All good things must come to and end... apparently

So, after an insane two weeks, which has felt like two months in some ways (a good thing of course), we're now about to head home. All our bags are packed, we're ready to go (kinda), and it's almost time to go hunt down a Parisian cab and head to CDG. Spending two weeks in two of the world's biggest museums has been nothing short of brilliant, but alas we must depart this fantasyland and commence the long journey home.

We're still behind on a few blog posts from Paris, which we'll hopefully squeeze in along the way - but now, onwards to a taxi!

Pareeee (Paris)

Paris

Remember how we told you that we spent 10 hours walking around Versailles, day 1 Paris? Well, we were pretty tired after that night and ended up sleeping in the following day till midday. After getting up rather slowly and eating crepes prepared by our host (MMMMM) we followed another stereotype and went to the boulangerie (bakery) for baguettes, quiches and pastries.

After coming back home, eating said baguettes and lounging around some more, we decided to venture out.

Out we went, armed with a guide, lots of cameras and some questionable energy. We walked a trail that normally takes 40 minutes at a slow pace however, on account of the cameras we took almost 3 hours.

We saw (in no particular order)

• The Eiffel Tower
• The Champ de Mars
• The Paris military school
• Invalides (where Bonny Napoleon is buried)
• Musee d’Orsay (Newer art)
• The Louvre (really old art and the Mona Lisa)
• An obelisk “gifted” to Napoleon during his invasion of Egypt
• The Arc de Triumph
• The Grand Palais
• Pont Neuf
• Some other bridge whose name escapes me
• Hotel d’ville ( Paris town hall)
• Notre Dame

I can’t describe each of these in detail because it would take too long but all of these are within a 5km radius. Does that give you an idea of just how beautiful Paris is? They are also ornate, carved from stone (generally speaking, thought the Eiffel tower is a notable exception), and generally pretty spectacular to look at.

After this surprisingly relaxing walk we headed into the Latin quarter of Paris. Not called Latin because of its population but because it was once the home of all the Paris universities where Latin was studied.

The Latin Quarter is a vibrant tourist mecca. It is filled with dozens of restaurants that all serve fabulous 3 course set menus and cuisine from traditional French to Moroccan to Greek and even Italian.

For about 15 Euro you can eat in style.

Here’s what I had

• Onion Soup
• Roast Pork with a Bernaise sauce
• Crème Brulee

Nuwan had

• Mussels in white wine sauce
• Beef Bourgonion
• Crème Brulee

For the 30 bucks, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Sometimes, the journey can be as important as the destination

This has been a holiday of trains – trams in Hong Kong and Paris (both the normal and mountain-climbing types), a metro system in every city, overground trains in London and Hong Kong, and finally the Eurostar to whisk us through the Chunnel. We’ve also now added what I think is the jewel in the crown for this trip – the fabled TGV.

Most of you know that I’m a bit of a geek. What you may not know is that I had a small train set when I was younger (much younger, primary school), and it was a fully functioning model of a TGV. In real life, the Train à Grande Vitesse is one of the pride and joys of the French transport system – it’s a train that has hit a top speed of over 570km/h during testing, and can average close to 300km/h over a journey. Make no mistake, this is one seriously quick mode of transport; think Sydney-Melbourne in three hours. By train. In business-class comfort. Riding on the TGV was once upon a time a childhood dream, which was slowly buried under the weight of reality, and the small fact that France was on the other side of the planet...

Once we got to Paris, we made a decision to go to Reims for the day, and explore the Champagne region (I’ll make Chath blog about that later). After having battled the bookings website and various printers to get tickets, we finally turned up at the station, to be greeted by a sleek, aerodynamic engine, attached to 14 carriages to transport its passengers and cargo to Luxembourg via Reims. On we got, kicking people out of our seats (for some reason they thought they could freeload on our tickets, grrr...) then settled in for the ride. Reims is only 127km away, which in TGV terms would take us under 40 minutes. Suddenly, my boyhood dreams were reawakened, as I realised – I was finally going on a TGV!

The trip started off pretty inauspiciously – we rolled out of the station exactly as promised, then stopped, 100m from the station, Cityrail-style. There was an incomprehensible French announcement, then we started rolling again. Gradually the train built up speed, and after a while we were cracking along at a decent pace across the French countryside. Admittedly we were going quickly, but compared to the Eurostar it didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. It was starting to look like my TGV dream would remain unfulfilled.

And then.

And then the engines started to whine just a little bit louder. And then the countryside started to become indistinguishable. And then the TGV girded its loins, bellowed almighty and catapulted its carriages into hyperspace (and yes I’m exaggerating just a little bit here). But it was seriously, insanely fast – this was much quicker than the Eurostar, and the sense of tearing through the countryside at an obscene rate was palpable. And you couldn’t rip the smile off my face for the world, as one of my childhood dreams came true.

Once we’d finished at Reims (itself a lovely town), we were waiting for the return train to take us back to Paris. While waiting at the station, a few other TGVs tore through without stopping – one of them flew through at what must have been top speed; it sounded like the end of the world. And once again, you couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face for the world.

Goes to show – sometimes, the journey is as important as the destination.

Versailles by day and night

Once upon a time there lived a king called Louis XIV who became king when he was four. Louis hated two things; the system of feudalism that was prevalent throughout France whereby dukes rules their “duke-doms” and pledged some loyalty to the king, and he hated Paris.

On account of this Louis centralized government in a small country town called Versailles and turned what was a country chateau into a palace. Thus, this village 20km out of France became the French seat of parliament and also the home of Louis.

Some interesting facts about Versailles:

• The hall of mirrors within Versailles is where the peace treaty that ended WWII was signed
• It is decorated with gold gilding, plush velvet and miles and miles of marble
• It’s opulent
• It’s over the top
• It’s no wonder the French people revolted
• The gardens are for walking in and viewing they are strictly not for sitting in, even when there is grass!

We took a walking tour around the castle armed with audio guides. They are like phones that you plug in the location and it gives you a little snippet about where you are.

Did you know that Louis XVI had eight daughters all situated in rooms adjacent to one another. Louis would often wander down in the morning with his coffee to see his eldest daughter who would then notify his younger daughters in turn. Sometimes the youngest only got to say a brief hello before papa went off to go hunting.

He also kept track of his daughters by giving them names based on their attributes:

e.g. Daughter 1 – I dub thee bosom

Daughter 2 – I dub thee thighs etc

After a brief tour of the truly amazing garden we split for a meal. We headed to Maccas first to satisfy Matt’s craving for French fries (when in France right…). At Maccas here (Pabs take note) there are little ATM-like machines where you can order and pay, then you line up at the counter to pick up your meal. Tres awesome, especially as you can do the whole transaction in your language of choice.

We then headed to a typical French restaurant for dinner. We shared some snails over an aperitif and ate a selection of traditionally French things like duck (confit du canard) and scallops with a provencale sauce.

At 9pm we headed back to the gardens where they had undergone a bit of a transformation. All the fountains had a unique light display. There were colourful fountains, fountains that had what looked like the Death Mark hanging over them and even fountains with dry ice to give it that hazy effect.

There were also people who had dressed up for the occasion in period costumes. There were rumours of a ball afterwards but no-one could ever get a straight answer from them.

We walked around for another couple of hours taking in the sights, eating delicious sorbet and finally catching some fireworks at 11:05.

Exhausted and thoroughly awed by Versailles we headed back to Chez Rudd for a well earned sleep in!

Cambridge

So we’re massively behind in our blogging, so our apologies for that. We’ve been so busy trying to cram stuff into what little time we have, that there’s barely enough time to stop and think sometimes! Our aim is to have caught up before we get back home, so there’s some serious blogging to be done...

Our last full day in England saw us catch early train out to Cambridge, to visit the university, and in particular poke around the town where I was born. Cambridge greeted us in typical England fashion – cold, gloomy, and a persistent drizzle that is the signature of English weather. Nonetheless, we powered on from the station, and were soon greeted by an awesome sight – the Kings College, Cambridge University. The college is inspiring on so many levels – its age, architectural grandeur, its sheer size. Words of mine shall never do it justice, so hopefully some of my pictures will! At the back of Kings College was, funnily enough, The Backs, which is a vast expanse of green bordering the river running through the colleges. As odd as it sounds, it was open day at the University, which meant that all of the colleges were actually closed to the general public – so unfortunately we could only admire from afar, without being able to delve further into the colleges themselves.

After taking numerous photographs of people punting along the river (inclement weather and all, some people are just hardier than us I think), we then began the mission of finding Churchill College. Churchill College is where dad undertook his PhD at the time I was born, and as such was my home for over two years. Some people never move far away from their towns of birth, or visit regularly as a matter of course, and those places end up being just another town or city in the world. Given that this was the first time I’d returned to England since leaving, 25 years ago, this was something a bit more meaningful, a bit more special.

But first – we had to find the college. Of course, the tourist map we had concentrated on the prime Cambridge University colleges (Kings, Trinity, Magadelene etc), but not the newer colleges like Churchill, we were off on quite a mission to find it, since no one seemed to really know where it was. We walked halfway around Cambridge, because that’s what the map told us to do, and arrived at Clare College, where the guard told us to walk all the way back to find it... by this time we had been trudging around in the rain for close to an hour, with no signs or indications of the existence of Churchill College. Disheartened, we started wandering back, and happened on, of all things, a hop-on hop-off bus tour map, which had the name of the street on which Churchill College was located! Refreshed by this discovery, we marched off in completely the wrong direction, before realising and turning around, this time in the right direction (it was still raining mind you). Finally, after what felt like close to two hours of walking around in the rain, we came across the promised land – Churchill College.

Now, on to the next challenge – finding our old flat, Flat 25. Thankfully, this wasn’t as bad a challenge as the first one, I simply asked the security office! They were incredibly understanding as to my mission, welcomed me back to the college, and directed me to Wolfson Flats. At this point, the sun had come out, so we headed off in the right direction... and there it was, finally – Flat 25, Wolfson Flats, Churchill College, Cambridge. The place I spent my first years, and the first time I’d ever been back since leaving for Brunei and Australia. It was strangely nostalgic (strange because I couldn’t remember anything from that period), but a nice feeling nonetheless. There was a stroller out the front of the flat, which seemed to indicate that someone was home, so we didn’t get too close, but we did take stalker photos of the front of the unit. Looks like someone is going to be starting life off there too... that’s a nice thought.

Anyways, the rest of the Cambridge is stunning – the old architecture is awe-inspiring (once you’ve navigated around all the loud, obnoxious tourists who take photos of absolutely everything... and no I’m not that bad!) and the university really inspires you to want to study there. Makes UNSW and USyd seem a little lame by comparison, but I guess they don’t have over 800 years of history to fall back on. There are cobblestone streets everywhere, and the main centre is blocked off from traffic between 10am and 4pm, creating a fantastic village atmosphere, even in the rain. And the food isn’t too bad either J

So all in all, a successful day – lots of Cambridge discovered, and the all important Wolfson Flats. Almost makes me want to go back to university...

Versailles by day and night

Once upon a time there lived a king called Louis XIV who became king when he was four. Louis hated two things; the system of feudalism that was prevalent throughout France whereby dukes rules their “duke-doms” and pledged some loyalty to the king, and he hated Paris.

On account of this Louis centralized government in a small country town called Versailles and turned what was a country chateau into a palace. Thus, this village 20km out of France became the French seat of parliament and also the home of Louis.

Some interesting facts about Versailles:

· The hall of mirrors within Versailles is where the peace treaty that ended WWII was signed

· It is decorated with gold gilding, plush velvet and miles and miles of marble

· It’s opulent

· It’s over the top

· It’s no wonder the French people revolted

· The gardens are for walking in and viewing they are strictly not for sitting in, even when there is grass!

We took a walking tour around the castle armed with audio guides. They are like phones that you plug in the location and it gives you a little snippet about where you are.

Did you know that Louis XVI had eight daughters all situated in rooms adjacent to one another. Louis would often wander down in the morning with his coffee to see his eldest daughter who would then notify his younger daughters in turn. Sometimes the youngest only got to say a brief hello before papa went off to go hunting.

He also kept track of his daughters by giving them names based on their attributes:

e.g. Daughter 1 – I dub thee bosom

Daughter 2 – I dub thee thighs etc

After a brief tour of the truly amazing garden we split for a meal. We headed to Maccas first to satisfy Matt’s craving for French fries (when in France right…). At Maccas here (Pabs take note) there are little ATM-like machines where you can order and pay, then you line up at the counter to pick up your meal. Tres awesome, especially as you can do the whole transaction in your language of choice.

We then headed to a typical French restaurant for dinner. We shared some snails over an aperitif and ate a selection of traditionally French things like duck (confit du canard) and scallops with a provencale sauce.

At 9pm we headed back to the gardens where they had undergone a bit of a transformation. All the fountains had a unique light display. There were colourful fountains, fountains that had what looked like the Death Mark hanging over them and even fountains with dry ice to give it that hazy effect.

There were also people who had dressed up for the occasion in period costumes. There were rumours of a ball afterwards but no-one could ever get a straight answer from them.

We walked around for another couple of hours taking in the sights, eating delicious sorbet and finally catching some fireworks at 11:05.

Exhausted and thoroughly awed by Versailles we headed back to Chez Rudd for a well earned sleep in!

fifteen

If you know me, then you know that Jamie Oliver is my food hero. I own everything he's ever written and I love cooking his food.

Going to his restaurant was just the icing on the cake.

We caught the train to Olde Street station and clomped down the cobblestone streets to his little place on the corner. It's a down a small street and quite unassuming.

You walk straight into the brasserie which is a more casual dining setting and head downstairs to the more formal sit-down restaurant.

I could see tourists everywhere and people who'd obviously come because fifteen was very much what Jamie was all about.

The food was very typically Jamie. Italian with a bit of English pub thrown in. He's always been particular about higher welfare and organic produce and this is reflected in the menu.

It's laid out in four sections

Antipasto

Pasta

Mains

Desserts

As soon as we ordered our drinks, mine a summer fruit punch (mocktail) and Mr Firhouse's a more alcoholic gooseberry cocktail the very attentive waiter bought out warm foccaccia and olive oil. It was made inhouse we were told and tasted lovely and herby.

We decided to share a main of crab bruschetta with chickpeas and chilli oil. It was divine and the crab was fresh and juicy with none of that overly fishy taste you get in poorly stored shell fish.

We opted to have a pasta and a main rather than one of each and Mr Firehouse went for the veal ragu with tagliatelle and me the duck. Sadly the duck was out of stock and I was given a chicken. Don't despair, everything served to us was a testament to the difference great cooking can make to simple food. The chicken was perfectly seasoned and caramelised (though the waiter was at pains to tell us it wasn't burned) and served with delicious roast veges. The tagliatelle was easily the best pasta I've had. Hot and perfectly al dente. None of the sliminess or over-softness of store-bought fresh pasta.

The food was generously portioned by not overwhelming which left plenty of room in our dessert pouch. Me, I went for the 15 chocolate tart with guava sorbet and passionfruit sauce. Nuwan went for a rasperry semifreddo with an almond tuille. Yummalicious! The pastry was short and thin (just the way I like it) and the chocolate rich and just a tiny bit bitter. The passionfruit and guava were a great way to balance out the richness of that deep chocolatiness.

Nuwan's semifreddo was also wonderful light and icy it went perfectly with the almond biscuit and we both enjoyed every drop.

I almost forgot that I ordered a lovely margarita with chilli. While the ladyboy cocktail at kuletos is still number one, this did do itself a great service by being beautifully citrusy with just a hint of chilli at the end. I was disappointed that my glass did not have the obligatory salt rim.

I left truly satisfied with a rolled up copy of the menu in my bag to prove it.

Photos of London at Night

A few photos I took with my iphone during a night sight seeing trip with our great and generous friends Hari and Ruvi!

This is Big Ben at night!

St Pauls Cathedral

The London Eye
Westminster

London!

Mrs Firehouse has requested that I say something about the first two days of our stay in London – apparently I’m not keeping up with my blogging duties, or something something. My excuse is that we’ve been so busy doing as much as we can, I haven’t actually had time to write anything (I’m writing this from the Eurostar to Paris, so surely there’s some validation of my supposed tardiness, this is the only free time we’ve had so far!)

So, welcome to London, welcome to Heathrow, and for me, welcome back to a country I haven’t been to for almost 25 years. This is the country where I entered the world, no doubt kicking, screaming and generally making a nuisance of myself (not much has changed some would argue), so it’s a homecoming of sorts (more of that in another blog). Once we navigated the various airport controls (yet again infinitely more efficient than Sydney, but still not as good as Hong Kong), we became very good friends with the London Underground system, all bags in tow. After dropping off our bags (over an hour later) at the Sri Lankan High Commission near Hyde Park, we commenced our (re)introduction to London – it’s Chath’s first time in Europe, and effectively my first time in London, since I can’t really claim to remember much!

So, in our first tour of London, we saw a number of war memorials, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Clarendon House, the changing of the guard, a number of parks, Trafalgar Square, lots of tourists (half of them from Australia, it was almost like being at home!) and Big Ben. And probably more stuff too, which I won’t be able to remember until I review the photos that are sitting on a number of memory cards. After hunting down a recommended fish and chips shop (Golden Hind, somewhere near the Bond Street underground station off Oxford St), some shopping and ice-cream before dinner. Bearing in mind that we were doing all of this following our 13-hour flight from Hong Kong, I think we did pretty well to last as well as did, although I must admit I did crash on the way home from dinner with Hari and Ruvi, who were quite strong advocates of packing up and moving to London. If only it was that easy…

Day two saw us taking in the Tower of London, and a quick look (from the outside) of St Paul’s cathedral. Both places were absolutely spectacular, and the time we spent there didn’t do either venue its justice. The thing that you notice with London (Rome also springs to mind) is that the entire city is littered with magnificent buildings, sculptures and monuments, like the entire city is a slightly disorganized museum. I must say, it really adds to the pomp and atmosphere of central London, in the tourist areas at least, and I can definitely understand the lure of packing up and relocating. I’m sure it’s a different story in winter though…

The second half of the day saw us at a West End musical – The Lion King! The Lion King is probably my all-time favourite Disney movie, and I was always sad that I never got to see the musical when it was on in Sydney. To see it in London however, at a theatre where it had been playing for close to 10 years – a truly amazing experience, and a great memory to take away from London. What’s mind-boggling (as a Sydneysider at least) is the number of theatres and different musicals on offer in the West End – Sydney might have one, maybe two different musicals playing at any one time, whereas London will have one or two on the same street, year after year after year. Then you turn the corner and see two more theatres with hit musicals playing... then you walk down the street to yet more theatres... the culture of the place is amazing. I do wonder though how often the average Londoner would go to the theatre – as a tourist it’s easy to appreciate this, but as a local it could just be part of the furniture, which would be a shame indeed if this was the case.

The initial impression from all of this touring was that four days could only ever give us a mere glimpse of everything London has to offer, let alone the rest of England. The next time we’re I’d love to rent out an apartment for a month, and explore the city and country proper – but reality will probably get in the way of that particular dream...

Oh, almost forgot – dinner that night was at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant, Fifteen – but I’ll let Chath tell you more about that J

Queue Theory

Firstly, apologies for the radio silence - we have been madly running around trying to keep up with ourselves, but updates will be coming shortly :)

When you’re on holiday, you end up queuing quite a bit. Queues for tickets, queues for the train, queues to buy a coffee… it’s almost like you spend most of your holiday lining up, waiting for something to happen. This is never more apparent than when you’re at a theme park of some sort. The one in question this time is Disneyland Hong Kong, although I’d say that this applies equally to all theme parks worldwide.

What I always think about (while I’m queuing for something of course) is the inherent ratio that exists when queuing. At what point is it worth queuing for something, and how far do you push that ratio? An example, to break up the theory – if you queue for 30 minutes, for a ride that lasts 30 seconds, are you getting good value? Of course, it depends on what you’re queuing for – we were in the queue for the Dumbo ride for about 40 minutes, for a ride that was over within 40 seconds, so I’d argue that it didn’t represent the best value. At the other extreme, I went on Space Mountain by myself, because Mrs Firehouse wasn’t too keen, and as a result I was able to bypass the hour-long queue as a solo rider, and queue for less than 5 minutes for a ride that was about 2 minutes long – brilliant value there in my opinion, especially given the ride in question. Then you get those shows which you wait 30 minutes for, but then the show itself goes on for 30 minutes – that’s still pretty good value I’d say (what’s even better is sneaking in at the last second, but that’s another story).

What always amazes me is how we all fall into a trap of going for a ride/amusement/activity that may not really pay off once you actually get there – during a normal day you wouldn’t willingly wait for 40 minutes for something that will be over in a blink of an eye, but you’ll happily submit yourself to this on holiday. Of course, I had plenty of time to think about all this while waiting for my 40 seconds of flight with Dumbo…

The night we met John Lennon, his wife and their sidekick

Dinner, a show and performance

We ummed and ahhed about going to this place and I’m glad we decided to go in the end. I was thrown first and foremost because this place had a price per head, unusual for a typical Chinese restaurant.

We’d been told this was a must do dining experience and very authentically Chinese so off we went.

The first hurdle was finding the place. We had a print-out that said the restaurant was at no. 49. Our taxi dropped us off out front and we marched into the building. The door had what looked like Chinese writing so we barged in confidently. We should have realized that the teppenyaki like plates and the Japanese chefs were not a good sign but we kept on. We pronounced our arrival to the hostess and were quite puzzled when she kept shaking her head, despite our best ministrations. Then the pieces fell into place, the teppenyaki chefs, the Japanese chef, the word sushi written on the menu. Nuwan, dear Nuwan, had the good sense to stick our prized printout under the nose of the hostess. She laughed….

“No, no” she said….aha wrong restaurant.

We then wandered back out onto the street. It was full of truly asian scaffolding (bamboo) and we crawled under many dodgy looking structure. We passed a doorway that had what looked like a window inside.

Except Nuwan the brave walked straight in through what I thought was a window. So what did I do? I screamed! I thought he’d walked into the glass. My yelp bought out a construction worker who took one look at our map and walked us into a building so unremarkable we’d walked right past it.

Inside we found our reservation as well as a truly underground restaurant.

There was a real artsy feel to the place. Paintings of naked men and women adorned one wall and antique photos adorned another.

We were directed to our table and served water by a man who was dressed in a red t-shirt, green apron and what looked like gumboots. He looked neither pleased no displeased. Here was a truly neutral man.

Then stepped out John Lennon, or what can best be described as his Asian brother. He had the floppy hair, the lean build and even the wire rimmed glasses. John Lennon was the boss man and nothing neutral man did pleased him. Neutral man was unperturbed, he just kept pouring water.

Five minutes after we’d taken our seat John Lennon asked if he could begin serving us. We nodded and then we were regaled with the words we would hear no less than 6 times that evening as each new guest arrived.

John bought out 2 dishes; a dish of cucumbers in a thick brown sauce (sweet) and a pickled carrot dish of some description (spicy) and did his inaugural performance.

“Let me introduce our food. First we have 2 appetisers one spicy, on not spicy. Then we have 6 main courses one spicy, one not spicy, one spicy, one not spicy. This one (points to the two existing dishes) is vegetables….eat”.

Eat we did, the cucumbers and carrot were crunchy and true to John’s words…spicy and sweet respectively.


He then bought out the third appetizer.

“ This one is sweet potato noodle, it’s a little bit spicy I think.”

John was correct again, it was also tasty. A chilli noodle dish in a sechuan sauce topped with fresh red chillies, green onions and crunchy peanuts. It was also lethally spicy.

Course 2 was a white cooked chicken in another version of the Sichuan sauce topped with sesame seeds.

Neutral man then bought out little bowls of rice and John Lennon served us a chilli beef.

“ This one is the chilli beef, it’s a little spicy, better to eat with rice.” The man was a prophet.

We ate our chilli beaf, then came the minced chicken soup, a pork rib and sweet potato dish (not spicy), tofu in chilli (spicy) and we finished with pork dumplings in a chilli sauce.

To say I’d never had a dining experience quite like this would be an understatement. Not only was the food totally different to anything Flemington offered, no a chilli lemongrass chicken in sight. It was also a performance run by John and his fremesis Neutral man.

It took us a while to realize that the restaurant ran at a particular rhythm. Regardless of when you turned up John and neutral man did their best to catch you up to their speed. Even though the couple sitting next to us arrived a good hour after we did we ate dessert (white funghi, bean curd and a sugar syrup) at the same time. It was very interesting to watch.

About halfway through the night I noticed a tall thin lady standing at the entrance to the kitchen, dressed in an apron and boots. I pointed her out to Nuwan and he was convinced that the antiquey photos on the wall were her, who knows?

At the end of our meal John pulled the woman out from the kitchen and introduced her to each of the diners.

“This is my wife.” He said proudly “She’s also the chef.”

The next part no-one saw comings. Wife/chef also turned out to be a Chinese opera singer. She stood on the stairs of the restaurant and belted out something that words cannot describe. It had notes I’d never heard before!

We literally rolled out of the restaurant, we were that full. Even thought spending 2 hours eating put a little stress on our plans to get of the hotel on time, it was well worth the stress!

To the top we go

Our third and final day in HK turned out to be hot, for something different. We headed out to Victoria peak in the morning. HK’s highest point, you travel there by tram and for most of the trip up and down you’re at a 45 degree angle.

At the peak there is, much like everywhere else, a shopping centre. We opted to look around and check out the view from the terrace gardens. It’s a beautiful spot and full of those cool binoculars you can use to spy on people. Especially the pirates on the ships in the harbor.

Aview is a view is a view so we looked and looked some more and then did what we do best….we ate. There was a intriguing looking restaurant called NYF (New York Fries) where they served rustic fries with toppings like chilli, sour cream and the one we opted for tandoori spices chicken curry. While I can’t claim to love it, it certainly was an experience and by no means the worst food we’ve had.

As many of you know I have an issue with heights, so I can only describe the feeling of going backwards down a steep hill at 45 degrees truly terrifying!

Dim Sum

After a few false starts we finally made our way to a Yum Cha place, recommended to us as one of the best. It was on the top level of City Hall and we’d missed it quite a few times because much like any city administration building it didn’t look like it could house a banquet hall.

But alas, at the top of the City Hall is Maxim’s. It’s yum cha like we’ve never seen before. There are chandeliers on the roof. The waiters are in suits. The tea is served in real find bone china (with a saucer) and the tea pot is silver. The best part is the trolleys; not only are they labeled in English with their wares, there is a television screen on most of them showing a video of the food inside or how it was prepared. The labels can be seen from quite a distance away so we can make up our mind about what we want as they approach and in true HK efficiency as the food diminishes the label is swiftly removed and on the trolley goes. No false advertising there.

We had some usual favourites like spring rolls and dumplings. That’s where the similarity ended. Even though the looked very much like the dishes we’re used to the fillings were entirely unique and the sauces were quite different too. We had prawns steamed on little capsicum cups and pork buns that had been baked till there were crisp. There was a delicious vegetable dumpling filled with water chestnuts and mushrooms and my favourite pork spare ribs with these crazy amazing glass noodles.

We found the limits of our stomach today and we were conscious that we were about to take a ride across the water in a ferry and didn’t want things to get messy. This place is definitely going on our “return to” list.

Btw Nuwan wants me to tell you that after lunch he took me to Tiffany’s and bought me a beautiful necklace!

Disneyland…the place where dreams are made of money.

Nuwan took me to Disneyland today and it was amazing. Being my first time I decided that I had to appreciate it as my true five year old self and approached all the cheese with gusto.
I’ve dreamt on going on the mad-hatters tea-cups since I saw it on a full house episode , I think, a million and one years ago. They were even better in real life.
Here are the 10 best things about Disneyland / Disneyland Hong Kong

1. • Even before you get into the park there is a trolley selling everything you forgot at home. For us it was the appropriate sun protection to deal with the fact that it was atleast 5 degrees hotter there than anywhere else in HK.
2. • You have to catch the MTR to Sunny Bay station and from there you get a special Mickey Mouse train that has Mickey windows, Mickey hand holds and various Disney characters littered throughout the cabin.
3. • There are Mickey Mouse waffles that have inbuilt crevices for various condiments
4. • All the characters except Tinkerbell and Rafiki (the lion kind monkey) are played by locals. So we saw Chinese pirates, lions, zebras, race car drivers and even star fish. This was fine until we walked into the Golden Mickeys and Minnie and Mickey started speaking in fluent Chinese, not to mention Goofy….bizarro
5. • There is a replica of Tarzan’s tree house that he shares with Jane. Complete with a crying baby in a cradle and the heart-string tugging notes of Phil Collins’ You’ll be in my heart playing throughout the whole tree house. I really think I would like to live in a tree house.
6. • You can buy anything themed in Disney….pens, paper, pencil cases, magnets, pencils straws and even the stick you get your fairyfloss on….and I nearly forgot Mickey tiramisu, Goofy Mango Mousse, Minnie chocolate tart and well insert Disney character and sugary treat here.
7. • Even though the temperature is about 35 degrees and the humidity feels higher than 100, people still want to get as close to you are possible, so it feels like everyone is closer to the ride
8. • The restaurants serve chips, fried chicken, burgers, kung poa chicken, spare ribs and black bean sauce and stir fried rice and noodles
9. • They have these awesome fans which come with a water receptacle so as it spins and blasts warm air in your direction it can also blast water too!
10. • They let you go on some rides with a shorter waiting time if you go as a single. This meant that Nuwan waited 5 minutes to go on space mountain where as some poor sods waited the full 50 minutes. The best bit of course was that the single wait-time gave me the perfect reason not to go

We also waited 0 minutes for the jungle river cruise because there was an English version of the ride and a Chinese version of the ride! This is probably central to all worlds Disney but they play Disney songs everywhere….I mean everywhere. You come out of the loo and suddenly it’s all “Chim-chimeny, Chim-chimeny”
I don’t know how the kids got through it but I for one have not been so exhausted since…I don’t think I’ve ever been that exhausted.
I think Nuwan got off pretty lightly on the whole I walked out with a ridiculously bright red Mickey Hat and a belly full of junk food.

We're here

A very good morning, Hong Kong. (photos to come soon)
We landed in Hong Kong at the totally unreasonable hour of 5am, 25 minutes early. Being from Sydney we expected that all the formalities would take up to 2 hours. Alas, we were out in 20 minutes. Drat.
Did you know that Hong Kong airport has 2 arrival halls, full of immigration counters? So if one fills up with passengers from two 747s and an A380 (you could learn from this Sydney Airport) they open the other one.
Anyway, Nuwan and I dragged our baggage to the MTR station (like the subway) and bought ourselves an Octopus card. It allows us unlimited access to the MTR for three days for a little under 50 bucks each – including the trips two and from the airport.
There’s no food or drink allowed on these trains, so they are pristine. There’s entertainment on board and it smells…..clean!
The train took us to Hong Kong station and from there it was a short bus ride to our hotel.
We were eager to get going and were not daunted by the early hour (7:30) we showered got dressed and stepped out into the heat (29 degrees). We braved the trams




Yes, it is made of tin and yes it does look like it’s about to topple. Problem one as soon as we got on we realized that we had to pay on our way out and of course it had to be exactly change. Though we’d stopped off to buy some skittles we only had 10 HK dollars and we need $4.60, so we overpaid the tram and ran. I think we both felt that in HK it is just as bad to pay more as it is to pay less.
We wandered the streets for a couple of hours before we realized that nothing in HK opened before 11. So though we were surrounded by Gucci, Prada, Burberry and Chanel all we (I use the term loosely) could do was window shop.
We gave up our quest to find dim sum (what we know as yum cha) and settled on a restaurant that was open, a rarity at 10:30. We settled on Japanese, and so it was that our first meal in Hong Kong was a Japanese one.
Hong Kong is a shopping mecca, everywhere you go all you see are shops. Not just any shops mind you, brand names are the way to go.
We caught the MTR to a place called Causeway Bay which has about 5 shopping malls in a 1km radius, the biggest being the huge department store SOGO. Kind of like Myer, it has brand-name mini stores inside the major department store. So we walked past Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Marc, Prada and even Tiffany’s.
I get why HK is such a shopping mecca, but at the end of the day it’s not for me. As someone who barely walks into a shop labeled Chanel or Prada, finding them time after time made me want to see more fashion that I might just be able to afford.
We then headed out back into the heat and searched for Times Square a beautiful shopping mall with high-end shopping stores.
The last thing we expected to find here was the Hogwarts Express….but it must have made an unexpected stop.




We also took walk down Diagon Alley… and rode a broomstick or two. All in a days work.
Poor Nuwan was exhausted after Zara so we found some Yum Cha for lunch and headed back to the hotel. The restaurant had two options, yum-cha or hot pot. We decided to go for yum-cha and had some amazing prawn wantons, BBQ pork rice noodle rolls and even mango pudding. You could actually taste the mango this time.




We took a power nap at the hotel and headed up to the 28th floor where they offer free cocktail and canapés at 7:30. We had a couple of beers and took in the beautiful view of HK Harbour. They had tempura fish, prawn spring rolls and these spicy potato balls. We pigged out a little bit before we headed out again. After all we needed energy for the journey.
Nuwan’s research told him about all the places to be wary of in HK. There are so many camera shops around that its hard to know which are good and which are dodgy. The first sign is neon lights – neon lights are bad. Another bad sign is owners willing to knock the price down by more than 30% - if it’s too good to be true it probably is. We took the famed MTR to Tsim Sha Tsui and entered the HK I’d always imagined. Now that night had fallen there were neon lights everywhere. It was street after street of glittering mayhem. There was also street after street of watch shops. In a county where owning a car is a ridiculous expense and real estate is hidden away in 100 storey towers watches are a sign of class and wealth. So it is that every time I turn a corner I meet George Clooney advertising Cartier, Rolex and Piaget….or whatever it is.
We found a place called Echo camera house and Mr Firehouse got his latest lens….you couldn’t wipe the smile off his face!

We then headed to Mong Kok which has the ladies market, and we were hoping some yummy food. The markets are a tiny narrow strip with stalls on each side and street running on either side. It’s hot and stuffy and runs for an eternity. I loved it.
Markets are my special love, I love a good bargain and have learned to never get emotionally invested in anything a market has to offer. You have to be able to walk away.
I walked out with 2 pairs of shoes, for about 30 dollars and a gaudy, blingy headband for about 5. You’ll also be happy to know that I walked away from the third pair of shoes because she refused to sell them to me for under 50 dollars.
Normally in these situations Nuwan is not very helpful. He looks scared and says to be quietly in Sinhala, “it’s okay….just get it”.
The man has learned because this time he played the perfect foil. Every time I turned to the store-woman and told her how my husband was cross because I spent all our money he looked suitably displeased and shook his head. Go team!
By the end of the day I’d lost track of how many hours I’d been up, my legs ached, my cankles were out in force but gee I love Asia!

And away we go?

For someone who is more often attached to a computer than not, I'm a surprisingly late entrant into the world of blogging, on reflection. Never mind, better late than never...

So now we're sitting at the airport waiting to board the red-eye to Hong Kong, and only now is it actually hitting me that we're actually going on holiday. My poor family have had to put up with me moaning about just how busy work is... This holiday has approached by stealth, to the point where it's only now that it's starting to feel like a break. Two weeks is going to rocket by, but I'd rather that over nothing at all.

So, reflections so far. The good - checking in for an international flight in five minutes flat, those Frequent Flyer status credits have paid off just a little. The bad - explosives checked (again!) at security. That's three out of three on my last international flights, I must be doing something wrong. Hmmm...

Plane awaits - next stop, Hong Kong!

Dealing with holiday envy

Something Mr Firehouse and I have been dealing with a lot lately is holiday envy. The colleagues with whom we share our days turning the colour of snowpeas at the mention of us escaping blustery, freezing Sydney for colder, wetter London. Go figure?

Here are some handy hints I've found to deal with this particular problem

1. Assure your colleagues that even thought it may appear to be a good thing, holidays are very stressful and you're likely to be worse off at the end
2. Tell them you didn't really want to go, but had to use up frequent flyer points so you're not really going to be enjoying it
3. Tell them how lucky they are to be staying at home and not dealing with the dramas of international flights, airport and food blech

or better still

4. be honest, tell them you're looking forward to every second and bring them back a t-shirt that says

" some guy I work with went to London and all I got was this lousy shirt"

We're off.... and we've earned this holiday.

Nuwan and I are taking off on a whirlwind trip of Asia and Europe. It's more of a taster and I really am under no illusions that we'll be covering even a smidgeon of what Europe has to offer. However there are some goals for this trip...
1. Eat good food. If you know us you know that food is a passion and while we're not fine dining snobs by any means, we do have a special place in out heart for awesome tucker
2. Shop a lot! Hong Kong is a shopping mecca no? Anyone want anything?
3. Take lots of photos. Nuwan's copius amounts of camera gear need to be put to good use. For my part this means a certain amount of martyrdom; having to traverse airports and planes with the husband who is "deeper" then he is tall thanks to the back pack, posing for photos at every important monument and some less important ones and often waiting for those embarrassing photos to appear on facebook....nooo!

I'm also looking forward to some highlights that we've already planned (being the very anal and over-organised people we are)

* Jamie Olivers restaurant 15 ( ahhhhh)
* Lion King the musical
* The Louvre
* Gordon Ramsay's picnic lunch

Getting through the next few days of school are going to be tougher than tough! Not only do I need to pack up the classroom, pack for a trip and send my kids off prepared for the holidays but I have to stay focused. Does the universe really expect me to concentrate on ABC's and 123's when my minds eye is seeing fresh baguettes on a street corner and I can practically taste warm English beer?

2 days to go....let's see if we get there.