Honeymoon: Days 11-13

20/04/12 - Our plan was to go to Suzhou, so we got up relatively early to go to the station. We got the underground there, which unlike going to the French Concession required a couple of changes. At the station the ticket hall was very busy with many long queues. We didn't think we'd be able to make the train that we wanted to get, so we decided to abandon going to Suzhou and buy tickets to go on Sunday instead - we bought a ticket (first class on the bullet train again) from the one English speaking ticket office.

Shanghai model in the Urban Planning Exhibition

Our new plan involved some more sightseeing around Shanghai. We firstly went to People's Square to the Urban Planning Exhibition Center. It was a really interesting place full of information on Shanghai's past, present and future. It contained a brilliantly detailed and huge model of the current and future Shanghai. Some highlights of stuff we also saw were: a 360° CGI video flying through parts of Shanghai like the new Pudong Airport and Pudong district; a very good exhibition of comic strip-like drawings of Shanghai street scenes by an artist called He Youzhi (or Frank He); a cartoon video about "socialistic villages" (planned rural villages, towns and cities, so the farmers don't all move into the current major cities) featuring a water droplet character called Little Drip; and a display of communist party posters from the past 90 years.

Street market in Shanghai old town

For lunch we initially bought food from a van in People's Square and went into a grassy area where lots of locals were having lunch. But, the food was a bit too greasy to eat much of, so we then went to bakery in nearby mall instead. From there we walked to Yu Garden in the old town. It was really busy with tourists and people trying to sell Rolex watches. It was all a bit much, so we didn't stay long. Despite Jen being tired we decided to try a walk around old city from our guide book. It was much nicer once we got away from Yu Garden. The walk took us along street with good markets (live eels and fish in tubs were being sold). We also found a pet market selling birds, cats, dogs, fish, turtles and insects (and probably a lot more besides). At the end of the walk there were a few of the traditional-style Shanghai stone tenement buildings, or shikumen. We then walked back to hotel via pedestrianised part of Nanjing Road East shopping street.

We rested at the hotel for a bit before heading back to the French Concession for dinner - this time getting a taxi having walked enough during the day. At the hotel we'd tried booking online at a Malaysian restaurant, but didn't hear whether we had a table (we had an email from them confirming the booking when we got back to the hotel later). So, instead went to small vegetarian restaurant we'd passed the other night - the food was simple, but not bad. At this point it started raining hard, but we walked the short way back to O'Malleys for a pint. There was a band made up of American ex-pats playing. We then got a taxi back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel we decided to have a drink at the bar. There were a couple of old guys in the bar on their laptops - they were part of a big school reunion for the Shanghai American School that was being hosted at the hotel - but otherwise no-one else was in the bar. We found a guest book in the bar that we wrote a message in, but oddly most of the entries in the book were from single men thanking "the girls" - this seemed rather odd as the bar didn't seem to employ lots of barmaids. This made more sense later on when we discovered that the "karaoke" that some sites claimed was available at the hotel (and we'd not found any sign of) is generally a front for prostitution!

Tianzifang

21/04/12 - We had a long lie in and lunch of sandwiches and crisps in the hotel cafe. We then got the underground to the French Concession again to do another of the guided walks from our guidebook (although to mix things up we walked it in the opposite direction!) The walk took us through Fuxing Park where we saw a crowd around a band, old people playing with diablo's and kite flyers. Near the park there were lots of fancy newly built properties. We went through a set of narrow alleys (Tianzifang) filled with boutique shops and cafes that, had we known about it before, would have been a nice place to go in the evening. The walk ended up going through an area with lots of arty cafes with bookshops and galleries. We also passed a Scottish coffee shop(!) housed in a former Russian Orthodox church.

For dinner that evening we'd booked at a fancy restaurant called M on the Bund, which overlooked the Huangpu River and Pudong. The starter and main meal were very nice, but it was the puddings that stood out and were amazing. We had a platter containing small versions of each of the desserts and they were all lovely. We finished the evening with a couple of cocktails. The place we also good for people watching and trying to work out the relationships of the other diners.

A Maitreya Buddha at the Beisi Pagoda

22/04/12 - We got up early again to get our train to Suzhou. The train was a slightly different make to the one that we'd got from Hangzhou, but was just as nice and fast. Suzhou is supposedly a big tourist destination, but when we got to Suzhou station it's an understatement to say it wasn't very tourist friendly. There were lots of people touting guided tours, but we had a basic map in our guidebook and thought we'd find our own way. This proved problematic and it took us at least half an hour to find our way from the station to something we recognised on our map - this was partly because there were no better maps in the station to show the way and also because between the station and town centre there was a massive building site.

Once we got heading in the right direction we also discovered that the city was bigger than we'd thought and it took quite a while to walk between the sites. It was also very hot. The first major site we came to was the Beisi Ta pagoda, which we climbed to the top of. This gave us good views of the city, but the air quality wasn't great, so you couldn't see that far. We then walked down to the Humble Administrators Garden, where we got ourselves ice lollies to cool down. It was very busy with tour groups, but was quite pretty. After another long walk we saw a sign for another garden (the Couple's Retreat Garden, which was another World Heritage Site), which took us slightly off the main road. This only had a few tourists in it, so felt a lot calmer.

The Humble Administrators Garden

We then had to head back to the main road and found our way to Pingjiang Road. This road followed along the canal and was most like the Suzhou Street we'd seen at the Summer Palace in Beijing. It was busy, but nice along the canal, and the street was lined with little cafes and shops. We stopped for sandwiches (and a beer for me) in an American-style bar, but we couldn't hang about as we had a long walk back to the station and wanted to try and see one last site. We managed to walk down to the Shuang Ta (double pagodas), but just saw it and then turned back to head to the station. We walked past an underground station, which we thought might get us back to the station, but it seemed that the underground system was still being built, so it was no use. The walk back, which took us through the main shopping street, was quite hot and exhausting, so the coolness of the station was very welcome. It was very busy at the station, so it was nice to get on the train and relax again. I think to properly explore Suzhou it would have been sensible to get a tour guide with a car and maybe stay a couple of days to get more of a flavour of the place.

When we got back to Shanghai we just went back to the mall on Nanjing Road East and went to a Japanese noodle fast food place. It was a very pleasant evening in Shanghai with clearer air then before and nice temperature, so the walk back to the hotel was nice. I also got some final pictures of wedding photo shoots.

Honeymoon: Days 7-8 (Hangzhou)

16/04/12 - We got a private car rather than taxi from our hotel in Beijing to the airport for out trip to Hangzhou [Hangzhou, which is relatively near Shanghai, is reputed to be one of the most beautiful cities in China and is a popular tourist destination for the locals]. It was with a guy who was hanging about outside the hotel who's main job was doing private tours, but had time before his first tour group to do an airport run. He spoke excellent English and was very chatty - he said that we should go to Xi'an (probably best know for the Terracotta warriors), where he'd studied, if we got the opportunity as it had the best sites from the ancient dynasties. Unfortunately it wasn't on our schedule, and having done a lot of historical sites we were quite looking forward to seeing different things.

We were in Terminal 2 of the airport and it was quiet and easy to get through security. They had free wifi too, which Jen made use of. After boarding the plane on time we were then told it was delayed due to a lack of take off slots being available. So, we got fed before take-off, but we didn't really eat much of the unappetising looking chicken and rice dish.

We weren't too delayed in getting to Hangzhou airport, which again was a new and modern looking building. From there we got a taxi to take us to our hotel on West Lake. In general the surroundings were much greener and less dry than Beijing. But, like in Beijing there were loads of building sites en-route, mainly for what looked like hi-rise appartment blocks. The houses along the road also had a quite distinct look about them that seemed quite specific to the Hangzhou area. The taxi ride took about 40 mins, but was slightly longer due to the taxi driver's meter not working properly and him having to stop by the taxi office to get a new SIM card!

The dancing fountain at West Lake

We were staying in the Hyatt Regency hotel - as a big chain hotel it was very international with better English spoken and a lot of non-Chinese residents. It had a very impressive lobby. There was a slight issue with our room not being ready, but this was sorted out quickly. The room we got was nice, but not as big our one in Beijing. We hadn't paid the extra for a room overlooking the lake. After settling into the room we went for a wander about the bit of West Lake nearest the hotel. We discovered that just opposite the hotel there was a dancing fountain, which performed a music and light show every half hour (we went back to watch the show later when it got dark, but I was particularly underwhelmed, especially as the views across the lake were so amazing anyway). On the lakeside promenade we got accosted by an old man on a mobility scooter who was Chinese, but had learned English (to a very proficient level) by listening to BBC Radio 4 over the internet - he did admit that he found some of the characters with strong accents in the Archers hard to follow (later we passed him again chatting to a group of German tourists in English). We also saw the original (we think) The Grandma's restaurant, which, as in Beijing, had big queues.

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant and despite the very good looking buffet decided to go for pasta (Jen) and a burger (me) as we felt in need of some western food! After dinner we went back out to watch the dancing musical fountain. Later we went to go swimming in the hotel pool, although the set up they had was very confusing. I swam briefly before we tried going for a sauna, but we found there were only separate saunas and hot tub areas for men and women, so didn't stay long.

We planned to get the high speed train to Shanghai when we left Hangzhou, so rather than attempting buying tickets at the station we went to the hotel business centre who booked the tickets for us (they needed to take copies of our passports, because foreigners, who don't have the state issued ID cards, need to give their passport numbers when travelling about on the trains).

Wedding photo shoot

17/04/12 - Jen was unwell overnight with a high temperature and sore throat. We made it down to breakfast for the very good buffet, but then Jen went back to bed. I walked all the way around West Lake (I'd planned to go round a bit and turn back, but once I got near half way I decided I may as well go all the way round) - this took about 3 hours. It was pretty busy with lots of golf-cart-style tourist buses going around the lake, which you had to make way for every few minutes. It was pretty, but there was a low mist over the hill surrounding the lake that meant the views weren't as good as they could have been. I also spotted the first, of what would prove to be many later sightings in Shanghai, wedding photo shoot. Later in the afternoon Jen had recovered enough to venture outside. We briefly walked through the shops behind the hotel and then walked all round the lake again. This time we went slower than I had before and spent more time at some sites like Solitary Hill Island. We also saw barges setting up the big light show that happens at the north of the lake, and a few rowers out doing lengths.

For dinner than evening we went to Chamate (one of the chain of Taiwanese restaurants that we went to in Beijing) for dinner. It was on the edge of lake and we got to eat outside, although it did get rather dark and it became quite difficult eating in the dim candlelight.

Honeymoon: Days 4-6

I'm going to start shortening and merging the honeymoon posts now otherwise I'll never finish writing them!

The "Guide Map of the Jinshanling Great Wall"

13/04/12 - We were up early on Friday for our trip to the Great Wall of China. It looked like it was going to be a very nice day. Before getting a taxi to the hostel where the tour was leaving from Jen went to the Subway across the road to get sandwiches for lunch. Having found the hostel the day before we got there easily. There were a couple of different trips departing: one to a closer, more touristy, part of the Wall, and another to further away part of the Wall (at Jinshanling) where you could trek along it for about 6km. We were on the latter trip, which had about 32 people on it of various nationalities. It took about 2.5 to 3 hours to get there on the coach (with one toilet stop along the way), although a good chunk of this time was taken getting out of Beijing. The scenery got quite impressive as we heading towards the mountains. On nearing the Wall the guide on our bus gave us a bit of Wall history - the various parts built by different Dynasties over several millennia to keep out changing enemies.

The Great Wall

The section of the Wall that we walked along was about 6 km long and passed through 22 towers. About half of this was reconstructed in 1980s other half was older and wilder. The tour guide had said that the start of the walk would be steep, getting steeper and finishing off steeper still. We'd been warned that along the Wall there might be people (mainly displaced farmers) trying to sell us stuff and following us along the way, but this wasn't really the case - at some towers there were people selling drinks (and sometimes t-shirts), but they didn't hassle us at all. Other than our group there weren't too many people on the Wall, but there was a large school trip going in the opposite direction. We were given about 3 hours to walk the section and we set off to the front of our group (we got overtaken by a couple of couples when we stopped for lunch). It was hot and sunny for most of the walk, but just before we got to the final tower it got windy and a short dust storm came in (with a few large drips of rain too). There was one very steep section, which required hands to scramble up, but otherwise it wasn't too difficult a trek. We got to the final tower about an hour earlier than necessary (we were the second couple to reach there in the end). When everyone had arrived (and the sky had cleared) we headed back off the Wall down to the coach. The coach home took us passed the Olympic stadium. We got off by an underground station and took that back to our hotel.

For dinner that evening we just stayed local and went to the shopping mall (where we'd been for lunch the day before). After looking around all the restaurants we decided on a place where you got a barabeque in middle of table. On this we cooked up some lamb and cod amongst other things. We bought some beers at the local shop to drink back in our hotel room.

14/04/12 - Our massage was booked for 11am, so we got to have a long lie in. Even so we still managed to get down to the hotel breakfast before it finished. The Dragonfly Spa was very fancy. We seemed to be the only people there at the time. We had opted for the one hour Chinese massage (there were a variety a different massage styles to choose from), which at about £16 each were probably far more expensive than you would pay in less fancy establishment. The massage was nice, with a few slightly sore moments.

The Temple of Heaven

The day's sightseeing was the Temple of Heaven. This required another underground journey. The Temple is set in a huge walled park that you had to pay to enter (we got a ticket that got you into the main sites within the Temple grounds), but it seemed that locals with ID cards were able to get in free. As with the day before it was very hot and sunny. We saw all the main sights in the Temple that our guide book had recommended (including the building that was on the front cover of our guide book). Jen had her photo taken with some tourists again. We stopped for an ice cream and sat down near some people playing tennis. The park also had the ubiquitous sight of people dancing.

We decided to walk back to the hotel via some hutongs. We initially thought that they might have all been demolished due to another new underground station being built, but on crossing a major road we found they were still standing (although some recent demolition was evident). We'd heard about a fancy restaurant in the former American embassy in the old legation district, so we tried to find it. We weren't able to find it, but did find a nice old street to walk down (Dongjiaominxiang Alley, which is apparently the longest alley in Beijing) with an old church on the corner. We passed a big sports centre with lots of people playing either football or basketball. We also walked through the huge mirrored Oriental Plaza where the Grand Hyatt hotel was.

Oriental Plaza

For dinner we planned to go to a Thai restaurant back at the Qian Hai lake. For some reason we couldn't get a taxi to take us! We managed to flag down a couple of taxis (which was a feat in itself!) and showed the drivers a map to where we wanted to go, but one looked blankly at it and shock their head and the other wanted to charge us far more than it should be. So instead we went to a restaurant across the road from our hotel - it was busy with locals, so looked good. The food was quite basic, but was very nice - Jen's felt a bit poorly afterwards, and suspects that the food contained MSG.

15/04/12 - For our last day in Beijing we went to the Summer Palace - it's essentially a huge park surrounding a lake on the outskirts of the city. We got the hotel concierge to flag us down a taxi to take us there. The journey took about 40 mins. Again it was a really hot day.

Kite flying in the Summer Palace

When we entered the park it was really busy and we soon hit a massive jam of people trying to go round a narrow path by the lake, so instead we searched around a bit to find a less busy path. We went round all the main sites (again we had a ticket that gave us entry to all these) including the Long Corridor, Buddha Incense temple, the Seventeen-Arch bridge, Suzhou Street (which is a small scale mock version of part of the canal-ringed city of Suzhou, which we visited later on the holiday) and the Marble Boat. In Suzhou Street you could take gondola rides, but a short trip (that an American tourist wanted us to take with him) was going to be £50, so we declined. All round the park there were people selling peeled cucumbers to eat, but we decided to just have ice lollies instead.

We did go on a boat though, getting the ferry across the Kunming Lake, which was far cheaper (a few 10s of pence I think) than the gondola. On the Seventeen-Arch bridge there were quite a few people with kites who had attained a serious height with them! We could have spent hours in the park, but it was hot and we were quite tired out and decided to head home. At this point the wind picked up and blew up dust and also made the lake rather choppy, which was interesting for all the people out on it in peddloes.

To get home none of the officially licensed taxis wanted to take us using the fare calculated on the meter and were all asking for more than it should be. So, we took the risk of an unofficial taxi who was going to charge us less (about £10). Despite it being an unofficial taxi it was all okay and we got back without incident.

Overlooking Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace

For dinner we went to the nearby mall again. We wanted to go to The Grandma's (a chain restaurant serving Hangzhou-style food), which we'd seen huge queues outside every night. We weren't quite sure how the system of getting a table worked, but there was a screen, and automated voice, outside that seemed to shout out when your table number was ready. I got a table number from the reception area and got told something, which the person behind me in the queue kindly translated into the fact that we'd have to wait about one and a half hours for a table (our number was in the 120s and the current number on the screen was in the 60s). It seemed that there was a touch pad that we think you could put your mobile number into and receive a text when your table number was about to be called, but we just decided to hang about and have a look around the mall until it was ready. We also went out on to Wangfujing and had a quick beer, although the temperature had dropped by then, so we didn't hang about. The one and a half hour wait was well worth it as the food was fantastic. We had a pork dish, a fish stew (on the menu it's spiciness scale was 1 out of 3 chillies, but it was very hot by our standards), cauliflower and vegetable spring rolls.

Afterwards we just headed back to the hotel to pack our bags for the trip to Hangzhou in the morning. We attempted to use the huge bath in out hotel room, but it was so big and took too long to fill to a reasonable level, so was abandoned after I had a little paddle!

Honeymoon: Day 3

12/04/12 - After the exhausting day of walking the day before we slept in until 11am. After getting up we swapped rooms, being downgraded back down to the style of room we'd paid for. Had we not had the initial upgrade and seen the size of that room we'd have thought the new room was huge. Even-so, it was still pretty big with all the same furniture and bathroom style, just in a slightly smaller space and with no small courtyard area.

The hutongs near Jishuitan

Our plan from the night before had been to visit an insect market in the morning, but given our late start we ditched that plan and just decided to do a hutong walk from our guide book. As we'd missed the hotel breakfast and it was late we went for lunch before our walk. We gave the beijinger website a second chance to recommend us somewhere and found a Taiwanese dumpling chain restaurant called Chamate. It was very close to the hotel in a very swish 6 floor shopping centre on Wangfujing. The shopping centre was still under construction with escalators being installed around us! There were loads of restaurants in there, so we actually had a lot of choice and we used it more in the next few days. It also contained a lot of western shops including a new Forever 21 being built - like back home on Buchanan Street apparently (this was Jen's observation not mine). In Chamate, which was very busy, we had squid balls, scallion pancake, shrimp noodles, sweet and sour pork ribs, sweet green tea and a papaya milk shake. It was all very good and cost about £16 in total.

After satiating ourselves we got the underground to Jishuitan to start our walk. To start this involved walking down a very busy shopping street (Xinjiekou Bei Dajie), which included a large array of guitar/ instrument shops. We turned off the main street into alleys of hutongs, some of which had been remade and some were more original. In most of the hutongs there was something for sale like fruit, drinks (all food and drink in this area was on sale far cheaper than on the main streets, but we didn't take advantage of this), bike repairs, or even doors. There were generally children about and clothes drying outside, so they were all homes as well as businesses. We purposely went slightly off the directed walk route, but got ourselves back to the right place quite easily.

The shrine to the 'four immortals' (including a hedgehog) in
Prince Gong's palace

Next on the walk, going passed Beijing Normal University, was Prince Gong's palace. Around the palace you could tell it was getting more touristy as we started seeing lots of rickshaws and were getting asked if we needed a ride anywhere. We went in the palace and it looked quite quiet and peaceful. It was very nice, but when we got to the garden at the back of the palace we hits load of tour groups (in coloured hats as before). The gardens were beautiful, and a shrine of note was that for a hedgehog amongst other animals!

After leaving the palace we walked past through more hutongs towards the bottom end of the Houhai Lake, and then on the Qianhai (where we'd ended up on the first night). Looking in to some of the courtyards we passed we could see that they'd been done-up and looked very fancy. We walked round Qianhai (there weren't any bands playing in the bars this time, but we did see a bar by Houhai that sold "Fucking good mojitos") through lots of hutongs that had been rebuilt with tourists wanting to see "old style Beijing" in mind. We stopped for an ice-cream (a rum and raisin Cornetto cup for Jen) before walking up to the Drum Tower.

Armchair dogs on Gu Lou Dong Da Jie 

Walking on from there (passed some dogs on armchairs) we found the North end of the street (Luogu Hutong) we had originally planned to go to on the first night. On this street was also found the hostel that was organising our Great Wall of China walk. There were lots of very cool gift shops along the street, and many cafes and bars. We also found that the other end of the street was actually accessible by going around the building site that had stumped us before.

We walked back to the hotel through a park area in the middle of a wide boulevard (Beiheyan Street). We saw little children and parents playing, many small dogs and children doing homework.

Back near the hotel there was a Dragonfly Spa, so we booked massages for the Saturday morning (the day after our Wall walk). We also bought water/ beers/ crisps for our packed lunch on the walk.

Dessert at Hua's Restaurant

That evening we went to dinner at Huajia Yiyuan in the Macau Centre near the hotel. It was very fancy with a huge reception area and we got a table for 8 people to ourselves. Despite it being not that late it seems that people eat dinner early in China, so the restaurant was emptying and being cleaned-up while we were there (this was a common theme on the holiday). There was loads of choice on the menus and there were pictures, so we knew what to order. We had duck pancake rolls, aubergine abalonie sauce, hau's special cabbage, fish kebabs, veg fried rice, and an amazing special Beijing regal dessert - bird cage pastries! We also got more complementary fruit. It all came to 362 Yuan, but for some reason we were charged 260 Yuan. Jen speculated that we'd got a special ginger discount!

Honeymoon: Day 2

11/04/12 - We got up at a reasonable time in the morning as we wanted to make the most of the day and get down to breakfast before it was cleared away. Breakfast in the hotel was nice, although not the best out of the hotels we stayed in - generally during the whole holiday we stuck to eating western food at breakfast (all the hotels had egg stations!), although there was always a selection of Chinese dishes that we could have tried.

Entrance to the Forbidden City

The day's plan was to go to the Forbidden City, which was only about 10 mins from our hotel. The rain of yesterday was pretty much a one off for the honeymoon and on this day the weather was hot and sunny (it stayed like this in Beijing). Walking to the entrance there were a lot of tour guides touting for business and saying that they could get passed the ticket queues quicker, but we just wanted to sort it by ourselves. At the entrance there were huge queues of Chinese tour groups in which each group had there own colour and style of hat. The ticket queue for non-tour groups folks was quite long, but actually took under 10 mins. We then got our audio guide and went into the City. It was interesting place and really big - we probably spent a couple of hours in there, but Jen was quite shocked by her first (and worst of the whole trip) experience of a Chinese public toilet. Near the exit people were being stopped going through by soldiers and there were official looking cars about, so we thought it might have been state officials going by. We went back the way we'd come and found another way through (we ended up at the same place, but after our detour the officials had passed and people were allowed through). Also, whilst in the Forbidden City it was the first time on the trip that Jen had someone request having their photo taken with her (due to her red hair we assume.)

Across the road from the exit was Jing Shan park, which has a happy story of an emperor hanging himself in it! The hill in the park was actually constructed from the soil excavated during the making of the moat around the City. While walking up to the top Jen attracted the attention of a large group of photographer with telephoto lenses trying to discretely take her photo. The tower at the top of the park contained a large Buddhist shrine and offered great views back over the Forbidden City. The park also offered a better second toilet experience than that in the City.

The Forbidden City from Jing Shan Park

From there we walked back down the side of lake in Beihai Park and the side of the Forbidden City to Tianamen Square. There were a lot of soldiers about including some rather obvious plane clothes soldiers/police. We saw the famous portrait of Chairman Mao and headed and through the gate at the north of the Square, which turned out to be the wrong way and just headed back to the Forbidden City entrance! Going back out to the Square we got accosted for the second time, so that a man and his son could get their photo taken with Jen. Initially I was in the photo, but they then asked me to move out the way, so it was just Jen and the man's son! Crossing under the road via the subway (which had X-ray machines) we were in the main part of the Square. We wandered past Mao's mausoleum (not going in to see his body) and saw the changing of the guard. At the south of the Square we went into the Qianmen Gate building - this offered a good view back over the Square, but didn't contain much of interest.

Mao's mausoleum in Tianamen Square

We walked down Qianmen street and went for a pot (well many refills of a pot) of tea at Haos Tea House. We'd not eaten since breakfast, so also had an ice cream from the Hagen Das across the street. After passing a shop for London Olympic merchandise (presumably a reassignment of a previous Beijing Olympic shop) we found a physics-themed footbridge at the bottom of the street. Around this area our guide book had said there were Hutongs (the narrow alleys and courtyards where people would traditionally live) that you could walk round, so we attempted to find them. But, they seemed to have all been flattened for new buildings (we did find some others over the next few days), so we just walked back to our hotel.

We booked dinner at the Pure Lotus vegetarian restaurant, which required us to take our first subway journey. We had to use two different lines, but it was very simple and cheap (20 yuan each). The map we'd brought with us didn't quite extend to the restaurant location (and we hadn't even noted down the address!), so we had to wander around slightly randomly for 30 mins before we found it. It was a rather fancy place with a huge wooden door at the entrance. The food was all served in very elaborate dishes and it looked rather impressive. There was a huge wooden menu that was very confusing. This confusion meant we ordered far too much including a chilli and fake "chicken" thing served in a huge banana-shaped dish (which we didn't really ask for, but just got told about and accidentally brought). But it was all very nice albeit very spicy (given the large amount of chilli). At the end we got complementary fruit served in dry ice!

Complementary fruit

After dinner we went to find bar we had found on the beijinger website, called Q bar, which was supposed to be good for ex-pats. After a 20 min walk we found the bar, which was above a slightly dodgy looking hotel - it was packed, but a bit odd and we couldn't get drink! We left with the feeling that we'd stumbled across a special singles, or swingers, night!?

It was now too late to get the underground home, so we tried hailing a taxi. Eventually one did stop for us. We had a card from our hotel with its address in Chinese script, but the driver had very thick glasses and didn't seem to be able to read it. The driver did seem to have understood the card though and got us back to the hotel for a fee of about £2.40.

Honeymoon: Day 1

It's been over a month since my wife and I got back from our honeymoon. While away we kept notes of what we did each day with the plan to write these up here as soon as we returned. Well it took a bit longer than planned to get round to it, but here is the first of our day-by-day instalments: travels to Beijing (we went to China in case you couldn't guess!) It may be a bit more detailed than absolutely necessary, but it's also there as a reminder to us.

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Day 1 (and a bit)

09/04/12 - Just over a day after the wedding we boarded our flight to China. We flew with Emirates going from Glasgow to Dubai, with just a couple of hours in Dubai airport, and then on to Beijing. We arrived in Dubai airport late at night feeling pretty exhausted mainly due to finally starting to come down from the wedding high. Having realised I'd forgotten deodorant and Jen needed some make-up we did a bit of duty free shopping before trying to find somewhere for a snack. After much indecision we settled on a fish-based cafe where I had a beef sandwich, Jen had a croissant, and we drank some Sprite. This slightly revived us for the second leg of the flight. Originally the Beijing leg was supposed to be in an Airbus A380, but in the end it was downsized to a more standard Boeing 777.

10/04/12 - We arrived at Beijing airport in the early afternoon. We passed through a thermal imaging machine to check if you've got a fever and need to be quarantined, and then went into the impressive immigration hall. We passed through immigration without any problem and after a short monorail ride our luggage was waiting for us (this can often be an issue for me - in the past Jen has blamed my luggage woes on flying with a big back pack, so I'd been made to buy a proper suitcase for this trip). Our taxi driver from the airport was friendly and kept trying to point our things for us to look at, but as he spoke no English and us no Mandarin we just looked, smiled and nodded. Getting in to the centre of Beijing we were mainly struck by the size of the place and the buildings - everything was massive. We arrived at our hotel (the Hotel Kapok) in late afternoon just as rain broke.

Our first room in Hotel Kapok

The hotel had a quite funky facade and looked pretty swish when we got inside. They didn't have the style of room we'd booked available, so they upgraded us to a bigger room (it even had a small outdoor garden area) for a day (this turned into 3 days, but unfortunately not the whole stay). The room was massive, with a huge bathroom, and even came with its own gas masks in case of fire!

Night street food market

After having a brief rest we headed out to get some food and have a bit of an explore. Just about 100m from our hotel there was an outdoor food night market and one of the major Beijing shopping streets called Wangfujing. We perused the food market starting off with corn-on-the-cob-n-a-stick (rather than tucking straight in to the starfish/seahorse-on-a-stick) before heading down Wangfujing. Just off that street we found another small alley containing more colourful street food. With the rain having eased off we headed back to the main street market where we had crab dumplings, fried dumplings,spring rolls and banana fritters, which were all very tasty.

The band at a Qianhai lake bar

Despite the long day we'd got a proper second wind and decided that we'd try and find a pub. We briefly went back to the hotel to check our options before deciding to try and find a bar on Luogu Alley. We also decided that we'd try walking there as it didn't look too far on out map. It turns out that the city blocks in Beijing are larger than they look, but after about half an hour of walking (and seeing our first instance of the Chinese street dancing craze) we arrived at where the entrance to the alley should have been. Unfortunately it seemed to be a building site for a new subway station (a few days later we found out that there was a way through to the alley), so we decided to carry on walking to Qianhai lake where there were more bars. Another half an hour later we found it (after passing a bizarre Christmas display!) and walked round to look at the bars. All of the bars had live music going on in them and none were that appealing, but we wanted some alcohol after our long day and eventually just went into one after being accosted by a bar promoter type. The band in this place weren't that bad, but hadn't attracted much of a crowd. We both had a single drink and left to head home.

I made a slight wrong turn on the way back, but I realised my mistake quite soon and we headed in the right direction back to our hotel. After another long walk we made it back without any problems and quickly got to sleep.

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I expect the following posts will get shorter than this!

Munchen Glad-to-be-bach 3: Too Much Luxury

On the morning after the wedding we again managed to make it up just in time for breakfast at the hotel. I think I wasn't feeling too bad, although there was definitely some hangover there. At around midday we left the hotel and got taxis back to Plattling - not everyone who'd been with us on the way out was heading back at the same time though. Our return train to Munich was huge - a double decker with loads of carriages - so we had plenty of space to spread out. Why they'd not put on such a train on the Friday afternoon when we'd been travelling out I don't know! This time there were no unexpected stops.

For the next couple of days in Munich we were going to be staying in the Sofitel - a very fancy hotel (if you left your shoes outside you room at night someone would take them away to be cleaned overnight!), that my girlfriend had managed to get on a cheap deal from lastminute.com and which a some other friends had also decided to stay at. It was right next to the hotel, so was easy to find when we arrived. We didn't get too much time to indulge in the luxury to start with through, as a couple of my friends had to leave for the airport that afternoon and wanted to see at least a bit of Munich before they left. We wandered into the centre of town towards the Frauenkirche (Munich's main cathedral) and found a place to have lunch next too it. Most people had the roast pork, but I decided to go for a wurst dish that sounded quite nice (as far as my translation of the menu went), although didn't realise until it turned up that the sausages were boiled in a bizarre oniony vinegarette - it was ok, but not something I'd go for again. Luckily one of my friends wasn't able to finish her pork and crackling, so I was able to clean her plate.

After lunch our two departing friends had to head back to the station, so the rest of us went back to the hotel. Getting back there we realised how tired we still were after the exertions of the wedding the day before, so managed to fall asleep for a couple of hours on the extra large and comfy bed. That evening those of us that were left met up again and headed to the Löwenbräu beer garden, which is set in a pretty park (it's pretty if you can avoid the few local alcoholics that hang out there). It was a nice evening, warm with clear skies, so we were able to sit outside for a couple of hours with a Maß or two and a flammkuchen.

The next day my girlfriend and I decided to go exploring on our own by hiring a couple of bikes. Last year during Oktoberfest I'd done a bike tour, so I basically followed the same route we'd taken in that tour. After taking a slightly convoluted route we got to the Englischer Garten and had a look to see if any surfers were about again - there weren't any. We headed up back passed the Chinesischer Turm and out the north of the gardens. We then headed along towards the Olympic Park (home of the 1972 Summer Olympics). We had lunch (I had Currywürst) at the restaurant at the base of the Olympic Tower and then went up the tower itself, which has a great view of Munich. By this time the weather wasn't great - it was overcast and had started raining lightly, so we actually didn't get that great a view (the postcards seem to suggest that on a good day you can see out to the Alps) - last time when I went up it was similar weather.

From the Olymipic park we travelled further west to the Schloss Nymphenburg, an impressive Palace with massive gardens. We briefly wandered into the gardens and had an ice cream (not that the weather had really improved to make ice cream particularly appropriate), but didn't stay long as we needed to get our bikes back and meet up with others. We headed back toward the station where we'd hired the bike, taking a brief detour through the Hirschgarten (the biggest beer garden in Munich) - last year we'd stopped here for a drink, but this time decided not too (it was very quiet anyway, and the rain didn't make it that appealing).

After returning our bikes we decided to take advantage of the spa in our hotel. It was all very fancy with a bizarre shaped swimming pool. We decided to avoid the sauna though, being as it was
in the "Nude area" and us being prudish Brits.

The evening we decided to try to complete our visiting of the four major Munich brewery pubs (Hofbräu, Augustiner, Löwenbräu and Paulaner) by going to the Paulaner bräuhaus. This place had a reasonably small beer garden (although still massive by UK standards) and was described in our guide books as being "cosy" - it wasn't what you might term cosy, i.e. small, over here, but was very nice inside. Despite speaking pretty much no English the waitress managed to tell us that we were in on the all-you-can-eat buffet night - almost everything on the menu was done in buffet form for only €12.90 (or there abouts). We all decided that was the best way to go, along with another Maß. It was all very good - roast pork, wurst goulash, beef, fish, chicken and even plenty of vegetables - but general overindulgence from the previous few days meant none of us quite made the most of all the food on offer. However if you are in Munich on a Monday night I'd very much recommend it as the place to go.

The next day was my girlfriend and my last day in Munich - our flight was about 6pm that evening - but we tried to see a bit more of the city before we left. We walked from our hotel to the River Isar, where we'd previously been to the Deutsches Museum, and crossed to the Müller'sches Volksbad - a public baths - were we had lunch in the cafe. We then walked through a park along the Isar towards the state parliament building - the Maximilianeum. From here we walked to the Friedensengel (Angel of Peace), and then headed back across the river towards our hotel. We did get caught in quite a downpour on the way back, but managed to shelter in a department store. We got back to the hotel and sadly said goodbye to the luxury to head back to our normal lives.

That was it for our trip. We had an uneventful flight back and no-ones bag got lost. It was really nice to be able to see Munich again (and not with the Oktoberfest crowds about) and of course the reason for the trip, the wedding, was fantastic. The next holiday will be to Nice next month (although, airport strike willing, we're going to another wedding in a couple of weeks time in Cork), which I'm very much looking forward to.

Munchen Glad-to-be-bach 2: The wedding

Here's a follow-up post to my earlier Munich post.

Following a day of exploring Munich it was time to head to Auerbach for the wedding. There were a few of us planning on getting the train from Munich to the wedding location, but we had to wait until early afternoon until our whole group had arrived in Munich (not that we were in a particularly good state to have actually done anything in the morning). When at the station we went to get special Bavarian tickets, which each allowed 5 people to travel and only cost just under €30. After some help from one of the station ticket agents, we managed to negotiate the various screens on the ticket machine and come away with enough tickets for us all to travel. A good start to the journey at least. After this we took over a station cafe for a couple of hours, whilst waiting for our the final arrival to join our group from the airport. During the wait two of the best men (there were three in total, but the other one had travelled out separately) took this time to go over there speeches and I got a sneak preview of one.

By 3:20, once everyone had arrived, we were able to get a train to Plattling, from where some lifts onwards to our hotels had been organised. The train was quite busy, especially the front half of it (which would prove to be telling later on), but we just about managed to all get seats (one of our group decided to sit on the floor, but it wasn't entirely necessary). The journey was going smoothly until we pulled in to Landshut where everyone seemed to be getting off our carriage. Initially we thought that this was good - we'd be able to stretch out round the carriage a bit - but it soon became apparent that we probably should be getting off too (a man had tried to explain this in German to us, but we'd not really been able to understand a word of his explanation). On getting of we realised what was happening - the train was splitting in two with the front half carrying on to where we wanted to go and the back half that we'd been in heading back to Munich! However due to our tardiness getting of the train there was absolutely no way we, with all our luggage, could squeeze onto any of the front carriages. So we had to call ahead and say we'd be delayed about an hour and a half waiting for the next train. Luckily the station we were at had a bar in it, so we were able to occupy ourselves there by having a beer.

We were able to squeeze onto the next train and eventually got to Plattling. The group then split as half of us were staying in Auerbach (where the wedding ceremony was taking place), whereas the other half, myself included, were staying in Hengersberg (which was the where the reception was taking place - and in my opinion therefore the sensible place to stay). We got a lift from the bride and therefore got a bit local information on the drive. Our hotel was a nice place called the Hotel Erika.

After getting settled into our room it was soon time to head through to Auerbach for the evening for some pre-wedding celebrations. Auerbach is a small and pretty village (farming and hunting country) where the bride is from, and where a lot of her family still live, so we got to meet many of them - and also some of the brides ponies. It seem that it's a Bavarian tradition that on the evening before the wedding guns should be fired to scare off any bad spirits - the bride and groom were wearing traditional Bavarian dress of a dirndl and lederhosen respectively. So, to this end we had a lot of explosions being set off during the evening, but rather than guns being fired we had milk churns - milk churns with gun powder added, then a plastic football wedged in the top, and then the bottom being lit, firing the football 50 metres or so and making a very loud bang. Unfortunately the bangs didn't scare off the many mosquitos. There was also beer.

The next morning we were up in time for the hotel breakfast and decided to have a quick walk around Hengersberg before having to head to the wedding. The weather was sunny and hot, with only a few clouds in the sky - perfect wedding weather. It's a small town, and therefore there's not a great deal to see. We walked up to a church, which had a good view over the town, and then back to the small town square where we had an ice cream. It was then back to the hotel to get our wedding gear on.

We arrived in Auerbach just before the first part of the wedding took place - the official state bit involving signing of papers and such - during which time we went for a quick drink (although I stuck to diet coke for the time being) in the local pub/hotel/butcher shop. Then came the church ceremony part of the proceedings. This was the first Catholic wedding I've been to and I was quite worried that it could last quite a while, and I didn't know if I'd be able to make it through awake - the vast majority of it was also going to be in German. I needn't have worried - we were having to stand up and sit down so many times, and there were many hymns sung and readings given, that it would have been hard to catch any sleep. I thought the highlight of the ceremony (other than the fantastic looking bride and groom) was the singer (a friend of the bride), who had a great voice - there was also a very good choir and band (we couldn't see the choir and band as they were above us, and when I first heard trumpets with the choir I thought it might be recorded until I saw one of then pocking over the balcony above my head). During the ceremony there had been several people dressed in full lederhosen sitting at the back of the church. Just before the end of proceedings they all got up and filed out - the reason became apparent when we all got out. On leaving the church there were more load bangs - the lederhosen-ed group all had big pistols (wood and metal with a big blunderbuss-like end) that they were firing into the air - this went on for about 10 minutes. There was the standard photo time and then time to head to the reception - the bride and groom had a special white Citroën 2CV to take them there.

The reception, back in Hengersberg, was held in a big converted barn and courtyard - from the outside it looked slightly like a building site as not everything seemed completed, but once inside the courtyard it looked great. There was an Oompah band and lots, and lots, of cake - I think having cake at the start of a German wedding reception is another tradition. Chocolate cake, cake with fruit on it, and all very nice too, but quite light, which was necessary given the amount there was. The groom then had to tap the first beer barrel and the drinking could properly begin!

The whole reception was great. After spending a while in the sun in the courtyard listening to the band, socialising, drinking a few beers from the barrel, and trying not to eat too much cake, we headed inside for the meal and speeches. It's not normal in Germany for there to be best men speeches (in fact I don't even know if they really have best men), but seeing as this was a multi-national wedding we had them. These were only read out in Enlgish, as none of the best men were particularly well versed in German, but they all went down very well (each of the best men had there own take on the groom from the different times of his life that they'd known him) and the bride was able to translate some of the most salient points. The groom also gave a speech, but this time in both English and German, which was very impressive and very well pitched - it got a lot of laughs in both languages. Later in the evening there was a surprise "speech" - as a way of getting round the dual language problem some of the brides friends has put together a silent play enacting out how the couple met and got together. It was very well done and everyone enjoyed it. The beer flowed quite readily the whole night - and despite apparently later that evening telling my girlfriend "I don't like dancing or singing" I was quite eager to get on the dance floor and was energetically throwing myself (and her) around, occasionally causing some near misses with other dancers, and singing at the top of my voice to the cheesy, but wedding-appropriate, band - without too much persuasion we got them to play 99 Luftballons. Not content on just having beer (which was all free) we had to end the night with rounds of schnapps (the only booze that wasn't free) - I can't say that it was particularly good, but I did manage to keep it down. I forget if this was before or after we did the limbo-ing! Unsurprisingly my memory of the end of the night becomes vague-to-non-existent, but my girlfriend managed to guide me back to the hotel despite my "outer wibbles" which threatened to wibble me into a river.

As I've already said, and without wanting to sound too gushing, it was a great day and the perfect way to celebrate the newlyweds.

Munchen Glad-to-be-bach

The other day I arrived back from my second trip to Munich. The first was time was last September for Oktoberfest (which for some reason I didn't really document on this blog) and this time was also to commemorate a wedding, but that of my friend rather than between Ludwig I and Princess Therese.

My girlfriend and I arrived in Munich a couple of days before the wedding (which was actually taking place in the brides home village of Auerbach) to have a bit of a holiday - as our guide we'd bought this book to give us the low-down on things to do whilst there. Our plane arrived in Munich quite late, and unfortunately without my girlfriends luggage (the reason for which was obviously due to my baggage curse - although my bag arrived with no delay), so our first night just involved getting to our hotel and sleeping rather than drinking any beer (we would make up for that later in the trip). Our hotel for the first part of the trip was the very pleasant Kings's Hotel "First Class" (only the best for us!), located close to the main train station, and also opposite from the aptly named b^o_obs table dancing club.

Our first day mainly revolved around waiting for my girlfriends bag to arrive (which due to reasons beyond anyone's comprehension took far longer to get from Munich airport to the hotel than should be physically possible). However, we still managed to get out and about and see a lot of sights. The first use of our travel guide was to find a good place for brunch - we ended up at a place near the university district - I ordered the "Ham and Eggs" from the menu, but my girlfriend was more adventurous and went for "2 Ei im Glas", which with my very basic grasp of German was able to translate as "2 Eggs in a glass", but we were still a bit confused as to what it would be like. The service wasn't the most lighting fast that it could have been, but I eventually got my food, and echoing our baggage arrival my girlfriend had to wait quite a while longer for hers - which was indeed 2 eggs in a glass (an ice cream dish by the looks of it). Despite the wait the food was good and the place was very nice.

Following this we explore a bit before checking back at the hotel for the bag situation. We walked through towards the university and into the Englischer Garten, to the Chinesischer Turm and then checked to see if there was anyone doing any surfing (there an artificial wave at one point on the stream that runs through the garden, which from last years trip I found out that people surf on) - there was only one surfer and he seemed to be struggling to stay on his board for more than a second or two. We then headed back to the hotel via the Hofgarten and Residenz - during which time I tried to act as tour guide by part-remembering information a real tour guide has told us during my last visit.

The bag had not arrived! So we went out again to meet up with some friends (nursing hangovers from the excesses from the Hofbräuhaus from the night before) also out for the wedding and then go to the Deutsches Museum - this is one of the worlds largest science museums, so naturally I wanted to go. It is a massive museum, with far too much to see in one afternoon visit. Our first plan was to try and see a massively scaled version of a cell that they have, but I managed (unintentionally) to get us waylaid in the physics section. I was very impressed with the displays they had (a large number of which, although not all, had English explanations below the German versions) especially the detail and quite technical information that they gave - this definitely wasn't a dumbed down museum, and probably wouldn't really be the kind of place to take small children, but I thought it was great. We did eventually find the cell, then went on to see the astronomy exhibits and just before closing managed to see an Enigma machine.

Again on returning to the hotel the bag had still not arrived, so pre-going out for the evening we had to head to the clothes shops. Given that we'd already been on our feet all day, and hadn't eaten since brunch, this was quite an arduous task (going to the shops is arduous enough for me at the best of times). We were then able to head out for dinner and drinks. We met up with the others at the Augustiner bräuhaus for dinner and had a couple of half litre of their Helles beer, and despite their overindulgences the night before our friends decided that it would be a good idea to go back to the Hofbräuhaus (who's other famous patrons included Hitler) - so that my girlfriend and I could see it of course (although I did go there last year). The Hofbräuhaus is very impressive and must be one of the largest pubs in the world, even so it was packed (on a Thursday night) as we had to sit outside in the internal courtyard. We decided that it wouldn't be right not to have a couple of litre Maß's and play some drinking games. We made it home somewhat worse for wear, but did find that the bag had finally arrived.

I'll try and soon write more about the trip (maybe just updating this post or in subsequent posts), but I'll leave it for now - you'll have to wait for the exciting stories of how not to get a train to Plattling, the joys of an Anglo-Bavarian wedding, and how we managed to complete collection of drinking at the four of the big Munich breweries.

[The blog title is a hilarious play on words based on the German place Mönchengladbach, which to be honest prior to looking it up on wikipedia I had incorrectly assumed was part of Munich, but is in fact quite far from Bavaria in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia - the title was too good to pass up though, so it stays as it is.]

I've now written up some more of the trip:
Part 2: The Wedding

Academe

In all my time in academia I've never been to Oxbridge - no meetings, conferences, or work-related visits - so I've never had the opportunity to see the dreamy spires of Oxford, or punt down the Cam. This is even more surprising given that I've lived in the South East (reasonably close to both) for the majority of my life, and have had friends go to both universities, and never even went as a tourist (I think on a family holiday or two we may have driven past Oxford, but never stopped there). Well I decided I should rectify this during my current impromptu holiday and yesterday took a trip to Cambridge. From my parents house it's a very easy trip (again, why have I not done it before!) - just a quick drive across to Hatfield (using the parents as a free taxi service) and then on an hour-long train journey direct to Cambridge.

You go to some places and they are quite different from how you'd imagined them. Cambridge definitely isn't one of them - it's exactly as you, or at least I, imagined in. On arriving I wandered round the Fitzwilliam Museum grounds, before going into the first College I came across - Peterhouse. I was very impressed by the college buildings and especially the grounds and beautifully maintained and manicured gardens behind it, but later saw that it was actually rather small and understated compared to some of the others (in fact it's the "oldest and smallest" of the colleges). Soon after I found my way to the Cam, where I saw my first punts although no one was out on them at this time.

For lunch I met up with a friend who works at the Centre for Atmospheric Science and we went to a very nice vegetarian cafe called the Rainbow Cafe (recommended by none other than Gillian McKeith!). Unfortunately, given that it was a lovely day weather-wise, the cafe was in a basement and had no natural light. After lunch we went into the King's College Chapel - staff and their guests can get in free, but otherwise there's a charge. The Chapel is probably one of the most recognisable buildings in Cambridge and I think must have been used in many a TV or film based in Cambridge. It's not what you might think of as a chapel, i.e. a quite small church, as it's massive and probably as big as many cathedrals. Inside there's some great stained glass windows and masonry, in particular the many greyhound and dragons on the coat of arms above each arch.

After King's I decided to do what I normally do at any university and seek out the Astronomy group - in this case the Institute of Astronomy (IoA). This required about a half hour walk out to West Cambridge and unfortunately away from the nicest parts of the city. After about 25 mins of walking I hit the Cavendish Labs, where the Department of Physics and some astrophysics groups live, along with other labs. There were some quite nice new buildings, but in reality the whole place looked and felt like an out of town science park rather than part of a historic university. A short walk further and up across Madingley Road got me to the IoA, which again was a bit underwhelming, but still good to notch off on my list of astronomy department I've been to (last month when I was in LA I had a snoop around the new astrophysics building at Caltech, which I was very impressed by, but I decided against just wandering into the IoA - at least at Caltech I had the excuse that I knew people working in the building, but I no longer know anyone in the IoA).

From the IoA I wandered through the grounds of one of the newest colleges - Churchill - which contained sports pitches, grass and clay tennis courts, and a cricket oval! Heading back towards the centre of town I accidentally found myself going passed the quite funky new (opened in 2005) Maths buildings. I then walked round the outside of two of the largest and most impressive colleges, Trinity and St Johns (although pretty much from the being at the maths buildings I'd been walking past the massive area of Trinity and St John's property and ground). Both these colleges (like most) charge for the public to enter them, and although there were several points were I could probably have got into both unchallenged (if I couldn't pass myself off as an academic then I'd probably look enough like a student) I decided not to risk it. Out the back of these colleges there were some great bridges across the Cam and there were now quite a lot of people out on the punts.

After all this exertion I went for a pint in the Eagle Pub, which I thought I recognised the name of, and was later told by my friend that it's where Crick and Watson announced their discovery of the DNA double helix. I then saw a few more of the colleges (and the Corpus Clock, or Chronophage) and had a wander around the Fen area before meeting up with my friend again for another couple of drinks.

The visit did make me wonder what it would have been like if I'd applied (and got into) Cambridge for my undergraduate degree or PhD. It does look like it would be a fantastic place to study, but I'm not sure if I'd have felt that after three or four years there. It's got a rather unique, fairy-taleish, bygone era, feel to it (as I said before, it's kind of like you imagine it) that you just don't get at other universities. That makes it great to visit, but may become too much after a while. Maybe someday I'll get to spend a bit more time there and find out, or maybe I'll give Oxford a try.

Interrail

In about two hours I board a train to take me from Budapest, where I've been attending our collaboration meeting, to Munich, where I'll be partaking in beer and sausage at Oktoberfest. Hopefully it'll be a nice journey with lots of pleasant scenery, but it does involve a 7 and a half hours on a train. If there's free wifi on the train (I have no idea whether this will be the case or not) I might give you a running commentary of the journey - or I might just catch up on sleep.

Ah, Vienna

This weekend just gone I have been having a holiday (not associated with a meeting or conference, just a regular break) in Vienna. I have a friend who lives there and decided that it would be nice to visit her and see a new city (I'd heard good things about Vienna from couple of people). I'm very glad I did have my friend there to visit, because otherwise I may have wasted the weekend due to a complete lack of preparation. I have discovered (well it was partly evident from my Caribbean holiday) that I'm not really the type who plans ahead that much, so I'm in debt to my friend who took it open herself to find things for us to do. And a good job she did to.

On Saturday (after a late brunch) we took a wander through the city centre (via the University - I'll pretty much always head to the nearest University wherever I am, I think they make me fell more comfortable), before going on a guided city tour. This started off from behind the famous Opera house and took us through the Hofburg Palace (which houses, to name one thing, the national library), then down some of the major shopping streets, and finishing at St. Stephen's Cathedral. One thing I'd also not done prior to travelling was check the weather - I'd expected it to be quite chilly, but not as cold as it actually was. The walk was very nice, but had left me lacking feeling in my toes and face, which I tried to remedy by climbing up the Cathedral Tower, but was more comprehensively dealt with when we went into a cafe for hot chocolate and cake - as we were in Vienna I had some of the famous Sachertorte. That evening, after getting ourselves properly frozen again by walking around outside (and with a brief look into one of the best known Viennese Café's - Café Central) we went for dinner. I had the biggest Schnitzel that I'd ever seen, probably about 12" in diameter, which I struggled to eat - a German guy sitting next to us told me that if I didn't finish it there would be bad weather the next day, but even with that incentive I couldn't manage the whole thing. After being so massively stuffed with food the only option was to digest the food by going to the cinema, where we saw Frost/Nixon.

On Sunday, again with no planning on my part, we had a busy schedule. First stop was the Schönbrunn Palace, which was the summer residence of the imperial family. We took a tour round the family rooms, in which I was most impressed by some of the beautiful wood panelled floor, and I also learnt a bit of history - my knowledge of the Austrian Hap/bsburgs is now greatly increased (although it started at a very low level and I hadn't even realised [or maybe very vaguely knew] that Marie Anionette was one). The snow out by the palace was quite a lot thicker than in the city centre, but we walked though it in the gardens. We headed back into the centre for our lunch of kaiserschmarrnn [corrected at the request of my friend] (a thick pancake-like thing, covered in icing sugar and served with plum jam - very tasty) before more culture in the form of an art gallery. Vienna has many, many museums and galleries, and we went in to the Leopold Museum, where there was a large exhibit of the musuems extensive Egon Schiele collection - I liked a lot of his work, but my friend was horrified to hear that I'd never heard of him before going to the musuem (this happened with a lot of the artist's she mentioned - what can I say, my knowledge of large swathes of art, history, classical music, etc, is very poor). During our time in the museum the snowfall had picked up considerably and there was a thick covering as we headed to the openair ice rink in the park in front of the Rathaus (apparently, according to our tour guide the day before, the largest outdoor rink in Europe!) It was a lovely scene seeing the rink and town hall in the snow and all lit up, and it was fun to get out on the ice (the rink had two main skating areas that were connected by an ice path through the park), but we eventually had to stop as my feet were hurting from the hired skates (I later found a very large blister on my foot!) The evening ended with what my friend told me was one of the best foods in Vienna - Käsekrainer - sausage with bits of cheese through it, served with mustard (or horseradish) and bread. I enjoyed my Käsekrainer and it was a very nice way to end the day.

I travelled home this morning (my friend even helped with this by looking up the timetable of buses to the airport for me - I am useless!) after a very nice weekend. I now have to go back there when it's a bit warmer. I also now have another airport to add to my pointless airport list :)