As with our last big holiday 4 years ago, "one of the downsides of having a non-anonymous blog is that you can't blog a lot of stuff because of it, and [before] going overseas for a few weeks is probably one of them".

Last week we got back home after spending almost 4 weeks overseas on what will probably be our last big holiday before seriously settling down (if you get my drift ;)).

Our goal for this trip was to mainly go through the US, as well as to go back to London for another Arsenal game. What … Read more →

Part of our 2012 US/UK/HK Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

Coming back from London on our way to Australia, we had planned a quick stop in Hong Kong; staying there for two nights, but really only one and a half days (we flew in on Monday evening and left Wednesday night).

Unfortunately, all we ended up seeing of Hong Kong was our hotel room and the few streets around it in Kowloon. I was slowly getting better, but unfortunately Despina was coming down ill herself. She was starting to get a temperature, and the cheap digital thermometer … Read more →

Part of our 2012 US/UK/HK Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

From New York we flew overnight into London and dropped our bags off at the hotel. We were quite buggered, but we decided to go up to Arsenal and have a look at our tile in Armoury Square for the first time. It was great to finally see it first hand. The weather was typical depressing England: cold, overcast, rainy. After that we pretty much just checked into the hotel and took it easy.

Wednesday was the beginning of a not very nice time in London for … Read more →

Part of our 2012 US/UK/HK Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

We caught the train to New York rather than fly. It was a good choice in my opinion, as it meant that we left from Union Station in Washington and arrived at Penn Station in New York; so there was no long commute out to airports, no going through rigorous security, and no waiting for bags and alike. The train was roomy, and at just over 3 hours, it wasn't a long commute at all. Plus we got to see a few cities, like Baltimore and Philadelphia, … Read more →

Part of our 2012 US/UK/HK Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

We arrived in Washington DC on Sunday night. The landing was a bit unnerving, as the plane made a relatively steep turn not far off the ground to line up with the runway (I assume to stay out of Pentagon airspace). I've flown a fair bit, but when you can tell the make and model of cars looking down the wing at the ground during a turn at night, it is a bit unusual.

Anywho, we mainly did the typical touristy thing during our time in Washington. … Read more →

Part of our 2012 US/UK/HK Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

We arrived in Las Vegas late on Wednesday night and went to our hotel, the Elara Hilton. The Hilton group had only recently taken possession of the hotel from Planet Hollywood, so when I booked our stay a month or two earlier they were offering ridiculously good rates (~$100/night for a 'junior' suite).

Upon getting to the hotel, the check-in staff informed us that our room was occupied by a time-share resident (or something like that), and it was unavailable. So they upgraded us to a full … Read more →

Part of our 2012 US/UK/HK Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

Our first proper day at the Disneyland resort we decided was going to be spent in the 'newer' California Adventure park. For the unaware, there are two parks: the original Disneyland park, and the newer California Adventure.

Before we went to California Adventure, we did a quick stop to the original Disneyland park and rode Space Mountain (our favourite ride), as well as the recently revamped Star Tours Star Wars ride. Both were very different from our last time there. Space Mountain was mostly the same, except … Read more →

Part of our 2012 US/UK/HK Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

We went to the airport on Sunday to catch our morning Qantas flight to LA to begin our trip. After clearing security and customs and grabbing a quick snack, we were about to walk to the gate for boarding when the dreaded announcement happens: "Unserviceable problem with the aircraft landing gear doors, new aircraft due in 8 hours, go to the gate for instructions".

Great start. We were offered by Qantas to go to a hotel for the day in which we would be fed and given … Read more →