Kuala Lumpur

Well, we made it - after a quite horrendous flight with lightning storms and crazy turbulence (Katie slept through it all) we made it to K.L. at 1.30am. Made our way into town, got to our accomodation but there was a problem with our booking - we had booked for tomorrow not today. ;o)

So we have just pretty much stayed up all night out on the very plush front porch (it's a proper seated dining area in a covered porch area) watching the world cup and being looked after by the very nice staff here - giving us coffee and breakfast etc. Very nice indeed.

Trying now to book our next stage of our trip but it goes something like this (it is all up in the air and may well change):

Tuesday - fly to Sandakan in Borneo

Wednesday - visit the Orangutans

Thursday - visit the Proboscis monkeys

Friday - go on a river cruise and spend the night in the jungle

Sunday - try and head to Sepidan for a bit of diving with turtles

Wednesday - fly to Kotu Kinabalu (Borneo)

Thursday - fly to Kuching (Borneo) then spend the night in Baku National Park

Sunday - fly to Kuala Lumpur and then straight out to Ho Chi Minh.

We haven't made any plans as yet for Vietnam but will post them as soon as we have a rough idea.

;o)

Hong Kong

Well, after one week in Hong Kong the cold and wet of the New Zealand winter is a bit of a distant memory.

We have had a great time here in Hong Kong and have been well looked after by Roddy from Carradale who has very kindly let us stay at his posh flat in the city centre.

I have just quickly uploaded some pics for you to have a look at - there are plenty more but we are just about to rush out to catch our flight to Kuala Lumpur.

We have finally decided on our next part of our trip and we have thrown ourselves into the deep end with a hectic schedule of 6 flights in 14 days to explore Borneo. We cannot wait - I will try and post as much as I can to keep you updated with our movements.

Final weekend madness with Lorna and Iain - who else?

The night before my Karate grading we were lucky enough to get another visit in Wellington from Lorna and Iain for a farewell soiree. It was really nice of them to make the effort to come down - and although sad to part, it is thanks to them we have so many good/hazy memories of some good times in NZ. They wil be sorely missed.

On the Friday night we thought we would play a trick on the pair and told them to meet us at the Splash Club - it's a brothel on the main street - but unfortunately the taxi driver either genuinely didn't know where it was or he was playing dumb. Anyway, the joke was rescued as Lorna had already texted a friend (who is a local) to say that she was in Wellington and heading to the Splash Club to meet some friends - nice. Guffaw guffaw (a cheap shot I know)

We had a couple of drinks on the Friday but the big night out was always going to be the Saturday - Katie and I had arranged to meet some people from work in town, the All Black's were playing on the telly and we were all on a high. Iain and I foolishly thought we would see it through the night to catch the USA versus England at 6am. (we got home at 5.30am)

As usual mayhem then ensued - here are some photos....

Senpai Daniel from my Karate club came out with us

Iain tried to impress Dan with his crane style.

Add your own caption for this one............

Chuck came out and made some funny faces, with Robert from school

Steve came to see us and stayed past his bedtime.

Iain and Lorna left to return to the heat of Auckland after a Sunday of hanging around in front the big fire.

And that as the say is that, out last night out in Welly and time to go home. Another classic weekend, more good times and some really silly photos.

Never mind, now that Katie and I are travelling again the usual cultural posts and sights will return - maybe!

Final Karate

This weekend has been a bit mental and I will write more about that in the next few days but my final Karate grading took place on Saturday and it was as hard as usual. I was successful though and I now have a green belt which is 4th Kyu (out of 10 and numbers are descending so next step would be 3rd).

Quite an emotional time with eveything that is going on in our lives as we gear up to leave New Zealand next week - it has been a real week of goodbyes and after putting so much hard work into training sayng goodbye to the Karate was very hard. It is going to be something that I really miss (and they don't have this syle of Karate in Scotland unfortunately) but I will be able to continue doing something when I get home.

At the end of my Karate grading Shihan Ben made me go out and do an individual performance in front of everyone, he wished me well and presented me with a polo shirt from the Karate Club. Which was very nice of him.

here are some photos of my previous grading that have only recently been published on the Seido website.....

 

Napier, Hastings, Havelock North - Hawkes Bay

It's took me ages to get the Auckland post done and now I have some more spare time and a computer at home (our Apple Mac is currently incapacitated - potentially expired) I seem to have a lot of catching up to do.....

A couple of weekends ago we decided that because we are running out of time we HAD to race up to the Hawkes Bay. It's allegedly one of the sunniest places in NZ, it's full of wineries and the scenery is supposed to be spectacular - so we shot off straight after work on the Friday and headed North East.

We were staying with a colleague of Katie's from the Tennis world - Trevor, and his wife Meryn. They were really really nice and welcoming and we had a lovely time staying at their house in the town of Clive. Trevor is a tennis coach who has a tennis court in his back garden with a small shed with a fridge, kettle etc for mid-coaching drinks and snacks for player and parents, what a great idea. Trevor is also really into his football so there was a lot of chat about tennis and football over the weekend. Trevor and Meryn have a couple of kids but they were also looking after their daughter's friend and they were also hosting a German exchange student - they certainly have a busy old house.

After a late one on the first night chatting sport we got up and went for a wander around Napier. It's an interesting place - it's predominantly Art Deco stylee since they had to rebuild the whole place after a devastating 7.8 earthquake in 1931 reduced pretty much the whole town to rubble.

This photo montage isn't my creation - my photos are on my camera and I can't process them due to the condition of the Mac. ;o(

It is funny though because as with most things in period styling, the buildings look really dated - truly old buildings are timeless but Art Deco just looks out of place these days. (in my opinion - pictures to follow) But it's certainly very unique - an Art Deco town. (as far as I know)

So after a bit of sightseeing on our own, Trevor took us a wee trip up the local big hill called Te Mata Peak.

Stunning views all the way to the Centre of the North Island by the way and it was a glorious day - we just missed on on seeing all the way to Ruapehu however (where we went skiing).

Katie and I then went on a quick tour of some wineries.............

Sileni Estate

hmm, Church Road...

Mission Estate

The other thing we did in our short stay in Napier was to head out for dinner and afterwards we were able to catch up with my best friend from primary school - Neil McGinley.

We basically got in touch via facebook a while back and realised we were both in New Zealand and this was an ideal opportunity to get meet up. We met in a pub and reminisced about the good old days over a few beers - it was certainly a blast from the past! It was really interesting hearing all his news and Neil's been a busy guy since moving here, he has a wife and a son now and is a qualified electrician. Who knows when we will catch up again - in another 20 years?

             

On the way back to Welly we took an alternative route and ended up driving past the Tui brewery which is a New Zealand icon.......here is what the brewery looks like in the adverts...

Unfortunately the girls weren't at work on the day we visited so I had to settle for a couple of less exciting photographs....

Tui are also well known for their controversial adverts which are actually quite funny and generate the desired media attention.

Here's one of our own......

So that's that.....we now have two weeks left in New Zealand and our travels around the country are now at an end. Next Friday we both leave our jobs, hand our car, laptops, keys and everything back and we will offically be unemployed travellers again. Scary stuff!

That was the weekend that was...................

We travelled up to Auckland (that photo isn't mine by the way) a couple of weekends ago to see our dear friends from home, Iain and Lorna, (find out more here - lorna's blog ) who have now been living and working there for over a year - it was one of those weekends that just sounds more ridiculous every time I have to explain it to anyone......and it was, if it is possible, slightly crazier than New Year with them. (although not quite as drunken as far as I can remember) It was possibly our last time seeing these guys for a while as they are hanging around in NZ for a bit longer - we will sorely miss them but at least we will have memories like these to remember them by.........

No blog entry will ever do this weekend justice but I'll try my best. The story starts when I step off the plane in Auckland and get picked up by Lorna in her engagement present - the wee red mini that Iain got her. It is absolutely class and it is so small and close to the ground it gives you a completely different passenger experience. You wouldn't believe the cars here - brand new ones are so expensive that everyone drives old ones but it is really a step back in time. Wind up windows, no warning sounds for leaving your lights on (eh Lorna?)- just everything about them is so different to what we are used to back home. But they have genuine character which is definitely a big plus.

Anyway - whilst we were travelling to Lorna and Iain's new home in Devonport the party had aready started in earnest and Katie + everyone else were already having a few drinks and a barbecue. By the time Lorna and I arrived we were playing catch up and we are both very good at that game. The chat was good, the company was great and we all stayed up far too late - well actually Lorna and I stayed up much later than everyone else talking absolute rubbish about nothing in particular - we also had a wee stagger down memory lane and talked a lot about the East end of Glasgow. Drunken bums!

So onto the next day and the real madness......

Saturday was all about getting ready for the big game that night. Iain's work - The Auckland Blues - were playing their final game of the Super 14 league competition and we were all going along. The plan was to watch the game, get a bite to eat with the players and then maybe go into town.

Here is Lorna and Katie on the ferry from Devonport to Auckland City - the journey takes about 10 minutes  - we of course all had to have a quick drink to get us in the mood. It was great being at the game and even though the Blues didn't have much to play for, they didn't want to lose at home against a weak side (Waikato Chiefs).

The Blues won the game easily and apart from some stupid guy from the Waikato who had dreadlocks (so probably didn't wash very often) and really bad chat, the game was pretty uneventful. A win for the Blues then and a good way to finish off the season.

After the game Iain went down to the dressing room to watch the players get changed (only joking big man!!) whilst Katie, Lorna and I were escorted to the player's friends and famiy waiting area were we had drinks and snacks. When the team bus was ready to go we all were taken upstairs and we boarded the bus. From there we were taken to Sky City in Auckland - a big hotel and casino complex right next to the Sky Tower.

                                                            

As we were getting off the bus it was quite funny because all the public were excited to be seeing the big name stars and there we were, jumping off the same bus - nobody asked for our autographs though, I am pretty sure it was obvious that we weren't in the first team.

After a big buffet dinner (which started about 10.30pm by the way), we met Luke McAlister - you may remember him from a story about the All Blacks visiting my school and I got some of their names wrong  - if you can't recall, I called him Luke Wilkinson when introducing him at school and that was really embarrassing. Well, he completely remembered me and he thought that when I got his name wrong I was having a laugh, he didn't realise that I was actually genuinely clueless about NZ rugby. He was very nice about it though - being a multi millionaire International Rugby star and all that. (I don't think he had probably lost any sleep over the event and I am pretty sure it won't make his autobiography)

We then stayed for a while (very possibly overstayed) and played some drinking games with The Drapenator (the physio), his wife, an ex All Black/Team Manager of the Blues (Strawny) who surprised us all by giving us keys to rooms in Sky City - bonus! This was really the start of the whole madness - it would probably have made sense to have a wee night cap and call it a night - but that just wasn't going to happen.

Off we went to a nightclub in Auckand and even though I should have been able to resist, I turned into a bit of a celebrity botherer. Actually, as far as I remember it I was very polite and Iain was my photographer and I asked him a million times if it was ok, so I hope it was......here are some of the photos.....how many could you have named?

Maria Tutaia (Netball) (a.k.a Neil from the Young Ones)

Joe Rokocoko (Rugby)Strawny (Blues Team Manager and ex-All Black)Joe again.

Tony Woodcock and Kevin Mealamu  (and some diidy in the background) (Rugby)

The gang also participated in the now almost obligatory "Blue Steel" modelling competition......if you haven't seen the movie Zoolander then it might not make much sense but the photos are still funny.

By the end of the night we were all a bit worse for wear but we stayed up and went to the casino - unfortunately for me I had eaten/drank something that my body had objected to - it appears that in my old age I have developed a strange reaction to one of three things - it is either 1) A ridiculous amount of beer/alcohol or 2) Shellfish. 3) A combination of both.This is what happened........................

It was not really a laughing matter as you can see from Iain's obvious concern but I ploughed on regardless and my immune system had to deal with it while we all went and played roulette! (In reality I was probably gambling with my wellbeing)

I didn't take this one by the way - it's just for illustration purposes. For the record, Katie and I won hee haw and Iain walked away with the same amount in his pocket as he started the games with. Well done!

So, at 6am we finally called it a night and went off to our rooms - check out was 11am and we had to get some sleep. No change of clothes, no toiletries, just a place to fall over and get some zzzzz's.

The next day was quite emotional - doing the "walk of shame" (Definition - after a night out, travelling home in the same clothes you wore the night before) through Auckland and heading back to Devonport for the last time. Saying goodbye to Iain and Lorna was very hard, the reality of coming home is starting to really set in and even though we are so excited about coming back, there is always going to be that feeling of sadness leaving people and places behind here in NZ. We'll miss these guys! Thanks to them we have drank far more heavily on nights out than we would have on our own ;o) Only joking, but they really have helped us have some of the best times here in New Zealand. It's definitely exciting being somewhere new but it's always the best when you are with your mates, wherever you are.