Travel on Shrieking.net

Endings

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:32:08 +0000

Beginnings are hard to catch. I couldn’t tell you how this all began: perhaps it was when I was sick of university and wanted to get away, perhaps it was when I decied to go to Australia, perhaps it was when I cancelled that trip and got a tattoo, perhaps it was when I booked my tickets, perhaps it was when I got on the plane. But endings? Endings are definite. It’s always easy to work out where something ends. The journey ends here, just where it began, and the world seems so much bigger, and I feel so much smaller, and my brain feels lost and damaged and full of useless anecdotes where my degree used to be. I couldn’t tell you the finer points of web service programming these days, but I do know the average annual rain fall in London and I can compare it to the amount we had in one day out in Franz Josef, when I was out hiking on a glacier in the middle of a rainforest. I don’t know much about agents any more, but I sure as hell know what sun stroke feels like, because I got it, drinking Fiji bitter on the roof of a boat somewhere in the middle of the Yasawa islands. Endings are not sad times, they’re just changing times. Endings are everywhere. One good thing about them is that you can almost guarantee that where an ending is found, there’s a beginning lurking just around the corner. Of course, it’s hard to track it down, because beginnings are hard to define. A lot of things are just beginning in my life, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Full moon

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:19:24 +0000

Ko Pha-Ngan is something amazing.

I’m not quite sure if you can call it beautiful. Bits of it certainly are, but the onslaught of the tourist has ruined it somewhat. Somehow it has resisted the urge to become westernised though: no MacDonalds, no Burger King, no Starbucks. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before it all goes wrong. Instead you have rows and rows of restaurants with Family Guy on repeat and bars lining the beach serving up absolutely lethal buckets of alcohol and red bull to the up-for-it party goers of the night. The beach itself is pretty amazing, discarded bottles and buckets aside: it’s a crescent shape with gorgeous soft sand and jungle on either side. The sun rises over it so at 7am the remaining dancers are treated to quite a view.

Islands

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:42:52 +0000

Just a quick update for you so you don’t all think I’m dead.

I’m out on Ko Pha-Ngan right now, which is basically where the party happens. All the time. It’s pretty crazy and I can’t seem to escape a hangover: there’s really not much to do here apart from drink lots and sleep. I suppose there’s diving and stuff too but for a poor traveler like myself it’s not financially viable.

Bangkok

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:03:15 +0000

I found myself in much better spirits by the time I got to Sydney airport. When I said goodbye to all my friends, something clicked and I got all excited about traveling again. My flight and the day surrounding it was mercifully uneventful and I met a couple of travelers at the airport who pointed me at a good place to stay, so I got myself settled into the country really easily, even if I was confused by the time difference, not sure that my watch was right, and running on 2 hours of awkward plane sleep.

Leaving

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:53:19 +0000

I usually sleep uninterrupted but today I had a bad dream and when I woke up all that was in my head was the realisation that I was leaving Australia in 3 days. For some reason it never hit me before. I feel sick, and scared, and sad. It feels different this time around: when I left the UK I knew I was coming back, I knew that I had all my things there, waiting for me, some kind of investment in the country that kept me feeling like it wasn’t goodbye. When I leave here I’m cashing in my chips and leaving nothing, and that feels strange.

Why Are You Here?

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:22:51 +0000

Last night, while I was cooking a rather delicious vegetable curry, my housemate asked me,

“Why did you leave your career and travel thousands of miles from home, just to work in a bar? You’re not using your education, you’re not advancing your career, what’s the point?”

She’s right to be confused, of course. Why on earth would anyone leave a career they’re trained in to earn roughly half their annual wage doing unskilled work on the other side of the world? I’ve often asked myself the same question, and while I can answer it with the simple statement “I was a bit bored”, it’s not quite that simple and I think that it’s a fairly interesting story so I thought I’d use words and punctuation to tell it.

Autumn

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 05:17:53 +0000

Autumn is rolling on into Sydney now and it’s caught me by surprise in many ways: so far, it’s been warmer and drier than Summer, and

in a way Summer never really seemed to start in the first place. My sleepy little suburb, Kensington (home to a sign saying “Smile, you’re in Kensington, and very little to smile about) is now slowly being covered in brown leaves and I find myself wondering what happens to the tropical plants over the road at this time of year. I’ve never seen a tropical plant outside of Summer. I kind of assumed it was always Summer anywhere they would grow.

Unusual Events

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:03:12 +0000

Last Saturday at work was an unusual one.

I work in a fairly classy bar. It has a dress code of sorts, and the drinks are pretty pricey. Our clientele is, largely, the rich and those pretending to be rich. While it’s quiet, the bar is extremely civilised, but when it gets busy, the place turns a little more interesting. Despite the appearance, people can get a little feral there.

Hangover

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 04:56:57 +0000

What really gets me about hangovers is the way that my thoughts work as I move through the morning after the night before. Normally the important thoughts, like “I need to do some shopping” or “If I don’t eat something, I’ll die” float in and out of my daily random musings, such as “I wonder if sharks will ever learn to walk on their tails” and “I wonder if cats know that humans aren’t cats”, leaving me more or less at the whim of my poor, broken brain as it tumbles around in its chaotic way. On any given day there’s a good chance that I’ll forget to eat for a good few hours, then realise that I’m out of food, and then I’ll fall asleep hungry and tortured by unanswered questions about animals.

Mythbusters

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:57:00 +0000

One memory from my travels that sticks in my mind is one particular evening when I was in a rather unusual hostel on a backstreet of New York, somewhere around 55th and 8th. I was sat on a couch that looked like it had been saved from extinction by an enterprising tramp and subsequently abandoned once more, only to be picked up by this place and made useable with the addition of a throw-over, which was, as is traditional, bunched up around the corners of the sofa and not covering much of the sitting space at all.

Hotels

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 04:58:11 +0000

The concept of a hotel in Australia is an interesting thing. I’m not talking about your traditional bed-and-breakfast type situation, although they do of course exist, I’m talking about pubs and clubs with some kind of restaurant function, which are known in Australia as hotels for some reason that I don’t fully understand.

The concept is reasonably basic: have a bar, offer food, satisfy the RSA regulations. Food is considered a good way to combat drunkenness, you see. Given the Aussie diet, this has led to just about every bar pasting up large signs outside offering “The $7 steak! (Conditions apply)” or “The $5 steak! (Conditions apply)” or, sometimes, even “The $9 steak! (No conditions!)”. Most bars then provide an eating area, often to do with their licence.

RSA

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:29:42 +0000

In Australia, it is illegal to be drunk in a bar.

It’s true. I swear.

Much in the same fashion that anti-smoking measures are creeping in all over the world, anti-alcohol measures are slowly edging into Australia. All employees of any place that serves alcohol are required to take a one day course called Responsible Service of Alcohol, which covers such topics as how to spot drunks and the hefty fines that you may receive if you serve them. To the customer, what this means is drinking in Australia becomes some kind of secret service operation: you can get drunk provided that you don’t look drunk. Staggering, fumbling with change, and slurring your words are all instant tickets out the door. The bar staff become your enemy, all eager to remove you and save their arses from the inevitable police visit. And the police will visit; the bar I work in is sometimes invaded twice a night by uniformed officers, talking to customers, looking for drunks, and sometimes even demanding to see proof that all of the staff have undergone the all-important RSA training.

Aussie Christmas

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:43:28 +0000

[I know I’ve written about the events of this Christmas before, but I wanted to turn it into a slightly more journalistic piece of writing, so here it is for your reading pleasure.]

The Australian Christmas is a strange event for a pasty white British guy like myself. For me, Christmas has always meant bitter cold, the kind of rain that soaks you to the bone in 10 seconds, huge dinners, and wishing you had an open fire. For Australia, however, Christmas happens around the beginning of Summer, so it marks the first trips to the beaches, the firing up of backyard barbeques, and the donning of even more extra-strong sunblock to ward off the obscene amounts of UV light that pour through the hole in the ozone layer.

Aussie Chrissie

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 02:56:16 +0000

G’day mates! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. It was a real pleasure to chat to all of the people who I phoned and who phoned me: you made my evening, and morning!

My Christmas, like all good Christmasses, started in a supermarket, with James and I running around trying to buy anything we could find that featured reindeer or santa while Hamish showed his age and followed us around like a disappointed parent. We eventually left with very few ridiculous purchases (although we did get some reindeer-adorned napkins) and a full Christmas dinner, along with plenty of wine, beer, and port.

Working

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:24:27 +0000

And finally, after a month or so of wasting time and faffing about, I’m employed and I have a flat. I’m living in Kensington, which is a rather nice suburb of Sydney, about 10 minutes bus ride from the city centre and 20 minutes from the beach, and I am working as a barback in a place called Establishment, which is incredibly classy and pretty awesome. Merivale, the company that owns the bar, also owns 7 other extremely cool venues around Sydney and is about to open the largest hospitality joint in the Southern hemisphere, called Ivy, which I am hoping to move into. My first shift was on Saturday, and was supposed to be 6pm-12am, but I ended up working until 4:30, then the staff all went to the club downstairs until 6am. All in all, a pretty good night.

Sydney

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 01:34:42 +0000

IMG_2869, originally uploaded by shrieking.

Simon and Sina have left now, leaving me all alone in Sydney. I’m just starting to get my head around the fact that this place is my home now, for maybe 3 months, maybe 6, maybe 12, depending on how well it all goes. I’ve been sorting out things like a permanent mailing address and a tax file number and it’s all starting to seem very real indeed.

I'm not dead

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 06:34:59 +0000

Big post on Australia to follow sometime, but Sina and Simon are here visiting at the moment so I’ve been staying off the net a bit to hang out with them. I’m good, Australia is amazing, and I’ve moved to an Australian phone so my mobile will be off from now on: if you’d like my Aussie number drop me an email at puresock at hotmail dot com, y’all know.

A Summary of New Zealand, Pt 2

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:56:25 +0000

We left Taupo on day 6, again without skydiving thanks to the rain, and headed to River Valley. We stayed in a tiny little lodge miles from anything, where the dorms where made up of one giant bunk bed which slept 8 above and 8 below. We killed an evening there drinking and playing chess and cards, and awoke in the morning on day 7 hoping to go rafting, but surprise surprise, the rain stopped play again and we spent the whole morning playing more cards. The game of choice was knockout whist. We rolled on to Wellington disappointed.

A summary of New Zealand, Pt 1

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 23:19:28 +0000

Ok, so, as I mentioned, I took the Kiwi Experience bus right the way through New Zealand, stopping in all the good bits along the way. I took 24 days to do the whole country, which isn’t much time at all, so I spent most of my time on a bus and I woke up in a new place pretty much every day. It all started in Auckland, which is probably quite a nice city if you get to know it, but as a tourist with just a few days to see it, I couldn’t find much of interest, it reminded me of Southampton, and I just wanted to leave. I did, however, get out to Minus 5, an ice bar, where everything, from the bar to the seats to the glasses you drink out of, is made of ice. I thought it was awesome.

Fiji

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 04:19:06 +0000

Fiji is, without a doubt, the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I could tell you all about the miles of perfect beach, the clarity of the water, the lush green leaves of the coconut trees that even seem to curve _just right _and how I spent days lying in a hammock writing my journal and listening to the soft sound of the sea, but I just don’t think I’d get close to portraying how utterly unbelievably perfect it was. Instead, I’ll tell you that I got sunstroke on my first day sunning myself on the boat out to the island, then spent 3 days in bed feeling rough. During this time, Sarah managed to catch some kind of stomach bug, and so did a guy named Paul that we ended up traveling with, while Helen got bitten by every mosquito in Fiji. All in all, we had a lot of bad luck with our Fiji trip. Oh yeah, and it rained. A lot. Not every day, mind, there was still enough sun for me to get sunburnt again (honestly mum, I was wearing loads of sunblock), and I still don’t have a decent tan. I went swimming with sharks, we snorkelled in underground caves, we partied on Beachcomber (THE party island in Fiji), we failed to understand Australian Football, and generally had an amazing time doing very little.

USA

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:23:55 +0000

Well then, that’s it, tomorrow I get my final Greyhound bus (good riddance) to LA, and then I leave for Fiji on the 20th September. America has been a lot of fun, it really has, but I’m happy to move on too: I can’t wait to be in another country, somewhere really new and exciting. Fall is just starting to edge in here. We got cold on the beach before the sun went down on Sunday, and the leaves on the trees are starting to fall. I won’t get to see it hit in full force but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a season change in another country and it’s made me feel quite poetic.

Vegas

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 18:13:42 +0000

Well well well, where do I start? Las Vegas is a pretty tough place to describe. Take all the pictures you’ve seen, and double it. The whole place is like one big cartoon: everything is over the top and everything is brightly lit. I stayed on the Strip, right in the middle of everything, and spent a hell of a lot of money on nothing in particular. I played some craps, I avoided poker because playing poker in a casino is way too intimidating for me, I saw Cirque Du Soleil. I pretty much achieved all my Vegas goals.

Awesomes

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 00:40:34 +0000

Let me tell you about the awesome night I had last night. As regular readers may know, I met a whole bunch of cool people in New York and had loads of fun there. One of them, a Scottish girl named Sarah, is doing pretty much the same trip as me, and it just so happened that we were flying to Fiji at almost the same time so we said we’d go together. I hadn’t really given it much thought until I got to LA when I emailed her to see if she was still up for it, and she said yes, and gave me her flight details, so I could change mine.

PAX

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:21:38 +0000

Hey all you out there in Internets land!

I just got off a 30 hour train journey from the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle: a 3 day celebration of all that is exciting about computer games.

I want to tell you all about it in detail but I’ve already written about 8 pages in my diary and I really don’t want to write them all again, so here’s some snippets:

Venice

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 00:16:57 +0000

Anyone who doesn’t like Los Angeles hasn’t been to Venice Beach.

This place is paradise, I’m lost for words. The beach is endless (I’ll get my photos up soon), the only chain store nearby is a Subway, which I consider to be the least offensive of fast food, the place is all surf and skate shops, and everyone here smiles and talks to each other. Even the hobos ask me how the water is instead of asking for money. Apparently skating was invented here, and I believe the recent Romeo and Juliet adaption was set here. That pretty much sums the place up quite well. I’m going to go to Santa Monica tomorrow because my favourite band, Everclear, wrote a song about it. Hooray.

First leg down

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:59:23 +0000

IMG_2092, originally uploaded by shrieking.

This isn’t what I expected from Chicago, but it’s what I got. I had a few down days in Chicago, where I wanted to go out, or at least hang out with someone, but no-one was around, and for a while I felt pretty low, but then I finally got chatting to a few interesting people, then went out for a quick pint with some Irish guy which turned into 9 or 10, and felt a lot better. I went to the zoo whilst hungover and saw loads of cool animals. I’m not really into zoos but it was free and penguins are awesome. Afterwards I laid about on the beach and decided that all hangovers should come with a free beach.

Washington!

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:35:47 +0000

Washington was hot, hot, hot, and extremely humid. I sweated 24 hours a day and generally felt icky. The place was pretty cool though: I saw all the necessary sights to call myself a true tourist. Sadly I didn’t get to go out and see the nightlife much but I made it out with a bunch of people from my hostel on Saturday night into Adams Morgan, which is the cool part of Washington where all the good bars are. I met a guy named Trevor who is motorbiking around the US alone, which sounds all kinds of awesome.

Quiet Times

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:03:18 +0000

A couple of weeks off from hosteling and sight-seeing makes for boring blog posts, I’m afraid. I’m heading to Washington in a few days so I’ll have more to talk about when I get there, but in the meantime, I’m just hanging out in Lancaster, PA, with some friends of Beth, playing video games and avoiding expenditure for a while. I’m still alive and well though, don’t worry!

While I was in Philadelphia I went to the Eastern State Penitentiary, which is scary and ruined and awesome, and the Mutter museum, which is full of dead babies in jars, and as such also scary and awesome.

Conshohocken!

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:45:56 +0000

That’s right folks, it’s pronounced how it looks: I’m in Conshohocken, PA. That’s somewhere outside Philadelphia, and it’s a lovely little place where real Americans live, away from the tourists and the crazyness of the big cities. I’m out here staying with my friend Beth while she pet-sits for her aunt. Our days are mainly spent pampering the dog, Sally, and the two baby birds, Flounder and Chuckles. All three of them are beautiful animals. Shortly before I spent a few days with her family who were far, far too nice to me and fed me well (Thank you so much!). It was really great to be in a real US household in a real US place, because it has occurred to me that I haven’t really spoken to many Americans since I’ve been here. This weekend we went to Otakon, a huge anime convention in Baltimore. I don’t really know what to say about it: thousands of beautiful people (as well as plenty of nerds) all in costume, lots of mucking about and people watching, staying in a swanky hotel room, lots of anime to watch (I missed most of it), and a generally awesome time was had. I met some people from Glowsticking.com and talked juggling and dancing for a while, and I finally got to have a decent dance thanks to the Otarave in the evenings. Over here glowsticking is far more common and I got to see some really superb dancing going on.

Boston

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:39:20 +0000

Woop, I’m in Boston. It’s a really cool city, much nicer than NYC. I can’t really afford to do anything after the extravagance of the last few weeks, but I’ve been very happy just wandering around the city or sitting in the park and reading. Boston has a massive Irish population, which is weird - last night I went out with some Dutch guys to check out the Irish bars. I miss the pubs back home.

Week 1

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 16:39:18 +0000

Phoar, it’s been a busy week. On Monday morning I met a couple of girls, Romi (Australia) and Sarah (Scotland), who were awesome. Sarah and I ended up going to the Natural History museum and later we met up with Romi to generally run around and eat and suchlike. In the evening we got drunk and played a card game called Spoons with some others from the hostel, including 2 new guys, John (Britain) and Dave (Ireland). We decided that everyone would be known by their nationalities at that point and I’m struggling to remember real names.

New York New York

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 17:18:29 +0000

Hello from sunny New York, blog fans! I’m currently sat in a Ben and Jerry’s bar somewhere near Times Square, which is the only place I could find that would sell me net access.

I arrived at my hostel last night after 15 hours travel, soaked through with sweat and utterly running on empty, but feeling good. Harlem is a really exciting place and it looks exactly like the movies said it would. New York subways look just like the ones in Silent Hill. Basically, modern culture has prepared me for life here.

Tickets, Leaving, etc

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 12:59:51 +0000

Well, believe it or not, I’ve finally got round to organising myself, and I am now in possession of a rather expensive collection of flight tickets that will take me around the world. My flights are as follows:

London - JFK, New York 30th June 07
New York - LA Airport, Los Angeles 16 Aug 07
Los Angeles - Nadi, Fiji 30 Sep 07
Fiji - Auckland, New Zealand 10 Oct 07
Christchurch, New Zealand - Melbourne, Australia 30 Oct 07
Cairns, Australia - Singapore, Malaysia 5 Jan 08
Bangkok, Thailand - Heathrow, London 15 Feb 08

The last 2 flights are subject to change depending on how long I work in Australia.

Amsterdam

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 23:27:20 +0000

Imagine a festival, a big one, perhaps Glastonbury. Take away the bands. Pave over the mud. Turn the tents into hostels, turn the market stalls into shops. That’s Amsterdam, more or less.

I was out there for the weekend to visit my World of Warcraft guild, which may well be the geekiest thing I’ve ever done, but in my defence, at least I was going outside to see them rather than just talking to them on Teamspeak. We were supposed to meet them at 6pm and go to a restaurant, but our flight was delayed by four hours, so we blew our compensation refreshment vouchers on beer, got drunk, and eventually left the plane feeling hazy in a totally unknown place with no-one to meet us or help us get to the meal. We set about trying to find our hostel but the directions that they gave us were extremely poor, so we ambled about looking like lost tourists with a bad map. Seeing our obvious confusion, a rather odd gentleman who smelt of weed asked us if we needed directions, but rather than pointing us in the right direction and carrying on, he walked with us and talked to us. At first I thought he was just being friendly, but it rapidly became obvious that he expected money. Eventually we convinced him that we only had English money and pressed a two pound coin into his hand to get rid of him. We took a long detour before turning around, for he had led us right past our hostel and to the other end of the street. We checked in, headed out, met up with the others, and sat in a bar for the evening drinking beer out of very small glasses.