blog.ben.clifford.org.uk

standby.

2009-06-16T15:33:00.001Z

standby for more!

a poem

2006-09-28T21:30:00.000Z

somebody wrote a poem. and then somehow found that I matched the description perfectly.

here.

though the photo came from photo.hawaga.org.uk, rw2 makes some claim for royalties.

T&D

2006-09-09T17:51:00.000Z

wandered into this
Training and Development exhibition last night whilst out on a jetlagged walkabout in Chicago.

photo of the day

2006-04-29T22:05:00.000Z

no more blogging here as I'm not travelling. however, I've set up a photo-of-the-day page, which should give you an exciting photo from my past, each and every day (until such time as I get bored of doing it). goto pdj.ben.clifford.org.uk. No RSS at the moment, but maybe eventually.

STOP.

2006-04-20T08:47:00.000Z

made it to guildford, to my parents' house. end of trip.

lost on subway

2006-04-19T17:00:00.000Z

went to 'Ciao!' vineria con cucina to meet forys.

This time, the barmaid (Влади) was from Bulgaria, instead of from New Hampshire (Noelle) and the third language of the bar was some eastern european babble instead of French. Other than that, the place was pretty much the same.

Then ended up tagging along with the bar staff to Le Souk, a night club with shisha pipes. Last time I'd been there, I'd got there the same way - following (a completely different set of) Ciao staff there. Much more empty this time (last time it was Christmas Eve or something crazy like that - this time it was Just Another Monday(?|)Tuesday night.

went home on subway. got on wrong line (that happened last time I tried to use the A,C,E lines too, I think). ended up in Queens or somewhere that was completely wrong. changed a few more times. got lost more. finally found myself at Times Square where I was able to get back on a line I knew. By the time I got home, it was morning and everyone was going to work.

slept 4h. now starbucks. soon JFK. then my trip is over. its been fun.

pics of last two nights of trip

2006-04-19T16:14:00.000Z

Here are some pictures of my last two nights of my trip.

note especially the seamless transition from bar in IL to bar in NY with no intervening fuss.

final days

2006-04-14T19:17:00.000Z

On thursday my trip will be over.

The plan from then to now is:

Friday 1645 chicago -> 1830 rockford van galder bus
Saturday 1200 rockford -> 1330ish madison van galder bus
monday afternoon -> chicago (bus or train)
tuesday 1300 chicago -> New York
wednesday New York -> LHR (arrives thursday)

then beers in guildford that night.

dump

2006-04-10T04:14:00.000Z

slang made me search my jacket pockets for a key, and I revealed: pirate eye patch, lemonade-coloured crayola, 53 pesos, a cocktail umbrella, disposable chopsticks.

hawaga.org.uk partially offlined.

2006-04-07T23:34:00.000Z

link upgrade elsewhere in the world means a bunch of hawaga.org.uk stuff isn't working :-(

nara!

2006-04-06T20:55:00.000Z

I was reminded today of when I visited Nara.

still in mountain view

2006-04-06T17:00:00.000Z

still in mountain view, hanging with people I know here.

maybe I should charge my camera and take some pictures.

MV

2006-04-03T17:48:00.000Z

Now in Mountain View, California (pictures from the last time I visited, at thanksgiving 2004). met up with Yosh yesterday - dimsum at lunch time, had gooood shabushabu / しゃぶしゃぶ at a restaurant here that has recently opened (shabuway - its a pun!) for dinner. then molly mcgees for some guinness to end it all.

whores

2006-03-27T14:13:00.000Z

Stayed in "the best budget travellers hotel in Caracas" as recommended by lonely planet, in Sabana Grande. Its also a whore house, or at least a per-hour hotel for use of the (men-who-dress-like-)girls who ply their trade in the street outside. I think I might splash out and move to a nicer district for my last two nights.

Puerto Columbia

2006-03-25T15:30:00.000Z

Now in puerto columbia, rather more backpackery than Colonia Tovar. Unfortunately last night I was down to my last 5000 Bolivars (one pound) so saved that in case I needed to get a bus back to Maracay (the nearest big town) and could buy neither dinner nor a goodnight beer. However today I discovered the hotel front desk would change money for me so now I have one hundred billion Bolivars to spend. Will spend another night here and head for Caracas around lunchtime tomorrow, I think.

one left

2006-03-23T19:13:00.000Z

only Antarctica left from the list of contents to visit. after that, maybe the moon?

Colonia Tovar

2006-03-23T19:07:00.000Z

¡Gutentag! I'm Colonia Tovar, a German town in the mountains. It looks like the alps, but everyone hablos español. On the bus some of the Venezuelan girls tried to talk to me in español, but that did not work very well. Perhaps I can find someone to shout «waß» at later. First I must find a hotel (likely a cabaña) and wash and poo (vital functions I have neglected in the 54 hours that I have been travelling since Oaxaca, a continent away).

Carcacas.

2006-03-23T13:17:00.000Z

In Caracas. ¡The women are gorgeous! I have not been mugged yet, but I've only been in the city 15 minutes. Trying to get to Colonia Tovar now, which is less urban and more german. First I need to work out where in Caracas I am - I just got a bus from the airport and it dumped me in a road in the city. hmm.

D.F. again

2006-03-22T18:52:00.000Z

overnight bus back to Mexico D.F. was not as fun as the other bus trips of this week, because I had to sit next to a snoring dude rather than cute swedokorean chick. oh well. have been wandering around the city some today - the alameda (near belles artes metro stop) (I always think of Alameda as being pronounced with a dodgy russian accent as my first exposure to it was, I think, Checkov saying it in Star Trek IV). Then walk down paseo de la reforma (?) to Calle Genova, which I´d read a bit about in somebody else´s Lonely Planet yesterday. Its a nice shady pedestrianised street in the Zona Rosa with cafes and bars and shops. A little bit americanised, though -- subway, baskin robbins, starbucks etc. (the toilets in starbucks are decidedly non-mexican - they have seats, and are clean).

oaxaco to mexico to caracas

2006-03-22T03:09:00.000Z

checked out of hotel this morning as my travel companions suddenly decided they wished to move on today rather than tomorrow. overnight bus to Mexico in an hour or so, then wander round Mexico city again for a day, then overnight flight to Caracas which sounds very dangerous and crime ridden. wish me luck.

Puerto Escondido

2006-03-18T18:02:00.000Z

in puerto escondido. last night found scorpion crawling round in my belongings. today i wake with terrible stomach cramps. tonight will get a night bus to Oaxaca with my three travel companions. plane ticket booked for Caracas on Tuesday night from Mex. DF.

Mexico City

2006-03-14T23:52:00.000Z

Mexico City was fun. Lots of tacos and tortas at cheap prices. Hostel I stayed in (Hostel Amigo) had a fun bar to hang out in. Went to see some mexican wrestling, but it turns out we went at the wrong time so didn´t get to see any. I tried drunkenly to bribe a police man with USD10 but don´t remember if it worked. I´m not in gaol so it must have at least partly. Last night in the city was spent in some square where the mariachis gather to play to the crowd in exchange for money. We sat and drank large bottles of beer (not as big as 40s though...) and got one group to play for us. Interesting mix of instruments that some of the bands had - mobile harp, electric bass, accordian.

going loco

2006-03-14T23:46:00.000Z

Flights to Cuba turned out to be too expensive. cheaper to fly via Canada than mexico by a lot, it seems. so instead I have hooked up with a group of other backpackers and find myself now in Acapulco. I felt a bit bad because I´d told one of them that it was around Spring Break time and that he´d have plenty to look at, yet when we got here, there appeared to be no drunk college girls around at all.
However today we walked down the beach to the resort area where we found loads, including two who got the five of us free beers on the beach (their USD100 per night resort package included unmetered alcohol - hurrah). only tiddly little cups though. was funny to see their jaws drop when we mentioned in conversation that our hotel in the non-tourist part of town near the Zocalo was only costing us USD40 for all five of us. was funny to see our jaws drop when they mentioned in conversation that USD15 for a 20 minute cab ride (we´d paid USD4 yesterday for about the same) was Good Value. They told us about a club thats only MXN400 to get into with unmetered alcohol, but at MXN15 for a beer by the Zocalo thats would be challengingly high drink:admission ratio to achieve.

mmm string

2006-03-14T23:43:00.000Z

after 55 weeks or so of travelling, with only 5 more left, I´ve finally purchased some string, something I´ve been intending to do for a long long time.

Having got the string, I´ve washed and hung up to dry my smelly underpants (at this point, you are to misinfer that I haven´t washed them for 55 weeks).

The Argonaut

2006-03-07T22:14:00.000Z

Discovered today that I am in the centre page pictures in the local newspaper 'The Argonaut', in amongst the dressed up mardis gras crowd. ooOOOoo.

D.F.

2006-03-04T04:11:00.000Z

I have booked LAX<-> Cuidad de Mexico from 8th Mar -> 29th Mar. There should be some side trips (Caracas being one of the big ones) during that period too.

postquark

2006-03-04T04:06:00.000Z

so went to quarks. after a year experiencing all this shit plus a few days in the fakeness of vegas it felt entirely natural to be drinking with ferengi and klingons walking round. hmm. maybe I need to stop and clear my brains out for a month?

quarks

2006-03-03T19:56:00.000Z

the only place in vegas that isn't a pale imitation of some place that have already seen in real life: quarks. I'm thinking of heading there for lunch.

mex df

2006-03-02T23:47:00.000Z

ticket from LAX -> mex df purchased (after fun navigating some website all in foreign). going there on 8th march and back in LA on the 29th. closer and closer to south america... I just need to buy a ticket across the continental divide now.

SIM

2006-03-02T01:14:00.000Z

went into two SIM card shops today to try to get a tmobile PAYG SIM. neither had any. one had removed even all the SIMs from their "PAYG SIM + shittyphone" packages to sell separately (I wonder what they were going to do with all the SIM-less network locked shittyphones?)

vegas

2006-02-28T19:59:00.000Z

in Las Vegas. I need coffee. There is free wireless in the airport.

nexthop

2006-02-27T17:44:00.000Z

having been too lazy to book anything for south america, i have decided to head for Vegas for a few days (2006-02-28 .. 2006-02-04) to medidate in tranquil seclusion.

pancake day in Venice, CA

2006-02-27T02:05:00.000Z

people i know from before are the king and queen of pancake day at venice beach (except they call it Mardis Gras here). They made me dress like a fool. I took lots of pictures. A parade at lunch time, then music in Vencice Bistro(?), then I hung out with a chick from Seattle for a bit, went to Kings Head still dressed like a tit, then ended up at the second music event of the scheduled programme, at 14 Below (which I'd never been to but I'd heard about because its where my friend met his fianceé). This latter place I was quite hammered and alternated between drunken dancing and sleeping on a stool. Unlike in Australia, they did not throw me out for sleeping on the stool, and unlike in Kyoto I did not keep falling over on the floor when snoozing. After that, walked round the westside awhile, ending up at 04h in Westwood where I lurked in various cafes eating sandwiches and drinking tea and coffee until I was extracted at 1015 by Mats and heading off for dimsum with #lug.

caching front end web server

2006-02-23T20:29:00.000Z

I have set up a caching front end for my photo server. Use the same URLs as before but with photo-cnl.hawaga.org.uk instead of photo.hawaga.org.uk to hit the cache. Only took me half an hour. Should've done it a year ago.

postcard race

2006-02-23T05:59:00.000Z

I wrote this drunk in scubar in early november. It arrived in LA 2 days after me.

not all the handwriting on the car is mine.

nj.us

2006-02-22T22:57:00.000Z

most bizarre accent related question so far (from someone at ISI): "so, are you from New Jersey?"

diet

2006-02-20T19:16:00.000Z

gotta change my diet... I've been living primarily on beef pies and kebabs since I reached Sydney in November; I think my insides must be all rotten out. tonight perhaps I will eat a vegetable of some kind.

photos from NZ

2006-02-20T01:34:00.000Z

All of my (pretty much sorted by place but mostly not otherwise described) photos of NZ are online (stored on my slow slow webserver in an Undisclosed Residential Location).

Bread and Porridge

2006-02-20T01:31:00.000Z

Off for breakfast this morning to Bread and porridge, my favourite breakfast cafe in LA (and perhaps in the whole world?) A big plate of Huevos Rancheros as always. Tasted just like I remember. Hurrah!

St.Etienne @Avalon @Hollywood/Vine

2006-02-20T01:26:00.000Z

First evening in LA went to see St. Etienne playing at Avalon in Hollywood. Woo! It was a better concert than last time I saw them, in London. Not sure why. A slightly more intimate venue, perhaps so even though I was lazy and on the couches at the back of the auditorium, could still see pretty well. Also turns out Sasha was DJing there (in club attached to avalon?) that night too, but I only discovered that when I left the concert to discover block-long crowds of people queuing to get in.

On the way back, the bus stops had misinformation signs saying that the #20 MTA bus which used to be an all-nighter stopped running at 2220. It was 2250 when I (and Marcus who was with me) read the sign. grr. However a half-hours empirical measurement of the MTA service indicated that the sign was incorrected and so by 0030 the next day we had returned to West LA.

Good ole' crazy people on the bus - some dude was going on about the Laker's Game and did we see it? etc. He didn't really pick up on the fact that I didn't watch TV and also didn't live in the US. Oh well. He was friendly enough.

LA

2006-02-18T22:33:00.000Z

made it to LA. The Department of Homeland Security let me in "just this one last time" on my greencard. frr.

dateline

2006-02-18T02:42:00.000Z

will go across the dateline in a bit, and arrive a LAX sometime (i hope) around my second 11am Feb 18th of the year.

some pictures of me

2006-02-17T21:35:00.000Z

here are a couple of pictures of me from yesterday. one at Damon's house in Auckland, one in minus 5 bar (attached to Ленин, a Russian themed bar where I had some tasty honey vodka...mmm).

auckland

2006-02-14T02:41:00.000Z

got to auckland. there's people here! and crowds. that was a bit of a shock after wandering round small towns and villages for a few weeks.

this town smells of farts.

2006-02-13T02:03:00.000Z

I'm in Rotorua. There's a lot of sulphur around. BuzzTroll would love it. Two nights I've been here and both of them I've ended up in some kind of spa splashing round in my undies with a bunch of people.
I was going to go zorbing today but I'm too lazy. Likewise for yesterday. Tomorrow I hope to work up enough effort to get out of bed and go to Auckland.

redemption hill

2006-02-09T20:31:00.000Z

so here I am sitting in napier prison, and on TV (channel 2) pops up somem TV programme called 'Redemption Hill' about Young Offenders (whats your defence?) who have been locked up inside the prison as some kind of reality TV/lock up the bad kids series. kinda weird seeing exactly the place you are in on the TV; sorta like going to UCLA. Its a pretty funny programme -- something you might see on prime-time ITV. does at least explain wtf all these weird red lines painted all over the floor are. This was the premiere episode, so I wonder if there will be flocks of other tourists buzzing round tomorrow?

nail report

2006-02-09T20:27:00.000Z

the nail that I stubbed on the way walking down the hill in Arthur's Pass has turned slowly over the past week or so a deep deep purple. Today, though its started turning red red wine red starting at the front. is this it healing or preparing to sever itself from its rightful corpus?

napier

2006-02-08T22:25:00.000Z

staying in napier prison backpackers, in Napier.

alas, my mother misunderstood my text to mean that I was in HM Prison Napier, and thus expected a payout on the 'where will Ben be first arrested?' sweepstakes.

fun little hostel, if a little over the top sometimes with their prison theming (like going to a pirate restaurant and being told "ARRRRR!" all the time by the waiting staff)

I was going to look at some dolphins today, but they are busy until next Monday. Nevermind - apparently there are some more near Auckland.

I might also go for a bit of wine tasting - that was jolly good fun when I last did it in Napa Valley, and also the time before in the Yarra Valley.

tartan

2006-02-07T01:01:00.000Z

all the schoolgirls in this city seem to wear tartan uniform dresses... crazy scottish.

dunedin

2006-02-06T07:13:00.000Z

in dunedin. it looks scottish. only a day or so here, then flying to the north island on 8th feb - 10 days there to get from hastings to rotorua to auckland, then off over the date line for the first time, I think.

very hungover today, but vegemite on toast is helping to make me better. the vegemite is getting a big skanky though -- i've been carrying it since I was in 大阪/Osaka in June. perhaps I should finish it off tomorrow and switch to a new tub.

just for eric

2006-02-06T07:05:00.000Z

I will re-enter the United States on the morning of Febuary 18th, at immigration post: LOS.

bungeeeeeeeee

2006-02-04T02:48:00.000Z

bungy jump was fun and scary, though not quite as exhilarating as I'd expect. Still, a few seconds of "HOLYSHITTHERESTHEGROUNDIWONDERIFITWILLBEMYFRIEND" was not bad for NZD140.

oh no not again

2006-02-04T02:46:00.000Z

In 'World bar' in Queenstown, felt some dude spill what I assumed was his drink over my hair and t-shirt. Upon turning around, alas, I discovered he was holding in his hands not an empty glass but instead the contents of his stomach.

coda to this, the Brazilians I was with tried to explain later on to the English boys I was also with, when the English boys wanted to move onto another bar but their cracked out English explanation of "he's washing his t-shirt" didn't sink in and they left me behind.

Luckily met up almost straight away with a couple of other boys I'd met previously in Christchurch and again last night and drank with them instead.

I'd not remembered them at first when I met them yesterday, which made me feel bad as it was only about a week ago that I was in Christchurch.

That memory loss was topped off later on in the evening when I was wandering the streets alone to get some grease on the way home - had a chat with a fire juggler for a few minutes, then less than 300 seconds later again encountered him in the chippie to be greeting with "oh its you again", to which I replied "who the fuck are you?"

I wonder if my brain is just full or I've developed some syncookie-style "forget everyone instantly the first time unless they claim to know me already" memory. hmm.

greymouth

2006-01-27T22:23:00.000Z

made it to greymouth where I'll probably stay for one night. Then hopefully tomorrow (if I can make the minimal effort required to book things) will go to the Fox Glacier or the Franz Joseph Glacier.

phone number

2006-01-26T09:08:00.000Z

of course, being in a new country, I have a new phone number available in the usual place.

around NZ

2006-01-26T08:35:00.000Z

so I spent three or four days in Wellington, which was pretty nice -- nightlife there goes on really late - was out until 5am or so on Saturday night (then went to meet my aunt on Sunday morning for breakfast, incredibly hung over after drinking a couple of litres of red wine).

After that I took the ferry and TranzCoastal train to get me to Christchurch - an incredibly English looking city. I was there for a few days and had a good mix of walking round the city, hiking about on the top of a hill (reached by cable gondola) and heavy drinking with three fun girls (see pic in other post for image of one of them) who I found within minutes of my arrival at the hostel (Base Backpackers, pretty good so I'll probably stay at one of their other branches later on). Also in Christchurch, met up with Yosh who I know from a previous life.

This morning after getting about an hours sleep, after an evening that started off swilling wine in Charlie B's backpackers hostel (which girls had moved to as it is substantially cheaper, in exchange for being in a 38-bed dorm rather than an 10-bed one like we had been in in base), then onto forced wine guzzling (which is what the pic on other post is) then out for a walk to get some chips from 24h fish and chip shop on the other side of the city centre (in which shop some crazy dude had just slit his wrists all over the floor... didn't put me off the chips but I think the english girl and irish dude were not so happy). Threw food at seagulls for a few minutes eating the chips, then ended up in a bar drinking Tiger. (I discovered myself getting irked that they weren't giving me the bottle caps with the beer which I realise is because they used to not give me tiger bottle caps when I was in Allez Boo in Sai Gon, the caps there having prizes concealed underneath)

Then the two I was with got a taxi back to their hostel whilst I walked back to Base Backpackers. Halfway across cathedral square, I was was accosted one of the other chicks I'd been drinking with earlier had somehow ended up hanging out with some accordianist from Charlie B's in the middle of the square.

Drunkenly sat there for 10 mins or so, walked girl all the way back to Charlie Bs, went back to Base, found some dude slumped asleep but upright in front of one of the internet terminals - he toppled over after five mins or so, which was pretty funny. He also had all sorts of felt tip writing all over his face so I think he must have been in this state for some time.

Sent out a bunch of drunk emails and drunk SMS. Hopefully nothing too embarrassing.

Plan is to go for a walk tomorrow day time, and then day after head down to the west coast of the south island and work my way down from there to Queenstown where it will be time for bungy jumping!

yellow bag

2006-01-26T07:58:00.000Z

Rather than sleep in preparation for my train ride, I ended up drinking with some girls.

double pages

2006-01-20T00:07:00.000Z

the last clean double page of my passport is no longer clean... NZ Immigration felt that their little stamp needed a whole double page to itself (though at least they seem to be putting them lined up nicely and leaving room for more stamps now). There's about 7 blank pages left, though, scattered throughout.

kitty

2006-01-20T00:05:00.000Z

wellington city YHA has a kitty cat! a ginger one. it was busy watching all the rubbish bins be taken away this morning, though, and didn't want to play with me.

somebody loves me.

2006-01-18T09:14:00.000Z

At the Wellington airport baggage claim, a poorly trained // in-training fruit detector called Max discovered that by humping my bag (which had contained an apple two weeks ago) he got a doggy treat. So every time round the hall (which was pretty small) over he came for another go, and had to be dragged away, claws tightly round my sack. Lucky he was so cute else I would have been most upset.

window tax

2006-01-18T09:12:00.000Z

another country, another internet kiosk. but this one also has the 'file... new window' option disabled so I must use my old gmail-search-the-web trick to get more of them opened. wtf do they not want people having lots of windows open? bitches.

socks

2006-01-17T20:13:00.000Z

I went to buy some socks in Dyer, a big department store. I wandered lost and overwhelmed for 25 minutes before giving up and eventually managing to escape back into the street. Then I found a Big-W so now I have the australian equivalent of ASDA socks, for only $5. They are black.

lazy

2006-01-17T20:08:00.000Z

too lazy to write much at the moment. but:

i) in 10 mins, i'm off to new zealand

ii) last night I was awoken at 0130 by some drunk dude pissing in his bed. 2nd time this trip. brings back fond memories of Oslo.

iii) Will my star alliance gold card still work this year? Its undated, but the big database in the sky might now say it is invalid, so I'll be reliant on the poor communication between airlines to ensure my gold class treatment.

Melbourne again again

2006-01-12T20:27:00.000Z

third time in Melbourne! kinda feels like being home.

Adelaide

2006-01-11T03:52:00.000Z

more free wireless (web only) in Adelaide. Slept 12h last night as I was quite tired from the train journey (two hours of rather disrupted sleep) and from quite a lot of drinking in Perth. I'm staying now in the YHA which as always is more expensive, cleaner, quieter, and better organised (for example, they use the seven-fridge method of communal fridge cleaning: each of seven fridges is labelled "The contents of this fridge will be thrown away on $DAYOFWEEK"; to keep your food alive you must move it every so often so that it never ends up in the Monday fridge on a Monday, etc.; however, their multifloor synchronised cleaning meant that all of the men's bathrooms (one per floor) ended up being closed-for-cleaning simultaneously, right when I woke up and needed to pee). As part of my 2006 YHA membership, I have received a free clip-on Koala. Participants of SuperComputing 2002 Globus contingent can probably imagine the fun I am having with that. Only 7 days left in this country…

still in perth

2006-01-06T01:39:00.000Z

still in perth - this is one of the most sociable hostels that I have stayed in. Bunch of australians, germans and japanese plus a scattered few others. Large amounts of food served to each other by everyone - last night I got spag. bol. and didn't even have to give out any of my 'AUD10 for 4l' wine!

have been up to kings park to watch the pretty sunset several times. last time we took a picnic which was fun until an argument about "I think gays are fucking disgusting" vs "I do not" broke out, at which point parts of the group stormed off home.

went to fremantle yesterday. old buildings (at least in the australia sense).

my gloria jeans frequent drinks card is almost full - one more and I get a free cup of coffee!

I have been told about some kind of salt based deodorant that one can obtain from health shops near here. I will try, as I have had no deodorant for a week.

phở

2006-01-03T01:45:00.000Z

went for phở in northbridge. delicious. joked with the french chick i was with about how there were loads of roaches in vietnam. she expressed some relief that we were in australia not vietnam, and almost perfectly on cue a big motherfucker scuttled across the restaurant floor towards us. lucky for her, we'd finished eating by then. I thought it was hilarious… she just kept muttering 'its fine, really its fine'.

next year

2006-01-01T01:24:00.000Z

its next year. my new years was fun. nothing happening until around 22h30. the german chicks i had planned to go drinking with ditched me, or maybe i ditched them - not really sure. latched onto a group headed for northbridge, 10 mins walk from here - many people and stages of performers in the street. for half an hour i was faced with the bizarre prospect of reaching new years sober and with only red bull in me (I'd had beers in the afternoon and at lunchtime but they had long worn off). Luckily we ended up in some club where i pounded large amounts of vodka to make me drunk. threw another redbull into the mix around 23h40, fired party poppers. eventually moved to another club with a longer queue and a cover charge (the two german chicks appeared at that point and said we should not go, but the sydney chick i was following said we should so I did). more vodka. some dancing, some dancing on stage blocks. eventually sydney chick disappeared (~05h00) presumably from getting tired of me trying to snog her. i wandered back to the hostel to find the german chicks on the internet in the lobby (the blonde one is more commsjunkie than I am it seems). they were teasing some other dude, saying that the dark haired one was really german, but that the blonde one (who was clearly typing in German) was swedish. not sure why. went to bed. slept 2.5h then stumbled down to the kitchen for my free breakfast of toast and vegemite (x3 slices). japanese girls who had also been out with us until ~01h00 awake already. and thats the end of my new year.

heisei 18 delayed!

2005-12-31T11:18:00.000Z

there is a leap second tonight!

microbrew

2005-12-31T11:05:00.000Z

oh, i went to the microbrewery pub and asked what they had that they brewed. "nothing" was the reply :-(

so I had a pint of Tooheys New, just like I do almost everywhere else when there is no VB to be found.

happy heisei 18

2005-12-31T10:55:00.000Z

2h from now its new years in melbourne and 24h period of drunk SMS arrivals will start. i have no money left inside of my telephone so no one will get any from me unless I happen to find a 7-11.

happy heisei 18!!!

jizz

2005-12-30T13:26:00.000Z

arrived in perth after 36h on the bus that seemed surprisingly short. various people to talk to and look at on the way (an australian whose never been outside of WA - not even as far as Adelaide; an Australian who had never been on Greyhound bus before).
Arriving in Perth I found a white viscuous fluid had become sprayed across my bag; given the previous fluid contact that my bag has received over the months, I was immediately inclined to imagine that some stowaway in the baggage compartment had unloaded his balls whilst having nothing else to do down there. However, a quick taste revealed it to be no more than someone's hair shampoo leaking out.
In the lobby of the hostel I found a European girl who I once ate kangaroo and camel with, many thousands of km away. Australia is so small for a country so big. I've been in the same hostel as some japanese dude for the past three hostels too - I won't be surprised if he turns up here in a few days.
I'm bang in the city centre, by the railway and bus stations and near to pubs! There's a microbrewery only a block or so away too! (hostel-finding radar also detects microbrews. there was a nice one (but expensive) in melbourne too).
Only one night to prepare for new years eve.

broome again

2005-12-28T03:04:00.000Z

still in Broome. Yesterday did fuck all except sleep and drink a beer and not much else. Today was up at 0655 and out on the beach by 0720 walking round before it got too hot. There are a few bars down there - might head out for a beer if I feel like it later on. Tomorrow must get a bus at 0900 to head for perth. For breakfast today, poached eggs on toast with a lot of tabasco, from a cafe (I haven't eaten out for quite a few towns recently). I cannot find anywhere to attach my laptop, but there is an 'Internet Outpost' that has reasonable machines to use and does not need fiddly change. Pricey though. Oh well.
My train ticket has been issued for Perth->Adelaide so I now have tickets all the way from here to Sydney (where my flight to NZ will depart from - I still need to diddle the date on that - at the moment it is set for 01FEB2005)

tomorrow (29th) -> perth (takes 36h)
8th jan -> adelaide (takes a couple of nights)
12th jan -> melbourne (arrive morning of Friday 13th)
monday 16th 9am -> Sydney

Broome

2005-12-27T04:33:00.000Z

25.5h on the bus (I thought only 24h, but there was a 1.5h timezone change too). There was some chinese chick who did not know where to go and was reading a chinese guidebook. we dumped here into the travel centre at Katherine (which I had been to last week on the way through on the train). Its still a public holiday here so everything seems to be closed, but thats OK because its a little bit too hot to go out anyway. My room has aircon, at least, but only at night time so its no good to retreat there in the peak of the day's heat - four of us just did that and then after a few hours emergered into the coolness of the day's heat. This place is $1 for 10 minutes of internet, and needs dollar coins so only $1 worth of net for me today. I managed to do some laundry before I'd run out of clothes! I am impressed with myself. On the bus, I ate some crackers with seaweed on, and chips at every roadhouse. mmm.

living on a bus

2005-12-22T01:08:00.000Z

the christmas season brings plans of days and days on a bus - from Darwin where I am now to to get to Perth for New Years, I must spend 24h on a bus to get to Broome, then after a rest of a few days 36h on a bus from Broome to Perth.

After that I need to get across to Sydney - the nullarbour looks like another 2 or 3 day journey with nothing much of interest in between (apart from a big dead desert). frrr.

coin-op

2005-12-19T23:46:00.000Z

spent several minutes trying to make the screen turn on on the computer here before I realised it was a japanese-style coin-op-turns-on-the-screen system. better make sure I log everything out before it times outs, otherwise any old monkey will be able to post to this blog.

Katherine

2005-12-19T23:42:00.000Z

In Katerine, in the middle of the northern territories. Even when I'm travelling by train it seems I end up in the BP Roadhouse eating a plate of chips... the train is stopped here for 4h so I'm having a look round the town, but even at 8am Katherine is moist and hot so I will not last long.

Some lucky recipients will be getting postcards from around the world postmarked here (assuming the postoffice opens soon) (note to Laura: the reason you have not been getting my postcards is that they seem to have accumulated in my bag rather than going out with all the others...)

Should reach Darwin late this afternoon - hopefully there will be some hostels plying for trade at the railway station, else I'm fscked.

hangover

2005-12-17T06:38:00.000Z

went to "the melanka party bar", apparently one of only two or three bars in alice springs, it seems, until 4am or so. before that, played drinking games with a couple of litres of vodka and 4l of coca-cola® which was a laugh despite my general dislike of drinking games.

Alice Springs

2005-12-12T05:07:00.000Z

In alice springs. found a laptop cafe. This town is small - there do not seem to be any chain shops here apart from KFC - like St. George was but ~6 times bigger.

slept poorly on the train due to the presence of a sqwalking 3y-old in the row behind me all night. Tonight I have a dorm bed (there was a row of backpacker buses waiting outside the station to suck up all the detraining passengers).

Train journey was quite nice - reminded me more of The Coast Starlight from LA to San Francisco, rather than the transiberian/china/india/vietnam trains that I've taken.

Tomorrow to Ayer's Rock so only one night in this hostel here in Alice Springs this time (though when I come back in three days, I'll stay there again until I get the train to Darwin on Monday).

プリクラ

2005-12-11T00:37:00.000Z

Finally found my printclub stickers that I'd had made of myself when I was in Tōkyō last time - every time I've wanted to dish them out, I've been unable to find (they're in a secret pocket in my rucksack that is so secret I keep forgetting it even exists). So dished out three (two to oriental chicks who though it was hilarious that I had them, as I was not a 15y old girl).

only two

2005-12-11T00:06:00.000Z

only two girlies came to say goodbye to me at the bus stop :-(

I tried to lure a third along by giving her extremely-soft-core Japanese porn collector cards but it did not work :-(

adelaide

2005-12-11T00:02:00.000Z

I'm in Adelaide having failed to miss the bus for a second time. Wandered around the empty sunday morning streets until I found a little section of road with a bunch of cafes all open for breakfast. I wandered into one, 'un caffe bar, exclusively illy' which sold me a long black and a cheese,tomato,ham croissant. There's slow,free,web-only internet access here and a place for me to charge my laptop. Later today I have a train booked to Alice Springs. Slept badly on the bus here (I usually end up reasonably well rested but not today) so maybe I'll find a park or something to have a lie-down in.

more stupid rules

2005-12-09T04:07:00.000Z

According to the sign on my door, the Victorian "innkeepers' liability act" means that my hotel is not liable for damage to horses left in my hotel room.

missed the bus

2005-12-08T00:06:00.000Z

missed the bus in melbourne due to drunken fuckery. decided to stay a few more days (though I have a train in Adelaide to catch on Sunday so I need to move before than - I've booked a bus overnight Saturday which leaves minimal chance of getting the train if I miss it again).

also that night had no where to sleep booked and could not be bothered to go hostel searching so I slept in the park - was warm and not raining and the grass was soft. that's only the second night so far that I've had no bed this year.

splash!

2005-12-07T02:35:00.000Z

a disposable camera (that I remembered to get developed before I threw it away) gave me:

wireless

2005-12-01T07:17:00.000Z

turns out this hostel in melbourne gives everyone staying here half an hour of free wireless access per day in their little bar downstairs. did not realise that until today though so three days worth wasted :-(

melbourne

2005-11-28T23:19:00.000Z

arrived in melbourne; ended up in a hostel on flinders lane which is right in the heart of the city, a better location than the YHA I'd been planning to stay in near the Queen Victoria market. Took Korean friend for indian - bizarrely (at least to me) she's never eaten lamb.

it always make me laugh

2005-11-28T23:18:00.000Z

it always makes me laugh when reading carrier's small print about what is not allowed to be brought on board. Virgin Blue advises that I may not take my lawnmower as cabin baggage. Not as good, though, as the Catalina Island ferry in California which would not let me take a human corpse with me to or from the island.

snorkel

2005-11-27T08:30:00.000Z

back from celebrating Thanksgiving by snorkelling over the great barrier reefs, off the coast of Cairns. also did an intro scuba dive which was fun except my sinuses are very angry now. sharks and turtles! I got a shitty disposable camera. There are three pics left; once I have taken them (perhaps I'll have to go diving in the bathtub?), I can throw the camera away. Nice boat with a little bar, über-airconditioned rooms and pretty good food. Interesting people to meet on the boat, slightly different from the drunk backpacker party crowd that I cannot seem to get away from easily - two japanese speaking whitegirls (one spoke cantonese and had lived in Hong Kong for childhood) and one who couldn't read the korean on her t-shirt, plus some german girls who spoke good english apart from the accidental misidiom "you're pulling my legs off" when we were teasing her about something. Now I'm back on land the world seems to rock too and fro'.

Tomorrow fly to Melbourne.

ginger beer

2005-11-25T01:14:00.000Z

there is ginger beer in this country!

Cairns

2005-11-25T00:55:00.000Z

I'm in Cairns in northern Queensland, and have been for a few days. Laptop access here for $4 for 1h in shop that I just found. Its humid. The aircon in my room does not seem to run, but I never get round to asking them to fix. Hostel is cheap, though - AUD18 for a room in a 6 bed dorm that at present has only me in it. I've booked a snorkelling trip for this weekend on the reef - go out on saturday morning and come back on sunday evening. some snorkelling in between. Then on Monday flying down to Melbourne to visit my Korean friend again. Lots and lots of 日本人 here so lots of signage (maybe as much as 40%) is written in 日本語。I can read a few words, but not enough to really understand much. Not so much Korean or Chinese which is a bit surprising as some cities I've been to have been covered in signs in those languages. Beer in hostel gets served in pints by default, better than further south where pots are the norm, some kind of gay 250ml glass (funny to watch australian men trying to impress UK girls whilst sipping on this little thimbles…)

humid

2005-11-21T05:38:00.000Z

humid here by the sea - maybe I will head inland to the dryness again at some point.

2005-11-21T05:34:00.000Z

In about an hour, getting greyhound bus to Mackay which I know nothing about; will arrive tomorrow morning, hang round awhile and then tomorrow afternoon evening off to Cairns overnight again. So no shower for a while, just like Russia!

This morning has been spent basically eating and drinking - first a pint of freshly squeezed and groundup vegetables, then coffee with poached eggs on toast, then a meat pie and some fizzy lemon drink.

Two notes on coffee:

2005-11-20T04:04:00.000Z

i) there's still a coffee sachet that I got on the train somewhere near moscow floating round in the bottom of my rucksack. I suppose I could put it in water and drink it.
ii) spent some time trying to work out which country it was that I'd been to a Hudson's Coffee (where I get my internet access at the moment). After a day or so of puzzling realised it was Australia - I'd somehow forgotten that I'd been here before.

hemisphere

2005-11-20T04:01:00.000Z

All of my travel since leaving LA (using great circle lines to join points and assuming my applet is projecting correctly) appears to fit inside a hemisphere centered somewhere on northern Japan / far-eastern Russia. Maybe New Zealand will break this... if not, I'll make it all the way back to LA having avoided half the world...

fly

2005-11-19T07:16:00.000Z

fly to melbourne from cairns, booked for monday week

Noosa

2005-11-19T07:00:00.000Z

Got a 6000km open greyhound pass - can travel anywhere on the national bus network up to a total of 6000km. For the first hop, I've headed very slightly north from Brisbane to Noosa (recommended to me 2y ago by a canadian girl called Tracey who was staying in Melbourne YHA at the same time as me). Then to Mackay - dunno anything about there but it is half way to Cairns which is my last bus trip in this present hop. Then down to Melbourne by plane (can go see Korean friend again! she drove overland from Brisbane down to Melbourne earlier this week...)

monday

2005-11-16T03:22:00.000Z

Awake at 4am to say goodbye as the Korean girl vanishes off into New South Wales; I sleep until 0800 or so then down to the bus stop to head to Brisbane (via Toowoomba). Around 1700, an hour or so outside of Brisbane a panicked radio controlled demands our bus stop immediately and unload all passengers - there's a brisbane wide transport bomb scare and it seems that suddenly our bus has been included in it. So out into some random australian town we pile, hoping that our bus will not explode. This is all a novelty for the Australians on the bus. I cough politely and mumble something about living in England in the late 20th century.
Finally though we make it to brisbane. The bus station has little blue "backpackers this way" signs. I go this way and end up in a little pickup spot where minibuses pick up backpackers to hostels. There's only one hostel's bus there - I get on and am wisked out to the West End where they accomodate me (after much humming and haaaing at the reception desk, they realise I am travelling alone and don't give a shit how many people are in the same dorm as me).
So here I am in Brisbane.

sunday

2005-11-16T03:21:00.000Z

Up early and go with Korean girl to her Church, which turns out to be Anglican. They give me a free biscuit and some red wine! Next to Video 2000 where I become a member (all this bureaucracy to check my ID etc when I have stated clearly that I am just in town until the next day and don't live in Australia and will soon disappear into nowhere). I pick out the Rocky Horror Picture Show (with subtitles for the hearing impaired) which bemuses my friend. "Do you want a beer?" I ask, as my motel fridge is full of bottles acquired the previous night from the bottle shop. "No" is the answer, so I open one for myself. Magically the answer changes in an instant to "Yes"! I like this chick. For dinner we go out for pizza. $20 again for a large pizza which turns out to be massive - it serves both me and the girl for dinner, and then me for breakfast, and then me again for lunch. Watching Koreans eat pizza is pretty funny - like watching white man try to use chopsticks, I suppose. To the pub, but its sunday night, no one is there and closing early, so just a single drink (VB for me and tequila for my alcohol-monster friend) and then to bed.

saturday

2005-11-16T03:19:00.000Z

walked round St. George - its a wee little town with three churches, three pubs, a cricket ground and a war memorial.
It also has a municipal swimming pool - the Koreans and I headed there in the afternoon to splash around. Seems I can still swim - I suppose its like falling off a bicycle. That evening again to the pub - just me and the girl this time. I ordered mixed grill for AUD20, which was massive - I struggled to get it all down, eventually giving up and leaving a few of the vegetables behind. Then to one of the other pubs which as we sat there became more lively - there was a hen night or something going on I think (unless this bunch of girls regularly goes to the pub with penis-straws to suck their drinks through). Locals in St. George really friendly, and pretty interested in chatting about where I am from and what I am doing here etc. We try some pre-packaged shots (paid for by another dude sitting at the bar who we'd been talking to) then I return to my beer and Korean girl switches to tequila shots. Sleep in motel this time.