If you are squeemish then look away!

The following was such a unique experience that we had to devote a whole post to it!

After visiting the night markets we fancied partaking in what was the popular thing with locals and having a bite to eat in the many streetside restaurants.

So when in Rome as they say.......

The 1st photo is of the charming establishment we chose, but surprising haggis was not on the menu, despite the Scottish name. The 2nd is of the table of food they had laid out for us to choose from. Which we must mention still had things moving on it; you just don't get that kind of freshness back home! Then you've got the photo of the box of fish, where Andrew had to select his still swimming dinner from. The next is the fish steemed with garlic, ginger and blackbean and all served up. Finally you have Andrew tucking in to what was an absolutely delicious meal. It also has to be mentioned that this was one of the cheapest meals we had in Hong Kong and it never made us ill.

Shivani was very proud of herself for not only sitting at the restaurant, but amazingly eating there too. It is worth noting though that her meal consisted of noodles and pak choi; a bit tamer that Andrew's.

Next time we are in Hong Kong will be fried bug time!

Its official: Hong Kong is fanstastic!

As mentioned in our last post, we are staying in a place called "Sha Tin", which is in the New Territories. This meant we had to get the very efficient Train into the City called The MTR, which was pretty cool, as you can see from the photo, you never know who you are going to be sitting opposite!

The City is full of sky scrapers, which seemed to be flats for residents as well as offices for business. We took a walk through Kowloon Park, which was an oasis of calm away from the hustle and bustle, which is where we saw the flamingos. There were also loads of turtles swimming around in the lakes, which would come up to you looking very cute.

The biggest culture shock of our entire trip so far was coming out at night in Kowloon. I'm not sure if you can make it out in the photo, but the streets were chock-full of people and the lights from the signs were so bright you could see around you as clear as day. We visited a couple of night markets, which had some beautiful things, but decided we would wait and buy when we come back from Vietnam.

Goodbye Australia. Hello Hong Kong!

We waved goodbye to Sydney and Australia on 26th June 2008 and did the 10 hour flight to Hong Kong.


We've included a photo of the Sydney Opera House at night, as our parting tip of the hat. The photo does not do it justice, as no matter what setting we seemed to put it the camera on, it just would not take a clear distance night shot. Nevermind.


Hong Kong; what an amazing place!


We are coming back here in 3 weeks time and only had 2 full days to visit before flying to Vietnam, so we crammed in as much as we could.

Where we stayed was connected by a walkway into a shopping plaza and one of the first shops you see is Marks & Spencer; so Shivani insisted on having her photo taken in front of it. Andrew did point out that now we look just like those Chinese tourists do when they take photos of strange things in England.

The next photos are of a Buddhist Temple in the mountains of Sha Tin, which is where we stayed. Sha Tin that is, not the temple. We actually stayed in a beautiful hotel called The Royal Park. The temple is famous for having over 10,000 different Buddhas. We counted at least 12,500! The pathway up to the temple was more of a hike than a walk, but was well worth it and was lined with many life-size Buddhas in gold and full colour. Once at the top it was very peaceful and all you could hear was a song bird singing - very poetic, but true. The walk back was much easier - all downhill. We then headed into the City, but we'll tell you about that on the next post.

Return of The Szabos!

Who should be in Sydney at the same time as us?

None other than the Szabo family!!

It was great to see them again and we enjoyed a meal together at a restaurant called the Great Meat and Wine Co. To cut a very long story short; Andrew ended up having two dinners for the price of one, afetr throwing a very polite strop.

We've also put on a photo of Andrew, where Shivani believes he looks very "travelleresque" and a photo of Shivani in the lounge area of the very nice apartment we stayed in during our time in Sydney.

Bondi to Coogee

Not sure if we spelt "Coogee" right in the title, but nevermind.

No trip to Sydney is complete without the short bus ride out to Bondi Beach (or so we are told). It was a beautiful sunny day, so we started off at Paddington Market, which is nothing special and then proceeded by bus to Bondi. The beach was beautiful, the waves were pefect, so as you can see from the photo; Andrew donned his wetsuit and had a go at surfing.

We then did the walk from Bondi to Coogee, about 5km over the clifftops and snapped a photo of The "Siren" Shivani on the rocks, luring sailors to their doom!

!Totally Bodacious!

By the way; incase you didn't work out already...... Andrew is not the guy surfing@!#

Sydney Aquarium, plus The Good Food and Wine Show

Hi Guys

We write this blog entry from Vietnam, as we just arrived here today 29th June 2008. A lot has happened since we last posted, but first we must finish off telling you about Sydney.

We visited the Sydney Aquarium at night, as it's open until 10p.m. Which made it especially scary with all the man-eating sharks, squids, scorpion fish and cute little penguins!

These penguins are the same ones that we saw in the wild in the Bay Of Islands NZ. But it was cool to see them up a bit closer.

As luck would have it, the very weekend we were in Sydney, so was The Good Food & WIne Show and more importantly - Gordon Ramsey. So we went and sampled all the fine food & wine on trial and saw Gordon Ramsey himself cooking in an exhibition performance, whcih was more like a comedy show. As you can see from the photo Shivani enjoyed herself a little too much!

Sydney and The Chinese Garden

We've got ourselves a 1 bedroom fully self-contained apartment for our 10 day stint in Sydney and once again find ourselves living in China Town. So 1st stop..... The Chinese Gardens; a tranquil oasis in the heart of hectic Darling Harbour. Although, we are still not sure what a Russian maiden was doing sniffing the roses?!

The Long Road to Sydney

Hi Guys

So, on the way back to Sydney we stopped for a night in bohemian Byron Bay and watched the sun set on the beach, whilst a load of hippies played their bongo drums - very cool.

We also went for a walk in early morning up to Cape Byron Lighthouse; a great place to spot migrating humpback whales. We were lucky enough to spot a pod of dolphins AND some whales, but could not get a clear enough photo of them to put on the blog, as they were just too far away. You'll just have to settle for photo's of the lighthouse instead.

The 2nd place we stopped overnight, was a beautiful Tuscan style B&B, set in the hills of a fab small town called Bellingen. We explored the town and nearby Dorrigo, which is where the scenery shots were from, and then continued our journey to Sydney, arriving late Sunday 15th June

Long Lost Cousin

As we said before, we stayed at our cousin Natalie's and her boyfriend Glenn's place in Brisbane.

Thank you for putting us up and putting up with us and we look forward to you coming to stay with us when you make it to UK. Lets not leave it another 10 years till we meet again!

Dad, Mum, Simon and Michael, Nat says "G'day" to you.

On our last night Nat and Glenn took us out to a lovely Himalayan/Tibetan resturant and the food was delicious - Andrew decided to convert into a Buddhist Monk to fit in with the theme.

We are now on our way to Sydney via a couple of stops so bye for now.

Australia Zoo

Some more pics

Have a look at the 3rd picture down. The one of the beautiful furry animal and the kangaroo standing next to her!

Australia Zoo

Crikey!

We've been to Australia Zoo.

Have a look at the photos.

We got to hold a snake, pet baby goats, Kangaroos and Koala's.

We saw the live Croc Show, where they feed the crocs, just like Steve Irwin used to.