back to the pub, and heaved a sigh of relief when they handed it over. To counterbalance the uber sweetness of cider and crepes, we popped into the Hampstead landmark The Coffee Cup for tea. We were all pretty exhausted and enjoyed sitting down, and headed home satisfied with another day of friends and food.

We also finally managed to catch a glimpse of the never-finished North End Road tube station from the train, after weeks of trying!

25th March, Thursday

LAZY DAY! Hooray! We did very little during the day, and loved it! We have been so busy on this holiday, that we haven't had any time to relax, so a bit of time off was nice.

We drove to A and L for dinner, out in the country, taking a very circuitous route - via Watling Road (an old Roman road), and through St Albans, out to their little village on the outskirts of the outskirts of Milton Keynes. It was so dark when we arrived, and the street lighting non-existent, and the house numbers so impossible to see from the road, that we totally missed their plae, and had to call to get A to come out a meet us on the road. We met their very smily baby R, who had just celebrated her 1st birthday! Dinner was delicious, the conversation was excellently random and inappropriate, and the drive home was slow - partly because the entrance to the motorway was hidden behind a load of road works, so we missed it and had to drive along dark country roads to the next junction, and partly because when we finally got onto the motorway, there was hideous traffic. At 11.45 on a Thursday night. WTF, M1???!!!

26th March, Friday

We spent an hour or so in the V&A today, just because we could. We were going to stop off in the glorious tea rooms for a cuppa, but they were hideously packed. Instead, we checked out the museum's new acquisitions, walked past lots of sculptures of muscled naked men wrestling or standing between each other's legs, and enjoyed the Britain 1500-1760 section - especially the Great Bed of Ware (covered in centuries worth of graffiti!), the recreation of a 14th Century oak-panelled hall, and the hand-illustrated anatomy book from around 1550.







Heading over to the other side of the city, we navigated the labyrinthine Bank Station, walked up Poultry and Cheapside (yes, these are the names of the roads), and met R, down from Manchester for the weekend, at Mary-le-Bow church - home not only to the famous Bow Bells (heart of Cockney London), but also to the rather nice little (and aptly named) Cafe Below, housed in its crypt.



Next it was time for a visit to our other London art regular, the Tate Modern. The three of us explored for a couple of hours, enjoying the landscape art (Richard Long! Hamish Fulton!) and talking critical drivel loudly behind the people filming some kind of tate documentary.





before heading for a coffee near St Paul's Cathedral (J surprisingly declared it to be the best coffee he'd had in the UK - a flat white from Costa Coffee!). J and D then headed over to Bank station, braving the insane rush hour crush - there was a queue for the queue to get onto the platform!





We made it home in one piece, had dinner with the folks, then all settled down to watch A Serious Man. Then retired for A Serious Sleep.

27th March, Saturday

We decided to walk over to Muswell Hill, following the Capital Ring trail, and also discovering a new path for us to explore more fully next time: the Parkland Walk - London's longest Local Nature Reserve. Spring was definitely in full spring - we noticed a few trees covered in a light smattering of new leaves during our last week in London.







We had a thoroughly pleasant brunch with D and G at one of our favourite London eateries - Sable D'Or. The two of us walked on through Ally Pally and checked out the foyer of the Model Railway exhibition (J quickly became a Model Rail Enthusiast enthusiast!), then went back up to Muswell Hill through the rain, and home on the bus.







In the afternoon, we headed over to D's grandparent's place for L's 88th birthday afternoon tea. Sandwiches, cakes, tarts and tea = good times. Check out the colour of the sky when we got back!





Back home for an evening of final farewells, joined by E & L, M, L, M and J & S (these initials are getting confusing!) M gave us all a treat by previewing his costume for the fancy dress party he was heading off to afterwards - he made a glorious Austin Powers!



28th March, Sunday

[NB: I will upload the rest of the photos soon! - J]

One final return visit to Hampstead in the morning, meeting up with R again with the plan of eating crepes for breakfast. Unfortunately, the Hampstead Creperie was closed, so we settled for an average breakfast at The Coffee Cup. While walking down to the Heath, R threw out all his socialist principles and decided that he wants to live in Hampstead (he was relieved when I told him that he didn't have to abandon all his principles, as Hampstead is actually the heart of Champagne Socialism. We paid a brief visit to Kenwood for more tea, before taking a stroll down The Bishops Avenue, ogling mansions, deciding which ones we'd live in, and whether or not they came with helipads (and if not, why not!). We said our good byes on the bus, then returned home for some frantic last minute packing, with family popping in and out around us to say good bye.

The next few days are a bit of a blur - we drove to the airport, checked in, bought and sent postcards, got on the plane. For a few glorious moments, we thought we'd have an empty seat next to us, but literally the last person on the plane came and sat next to us. Bah.

29th March, Monday.

On a plane. On a plane. On a plane. On a plane. On a plane. Off a plane. On a plane. On a plane. On a plane.

We spent our 4 hours at Incheon airport refreshing our selves as best we could, and napping as best we could, and spent as much of the final leg of our journey asleep as we could manage (which wasn't all that much, unfortunately).

30th March, Tuesday.

On a plane. On a plane. Home sweet home. Had a number of naps. The only thing we could cope with doing was watching old episodes of Poirot, and eating pizza. So that's what we did. So there.

HOME! OUR HOME!

After those weird flights during which time seemed to move at a difference rate to usual, we were greeted by a glorious sunrise, the moon low over the plane wing, and then gold-lined clouds in the east and billowing pink and purple clouds in the west as we drove down the freeway. Big skies and space, the familiar shapes of eucalyptus trees and verandahs. A hot shower and our own bed . . . but only for a little nap! We're trying to get back into Melbourne time ASAP!

Next, tea!

UK10: MELBOURNE - INCHEON - LONDON

We've just got back from our weekend of wedding shenanigans, hotel living and city exploration. We'll blog about that soon! For now, our trip from Melbourne - Incheon - London.

Thursday 11th March

D drove us to the airport in the dark (thanks D!), and we got there with plenty of time to spare. Once through check in and security, we watched the sun rise and had a typically overpriced bite to eat, then boarded the totally old school plane (no individual screens, retro-before-it-was-intentional brown seat covers, ash trays in the arm rests, and checks on the walls that matched the shirt of the man in front of us).


Sunrise at Tullamarine


Ashtrays in the armrests on the plane!


I still think my pun about him being "checked in" is hilarious!

It was kind of cool to look out the window at Gellibrand Hill and Woodlands historic homestead as we were heading for the runway and be able to point out where we’ve walked and explored. Taking off early-ish in the morning was also lovely, because we could see all the contours of the creeks and hills cast into relief by the long shadows.

The plane wasn’t very full, so despite it being quite small we were able to score a few extra seats for ourselves. We took turns sitting by the window and watching the browns of Victoria, the reds of New South Wales and the greens of Queensland slip away beneath us, and stretching out over a few seats in the centre row, reading, listening to music, napping or playing sudoku. We were on the right (east) side of the plane, so as we travelled north we could see parts of the Great Barrier Reef below – elegant curves of green and turquoise on the smooth blue of the deeper water, and occasional slivers of pale sand that look for all the world like nail clippings accidentally dropped by some giant. The ocean was so still that the corpulent, sedate-looking cumulus clouds hovered over misty mirror-replicants of themselves. As we drew towards the tip of Australia, the plane banked slightly and I stared into the leaf-shaped eyes of dozens of tiny islands.


Cloud mirrors


Island eyes

Later, a warning for turbulence, I craned my neck as we climbed up, up, up again, skirting around the towering plume of a cumulus congestus, which seemed to nod at us in a brief greeting before we hit the blinding white of the next layer of cloud, and the plane bumped gently on its way. It was like cloud porn out there for a while!


Cloud porn!

Of course, no discussion of a flight is complete without a mention of the food. D had bibimbap for one meal, which he said was delicious (it looked it) and which came with an instruction sheet for the n00bs. I had two bland curries, and one of them managed to hit most of my dislikes: overcooked cauliflower, cous cous (ugh, I hate it so much) and an insipid roll straight from the refrigerator. Oh well, at least we got the promised hot towels! . . . Now, over to D!


South Korean mountains

***

We arrived at Incheon Airport on time, and because we weren’t collecting our luggage, we were through customs and baggage-reclaim in record time! We were greeted at the Korean Air information desk, where we were allocated a hotel and shown by a succession of airline staff to a waiting group of travellers a few feet away. We were all bundled onto an awesomely purple-decorated bus (the inside looked like something out of a Bollywood film).


The bus!

Leaving the airport, the bus took us over Incheon Bridge. 10 minutes later, we were still on the bridge. This had nothing to do with traffic (there was none) and everything to do with the fact that the bridge was REALLY, REALLY, REALLY LONG!!!. (And it has it’s own web page! http://eng.incheon-bridge.com/ Apparently, “[t]he Incheon Bridge with the total length of 21.27km carries a three-lane dual carriageway. This is the longest in Korea and it is ranked at 6th place in the World.” It’s a long bridge.) When we eventually arrived on the mainland, the bus took us through the dark streets of what we thought was Seoul, but which we later found out was Incheon. At one stage, we passed an enormous theme-restaurant in the shape of a big ship, complete with gloriously tacky lighting and its own artificial waterfall out the back.

We arrived at our shiny new 5 star hotel, checked in, and went straight up to our room for a shower. We had been told that the hotel had a lovely view of the harbour (it was called the Harbour Park Hotel), but in fact we had a lovely view of the docks. We went down for our complimentary dinner buffet (or was it a really expensive meal with a free flight?) which was quite tasty, if a little limited in vegetarian options. We then returned to our room to sleep the sleep of the righteous. Or at least, of the very tired.


Our room, modelled by D


The obligatory electric toilet shots, because we are all class


Our hotel

Friday 12th March, 2010

After our buffet breakfast, we decided to take a walk around the local area, to see what we could see. The first thing we could see when we stepped outside was that it was very, very cold. We could well have done with a beanie and scarf each. We passed the Incheon Art Platform, which looked like an interesting space, before heading towards China Town.


Art at Incheon Art Platform


Us enjoying the fresh (and very cold) air!

We found a flight of old stone steps, which used to mark the border between the Chinese and Japanese Empires’ settlements in Korea. We climbed them, up to a park on the top of the hill, which was lovely. There was a massive monument at the top, commemorating the centenary of a trade agreement between South Korea’s and the USA. Also at the top of the hill, we found what looked like badminton courts – quite how you play badminton out doors on top of a windy hill, I don’t know. Scattered around the park, there was also a lot of public gym equipment (if all gyms were free, open and in parks, I might more be inclined to actually use one). We were really getting very cold, so we started our decent back to the hotel, packed up, jumped back on the bus, and back, over the bridge to the airport.


The steps


View from the hill - our hotel is fairly prominent!


Centennial monument


Outdoor gym among the trees in Jayu Park


Health walking instructions

We sat around the airport, waiting for our flight, snacking on the little packed lunch provided for us by the airline. The second flight was on a much shinier, newer plane, with all mod cons, and a decent amount of leg room, although the flight was packed, so no spreading out for us this time. We passed the time by playing games and watching movies (The Men Who Stare At Goats, Surrogates and The Informant! D also watched The Damned United). The vegetarian food was much tastier on this second leg, too. It was a largely uneventful flight, until just as we were landing, the little girl in the row behind us - who had been so quiet and well behaved throughout the flight - vomited all down her front, like a little ANZ logo.

We were met at the airport by M, who drove us home through the London traffic. We moved into our brand new room (it hadn’t been finished last time we were here), showered, changed, then went down for a family dinner (which included the much-coveted challah! Tasty goodness), with D’s parents M&A, his brother E and E's fiancée L, L’s parents J&A, and her brother A (did you get all those initials?!). We coped pretty well, but had to admit defeat and crawled up to bed at about 9.30.

INCHEON

Well, here we are in Incheon (which is apparantly not Seoul at all!) in a 5 star hotel. We've had a nice stop over, with plenty of fresh food and a bracing walk through China town to the top of the hill park behind the hotel. We even stomped in some snow! The bus is coming to pick us up at 10am to take us back to the airport via the ENORMOUS bridge! We're looking forward to seeing the area in the light of day! Proper update to follow from London, after another 12 hour flight - here's hoping that there's as much extra space in the plane as there was yesterday!

HOME

We're home safe and sound after a loooong flight. Home! Our space, with our things, and our tea making accessories. Brilliant! Will write more later.

UK09: THE FIRST POST!

No matter how many times I fly, I don't think I'll ever get sick of seeing the world from above, of seeing the sky from inside. At one point during the first flight, after we've had breakfast at lunch time in Melbourne I look out the window to see sunrise beginning to pursue us through the clouds. We're travelling west, so dawn seems to stretch out for hours, like a symphony building to a climax, gold and orange in startling contrast to the deep blue above us and the dark earth below. The morning star hangs bright and clear, watching over it all.



These are the things I remember from flying: the web of fairy lights lacing across what I think must have been southern India; a shooting star somewhere over the equator, south of Kuala Lumpar; the mountains rearing up through a blanket of mist and dust as we near Abu Dhabi; the white-as-bleached-bone shoreline and bright blue sea of the Arabian Gulf, and the wonder that human beings can sustain themselves in the face of such dryness (it seems a different sort of dry to Australian desert); the napkin-folds of brown mountain ranges near Diyarbakir; a finger of white clouds marching purposefully towards a distant coastline.



But of course travelling isn't all wonder and amazement! My journal got off to a worrying start, with the first page taken up with calculations of when I would be able to take my next batch of Sudafed and/or Codral (thankfully the cold didn't cause too many problems). Then there is the hot, itchy tiredness that comes after spending 14 hours in a plane, then getting out at your stopover and being greeted with 5am weather that feels more like a sauna than anything (“Did she say it was TWENTY seven degrees outside?” I asked D, thinking I'd misheard. Yes, she did). There is the thirstiness and craving to wet your mouth during the two hours you spend on the ground – only it's Ramadan, and it's after sunrise, so it would be offensive to drink or eat in a public place. There is the guy behind you who you think wants to become one of the ten percent, and the woman he's chatting up who doesn't seem to mind. There is the bizarre patterns of meals (we only got 3 this time – often we get 4), and the way there is never enough of the bit of the meal you really want (fresh fruit, the delicious curry with the roti – luckily I remembered to wear my roti-eating face). There is the woman on the second leg who sits in the hitherto empty row of seats next to you – the row you had been planning to spread out into – and, when she sees you watching, puts her belongings over all four seats, then lies down across the entire row. I am not generally a vindictive person, but I am ashamed to admit that I wished bad things on her. I believe I muttered to D that I hoped she got to wherever she was going and found her bed was horrible and that a dog barked outside her window for the whole night.



At any rate, we arrived in London safe and sound, and M (D's mum) picked us up from the airport. I got through passport control without any hassles, and the person at the desk seemed happy enough to not comment that I hadn't filled in the 'sex' square on my landing card and had written so big that I could only fit my first name on. With her lack of attempt to misgender me, that made this flight the first I've done with a 100% success rate of not being girled. Yay!

M took us back to their house following the directions of my favourite navigator system: “You are no longer on the planned route!” The outer edges of north London are green with just a tiny hint of Autumn colour, and in the dappled sunshine I suddenly felt completely on holiday! Back at M&A's place we had blissful showers and some delicious and much needed food not out of a foil container! We had a short nap (oh, it wasn't pleasant having to force myself awake) found D's wallet (argh!) and headed over to E&L's (D's brother & his partner) where we unpacked, ordered and ate an enormous amount of curry, watched “Deadliest Warrior: Apache v. Gladiator” (hee) and fell asleep as soon as we got into bed.

FRIDAY 11TH

After sleeping through to about 5:30, we hopped up at about 6, ate a tiny breakfast and went for an early morning stroll around the park beside E & L's house. First squirrel sightings of the trip! I forgot how small and cute they are, and they are even cuter when they're dropping acorns out of trees above you! Also: BLACKBERRIES. I ate the first one as soon as I could, and it was DELICIOUS. I hope they have blackberries in Cornwall. . .





M picked us up at about 9 and drove us to Highgate Wood for proper breakfast. The woods are gorgeous, with dappled sunshine on the path and glowing green leaves above, and the little cafe there is also very pretty. Food and coffee were standard for England (we are so spoilt in Melbourne!) - and that means that yes, I did try the coffee (it always takes a couple of goes before I give up). We sat outside in the sunshine and breeze, looked at the OS map of North London I'd had sent to myself at M & A's place, and planned our day. Unfortunately, M couldn't come walking with us, so we said goodbye to her and set off to explore.





IT WAS HORRIBLE. And by horrible I mean absolutely delightful! We stepped off the main paths and explored the smaller tracks watched by curious little robins (D's favourite bird, and I can see why!), and found fallen trees to climb and homemade swings hung from high branches to swing on.





We crossed the road to Queen's Wood (which was called Churchyard Bottom Wood until it was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria), where one of the cutest cafes I've seen for ages sits nestled at the woods edge in a quaint brick building with a fairytale tower.



We weren't hungry or thirsty, though, so we plunged down into the trees, again turning off the main paths and finding sweet little tracks and clearings, following little streams down the hillside. Of course, all this downhill wasn't to last, and we were soon taking off our jumpers and remembering why our daypacks are not ideal for walking (we both had very sweaty backs). To take our mind off it, though, we found another swing. This time hanging above quite a steep incline, and I managed to get onto it and swing out above the path . . . WHEE! It's great being an adult, because you get to do the things your parents never would have let you do! And I didn't die once!



Our plan was to meet up with the Capital Ring, and follow it back to M & A's place. The trail was easy to find and quite well signposted, which was excellent, as we didn't have to stop and look at maps at every second crossroads. In addition, it went back past the cute cafe, so we stopped for a mug of organic tea and to enjoy the surroundings. The walls of the cafe were lined with black and white photos, and the verandah looked out into the woods. It would be interesting to head back there for lunch one day, as the menu looked nice and vegetarian-friendly.





After fortifying ourselves with tea, we followed the Capital Ring back through Highgate Wood, down a laneway, up a quiet street and into Cherry Tree Wood – a park more than a wood, where D used to watch northern line trains go into the tunnel. Of course we couldn't pass up the opportunity for a bit of train spotting, so we found the place and watched the trains go in and come out. Hee!

The signs guided us through East Finchley and Hampstead Garden Suburb, and we found several houses to go on our wishlist (anyone with a bunch of dosh to spare, take note: D's birthday is coming up in November). I do like walking in urban areas, because it affords good opportunities for stickybeaking at people's gardens! Most of the summer flowers are still in full bloom, so gardens are full of colour – at times I felt like someone had turned up the saturation levels, and it was like walking through a bright, nostalgic memory.

We had a rest in another park and watched a very cute and extremely disobedient spaniel refuse to follow its owner (it was still playfighting with other dogs when we left a quarter of an hour later). Then it was along a very pretty little garden beside a wee stream and into Big Wood (almost familiar territory for me), following the Dollis Valley Greenwalk into Little Wood, and then only a short walk up to the stupid un-walker-friendly intersection (Henley's Corner, where we got yelled at by a driver who wasn't looking where he was going – don't get angry at us, get angry at the intersection!) and then back to M&A's place for a shower and a nap. The walk was about 8.5km all up.



The afternoon and evening were spent catching up with family, giving presents, talking and eating Shabbat dinner. I swear I ate about half a loaf of chollah. Man, I LOVE CHOLLAH. It was, in all, a lovely day.

Last night we were awake at about 4 or 5am, and heard this weird sound, like a man shouting, “Aurgh, aurgh, aurgh!” We were sure it wasn't a bird, so we looked out the window into the park and saw a big fox, barking! We think it was barking at a little black and white dog that scampered away down the road. The fox barked a few more times and trotted off into the night.