We were due to arrive in Heathrow at 1920hrs but circled London a few times. I believe it's because: a) the pilot was drinking; b) the pilot was lost; or c) their was air traffic. In the end, we landed at around 1940. Thanks to the beauty of dual-citizenship we cleared immigration in the shortest queue. Customs was fairly quick (with nothing to declare) and we were met at the gate. It was freezing outside the airport (it had been snowing earlier, apparently). We drove to Horley. I forgot how cold, dismal and depressing England is.

Horley, our grandparents native village, is amazing from the POV of anyone over 60, but rather depressing for everyone else. The night we landed, on the Wednesday, we were falling asleep whilst trying to explain our trip and everything. We were soon off to bed at Nanny’s house. Our bedroom was complete with towels on the bed, toothbrushes, dressing gowns and everything which made it more a hotel room, than our grandparents. We were asleep within minutes, and wide awake at 3am. Oh the joys of jetlag! We managed to sleep in till about 0530 and had breakfast. That lunchtime we went out with both sets of grandparents for lunch to a proper English pub. I ate half of a huge meal and had a pint of proper cider (at room temperature). That afternoon Leah and I went to the shops at Crawley. It was completely full of Crawley-ites (known as Chavs), which includes 14-year-old mothers spending their baby-bonuses on trendy prams for their children.

On Friday we drove down to Somerset and were reunited with the rest of the family. It was great to see the kids again. They’ve all grown so much. Today (Saturday) we were introduced to the rabbits, Leah went shopping and I rode a bike. The town where they live is very flat and great for cycling. The bicycle population here seems to overwhelm the amount of people, which makes me exceedingly happy.

We’re both getting a lot better with English time. I only woke up once last night and slept in until 0800 which was almost normal. Tonight I endeavour to stay up till at least 2100.

Nothing else has really happened, but I’ll keep you all posted on the latest events.

Love, light and peace,
Em xox

Me & Da

Lunch at The Castle: L-R Nanny, Leah, Nanna, Em & Grandad

Just a sample of the High School Musical merchandise available in the Disney Shop.

Tourist Stonehenge picture

Leah is going to get this through customs. She will most likely end up on Border Patrol.

So the flight was like any other: cramped, long and with that peculiar smell in the air. We left Sydney at 15:50, leaving behind a tearful family and a close-to-tears boyfriend. The flight was only 8hrs32mins, so it wasn’t as long as anticipated. We both sat back and loved the video-on-demand service on Virgin Atlantic. This means you don’t have to wait for all the other movies to finish before you watch another one. It also means you can pause, rewind or fast-forward.

We got into Hong Kong at around 2130 local time. The immigration was rude and very slow (compared to Sydney), but customs was a breeze, having nothing to declare. After following the terrible directions of the map, we found the bus station. The double-decker bus took us to Tsuen Wan, which from there we caught a taxi to the hotel. Our shared confusion and plight must have shown on our faces as a young man asked where we were headed. We told him where and he said that it was the end of the line and he was getting off there too. After getting over my original paranoia (stemmed from the movie Taken) I realised he must be genuinely interested in helping us. So he showed us where to get off. When we told him which hotel we were headed too, Ken (our new friend) said he had never heard of it. Neither had the taxi driver. So Ken called directory assistance (on his own phone) and found out what the address was. In hind-sight, we should have probably checked this out when we had internet access.

The taxi was one of the scariest drives I’ve ever been. This includes a mini-cab in Bali. The driver clearly had never heard of keeping a constant speed and was constantly going up and down on the accelerator. Rather scary and caused sea-sick feeling. We arrived quite suddenly a the hotel (nearly killed by him turning off very quickly). Having never been outside Hong Kong airport before, we were both schoekd to see that Hong Kong was not as expected. We assumed it would be beautiful and clear and shiny, but it is as dirty and tatty as any other city is. Smog is a huge problem here, and I feel that my lungs have aged 20 years just by breathing in the air here.

It was nice to be able to have a shower and sleep. We both woke up in the morning feeling refreshed, if a little hungry (the plane food wasn’t excellent). We got safely back to the airport and munched down on foccacias. Very yummy, but I guess anything is compared to aeroplane food.

So we’re now waiting in Hong Kong airport, waiting for our check-in to open, so we can get through the gates and spend our millions on electronics. Hahahahahaha.

The following pics are of our adventures so far.

Love, light and peace, Em xox

Just in case you need to send a didgeridoo in time for Christmas.

After years of travelling, Em is still secretly afraid of flying.

Goodbye Sydney…

…and hello, Hong Kong!

Our hosts.

Our hotel room view. When you’re there, the smog seems worse.

Christmas at Hong Kong airport.

This is an awesome program, and absolutely imperative if you want to blog and travel at the same time. As I’ll be travelling to the UK soon, check out the blog regularly to see our photo’s and videos of everything that we’re doing.

Check out this video of my sister Amanzi playing her violin in the school Strings Ensemble.

Em

83kg's, homies!

I'm so excited. Also I can wear a definite Size 14 which is exciting. I've been cycling pretty much everywhere which is great. I've borrowed Dru's bike a few times and it is sooo much harder than my bike, even with the skipping gears.

So I'm excited. I might have to buy myself some shorts on account of it getting warmer and none of my current shorts fitting me. And also, I'm much more confident about my legs as they are less flabby.