By the time that you read this post, I’ll be on my first trip home since first arriving in the UK. I’m stopping my Hong Kong since I’ve never been and I’m looking forward to the walking trails on Lantau Island, the great quality and exotic Dim Sum available and just absorbing the culture that this country has to offer.

Of course, I look forward to trying to catch up with you all when I finally do arrive in Australia, but I only have a week to do so. Let me know if you’d like to catch up otherwise!

See you soon!

It’s creepy how accurate a Fortune Cookie could quite possibly be:

Even though Alicante is located by the beach, it also happens to be close to Elx, a world heritage site and the home of Europe’s largest Palm Tree Forest. On Sunday, I decided to take advantage of the free day and catch a train there. It’s only half an hour away from Alicante, and was relatively easy getting there, despite the language barrier. Getting back was slightly more disturbing as which train to catch was not too obvious, but I managed to get back in time for my flight.

Elx is a beautiful city, combining ancient buildings with the modern styling of gardens and newer buildings that seemingly flow together with ease. Numerous plazas and groves full of palms intersperse buildings, though the larger palm forests are slightly outside of the town centre. I went on the Historical Palm Groves Walk, though at only just over 2km was extremely easy to enjoy. There are also numerous museums and buildings depicting older ways of life and you can even stay in a hotel in the middle of the palm forest, though I would not necessarily say it would be worth the experience.

The forest itself is not as dense as when you think of the term forest, but seems more like a collection of palm tree farms, that put together makes up a significant part of the town. It could be the legislation that the local government put into place that makes it necessary to maintain all of these trees, but although the trees didn’t seem completely natural in their current presentation, still looked impressive to me.

Heading back into the town centre, I was lucky enough to capture the Easter day parade. Thousands of people, if not all of the townsfolk and other regional visitors crammed all the many streets where a procession took place. Bands heralded in the procession, closely followed by people that gave lollies to any kids in the crowd, then followed by a statue surrounded by flowers that I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to represent. Church members then followed the statue as townsfolk showered it with coloured printings of biblical pictures from the top of all the buildings that the rest of the townsfolk then quickly gathered. It was amazing sight to see and although I don’t quite fully understand what all of the parts represented, the community spirit and families that attended the parade astounded me.

Heading back to Alicante, I ended up grabbing a bite to eat and finally visited one of the city’s most impressive attractions, the Castle of Santa Barbara. Being on the clifftops above the city, this Castle is apparently one of the largest medieval fortresses in Europe. When you are standing on any of its higher levels, you can understand what made this such a prominent castle, with outstanding views of the bay, farmland and city. Retired cannons still mount some of its walls and there are plenty of gardens and things to discover to keep you occupied for some time.

Alicante is a great city to escape London and the warmth of its beaches and people are definitely worth experiencing at least once. See more pictures of the day here.

This weekend I visited the city of Alicante in Spain, something I had booked a while back when I had been sick and not realised that it was a long weekend. My flight was out of Luton, one of the more increasingly popular airports located out of Central London. For my first time flying out of Luton, the entire experience was quite easy though was a very early (4:30am) start to Saturday morning. First I had to get to Marble Arch (20 minute walk) so that I could catch a bus that dropped me off at the airport in about an hour, and that’s two hours before my 8am flight. It was a painless enough experience and by the time I got on the flight, an early-morning nap was well deserved. I found Luton busy for such an early time in the morning, and was further amused (or should I be more worried) by the number of people that were sitting in the bar and having a smoke and/or a beer.

After arriving in Alicante after a rather uneventful flight, a short forty five minute bus ride costing only €1 dropped me off directly in the city centre, right by the beach. Central Alicante is small and easily walkable with both a bus and train station connecting it to other major cities including Valencia and Madrid. The beach and harbour is an important aspect to this seaside town, and I definitely appreciated the closest one, Playa de Postiguet, for the entire weekend. It was great to be relaxing, soaking up some rays, though not as many as what some tourists looked like they had, and great to be walking around in sun with the very moderate temperature of 22°C for the entire weekend.

There are plenty of things to keep you occupied in Alicante, with loads of shopping (though a little quieter this Easter weekend), lots of amazingly detailed buildings and plenty of cafes, restaurants and bars to bide your time. Near to where I was staying, the Plaza de Toros, or the local bull-fighting building was absolutely stunning but it would have been good to see one actually on. The port is worth walking around, if not just to see the stunning boats and indulge in the buzz of all the cafes filled with people eating tapas or just enjoying the sun. This applied the same to the main walkway by the water, Paseo Explanada de Espana that really lit up at night time.

The Spanish way of life was really interesting as the lunch kicks off really quite late starting to get busy around 1pm and going until 3pm or later. Stores close in the meantime and don’t really start happening again to really quite late (think 10pm or later). In between there is plenty of time for people to grab tapas, but things were only really starting to get active very late at night. The plazas fill with families and kids playing football (or soccer for those back home) whilst the bars, restaurants and clubs pump out music crowded with livelier and generally younger groups.

See more pictures of the day here.

This weekend was a great opportunity to visit another country in Europe, but this time, via the Eurostar, a train connecting London to the rest of the train network in Europe. The Eurostar’s major stops are Waterloo in London, Paris in France and Brussels in Belgium, though you can catch connecting trains to other destinations, like to Bruge where I ended up for the weekend with Kath from Oxford.

I thoroughly recommend anyone living in London to catch the Eutostar to any of its destinations instead of flying as it is a much more pleasurable experience. If you pick you tickets up in advance, you only have to be there approximately half an hour in advance to get through passport control and be on the train. Since it departs from Waterloo found in zone 1 it should mean getting there is easier than any of the airports. The train ride is extremely smooth and the seats are much more comfortable and spacious than the equivalent economy ones you will find on any plane.

Although the Eurostar finishes at the end of Brussels, we caught a connecting train to Ooestende that stopped in Bruge in about an hour. The train station in Bruge is located on the southside of the city, and it wasn’t too long before we checked into our hotel.

Anyone who had been to Bruge before and I had spoken to said that the city was beautiful and even though the weather we experienced cycled from raining overcast skies to perfectly warm bright blue ones, we definitely saw the charm that this city had to offer. The city is interspersed with many canals and surrounded by one large circular one, meaning that you will find over 65 bridges and understand why it is called the Venice of the North. Buildings of all different styles since the 15th century line the traditional cobblestones road, yet all of the streets looked consistently clean, even with the number of tourists walking around. The city itself is easily walkable, with the medium sized winding paths opening up to larger squares with the major two being Markt and Burg.

I highly recommend that you take a canal tour, with a single trip costing 5.70 lasting around half an hour providing you with a great historical and local account of many of the buildings, bridges and areas. It is definitely a great way to enjoy the wondrous sights the city has to offer from a different perspective.

To me, the country of Belgium seems well known for its beer and chocolate, and so the entire weekend was decidedly unhealthy in trying to indulge in sampling both of these treats. Saying that the selection of the beers in Belgium is wide would be a grossly misunderstatement. A mostly well worn tourist spot, the bar Berge sells around 300 unique beers on its menu and you need a book to order. Most bars that served a wide selection of beers tended to group them first by brand, then colour, and then percentage of alcohol. Most beers available are commonly strong, with many of the speciality beers easily over 6% (up to around 12%). Bruge locals tend to drink slowly to last the night away and you rarely see anyone drinking pints since they understand that you can’t simply slam a lot of these drinks down, without expecting to go with them!

Chocolate shops adorn many of the streets, especially around the more touristy areas of Markt and Burg, though many locals seemed to frequent them as well. We visited these places at the somewhat apt time leading up to Easter meaning that most of the stores we focused on producing Easter eggs, rabbits and chickens as well as the normal faire of truffles and blocks. Buying good quality chocolate to take home is not difficult either, and with all the prices from most of the chocolatiers being pretty similar, I recommend you simply buy the things that you want. The choice is amazing, all of them offer consistently high quality melt in your mouth chocolate, delicious hand made truffles, and liqueur filled chocolates.

Food seems to be quite an important aspect to the city, with almost every one of our meals being extremely tasty and enjoyable. Den Dyver is one such place that specialises in both fine dining and seafood, and with the Chocolate Festival Bruge is holding until the end of May, combined all of these aspects into a magnificent menu dubbed the ‘Culinary Walk through Chocolate’. Our experience of this five course masterpiece, more accurately named a ‘Leisurely Stroll’, lasted almost three and half hours of culinary bliss and included:

• A four selection sampler of raw tuna and basil, cucumber sushi, a prawn and avocado salad, and a tiny bowl of celeriac soup, served with an aperitif;
• Smoked duck served with local endives and salsify slices;
• Grilled mullet with fennel mash and a white chocolate orange sauce;
• Bass Baked in cocoa butter served with ginger pasta, vegetables and a trappist sabayon; and finished with
• A wicked trio of small desserts of chocolate mousse and wine-vinegar soaked strawberries, a warm chocolate pudding and a fresh mint and chocolate heaping of ice cream.

This richly enjoyable and highly calorific experience did not necessarily come cheaply but was definitely worth the experience combining all the wonderful things on offer in this city.

On our last day, we even managed to spent a few hours in Brussels since we caught an earlier train and had to wait for our Eurostar back to Waterloo. The contrast I saw between the two cities was quite significant considering they belong to the same country and are only an hour separate from each other by train. Brussels, a predominantly French speaking city opposed to the Flemish one of Bruge, appeared much more ethnic as well as overly touristy. Dozens of tacky souvenir stores line the major roads and increase in density as you make your way to its more famous market squares. I found Brussels was significantly dirtier and definitely busier than the more laid back café-centred Bruge.

It was a fantastic weekend and we enjoyed every bit of it. See the photos here.

I spent this last weekend with a number of people in Amsterdam to celebrate Ben’s stag weekend before he gets married in May later this year. This event had been building up for some time since we booked our flights and hotel back in January. We left on Friday morning to arrive there at just around lunchtime where the eight of us, including Ben, Karl, Nathan, Andrew, David, Matt and Damian met at the hotel.

We flew BMI, which has been one of the least painful flights I’ve flown, and it was even easier getting from the airport to the city one we arrived. A 20 minute train ride costing only €3.6 conveniently drops you right in the middle of Amsterdam Central. After navigating the treacherously narrow and winding staircase, we checked into our hotel located extremely close to the centre of town, The Orange Tulip Hotel, before we proceeded to venture forth into the city.

The cityscape of Amsterdam is strew with canals and bridges crossing canals with narrow multi-storied buildings, a consequence, from what I understand, of a historical tax based on the amount of house frontage. Each building is decorated with awnings or stone and granite figures mounted at various points in typical European fashion. Many of the buildings are surprisingly but noticeably crooked, either overhanging the street from above, or slanting distinctly to the left or right into another building though I don’t really know why.

The streets are wide as trams ferry large numbers of people through the city day and night. The roads also accommodate cars and pretty much most of the roads have a dedicated bike lane for the massive number of cyclists in the city. Cycling is an obviously favourable way of getting around if you’re a local, the evidence easily witnessed by the sheer number of bikes that litter the bridges, posts and sidewalks of town. Many of them appear antiquated, most of them have large handlebars, no gears and many of them appear to be rusting, but all, of course, equipped with that essential bell used to warn pedestrians that you are in their way (and not the other way around!)

Our weekend kicked off initially with a visit to the Heineken Brewery where they have a tour that is pretty much self-running. For any sort of brewery tour, they do have some more exciting things such as the Thirst DJ room (where you can mix it up with both lights, sound and video), a table-soccer table, and a number of ‘rides’ best left enjoyed to those easily entertained. It’s probably not worth the effort other than the three beers and a souvenir glass to take home.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant and hit a number of bars/pubs to celebrate the occasion with Ben. We also walked around town including parts of the Red Light district, one of those places that you hear so much about and can’t really avoid if you visit Amsterdam. It’s not really worth describing in great detail here but let’s just say it was quite shocking to see in real life.

The next day we tried to go for a bike ride tour around the city but both bad weather and bad timing saw us miss our only opportunity. Instead we decided to embark on a ride in a glass covered canal boat around the city that proved both cheap and lengthy though unfortunately not as entertaining as originally thought. I definitely recommend taking a more personal tour if possible as the commentary on ours I found disappointing.

Overall it was a pretty fascinating city in how liberal it is, but sometimes not quite as nice with the prolific number of rowdy crowds from both the US and the UK disturbing the atmosphere. I think everyone had a great weekend anyway and that is really all that mattered in the end.

After spending Christmas in a more provincial town, we reached our final destination of St Petersburg via an overnight train. The train experience was quite good, with the four berth cabins having enough space to fit everyone’s luggage as well as their owners. The beds were relatively comfortable and the loud local Russian radio that served as a wake up call in the morning was quite a surprise.

St Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great during Russian’s Northern War with Sweden. Unlike Moscow, this city appears quite flat and is subject to frequent flooding due to its location and the number of canals and proximity to the Neva River and the Baltic Sea. Peter the Great had quite a passion for Amsterdam and you can see these influences in the design of the city. St Petersburg was also the capital for some time, until the Second World War where it was moved back to Moscow to protect it from being captured by the enemy.

To me I got the impression that St Petersburg is a bit more like the cultural capital of Russia in comparison to Moscow, filled with both the historical artefacts and the more up to date interests in art and culture. It seems like St Petersburg is to Moscow what Melbourne is to Sydney but it could be because it is filled with over fifty universities, albeit many smaller ones and the number of many more accessible cafes, bars, clubs and restaurants.

Road traffic in the city is horrendous, particularly leading up to the New Year. The local buses seem to be the best way of getting around the most effectively and although there is a metro system, it is not as wide reaching as Moscow’s due to the city’s susceptibility to flooding.

During our stay in St Petersburg we visited the Peter and Paul Fortress, Catherine the Great’s Summer Palace, St Isaac’s Cathedral, Church on Spilled Blood, and The Hermitage. The Hermitage is probably one of the most awe inspiring buildings, once Catherine the Great’s winter palace, and home to a huge collection of classical art and sculpture work from the likes of Da Vinci, Raphael, Rembrandt, Renoir, Monet and more. Apparently if you spent one minute looking at every item in their current collection you would have to spend eleven consecutive years to get through. Before departing we even managed to spent some time attending a few cultural events including a somewhat touristy Cossack show and the more famous and more impressive Russian Ballet.

The entire Christmas in Russia experience was great and is something tha I can now vouch for as a worthwhile experience.