Christchurch

Heading back to London from Bournemouth.
Was chatting to some of the people I met at AECC who live locally. They suggested I stop off at Christchurch on my way back... I wasnt sure what to expect but it was quite a quaint little place.

The most touristy thing in Christchurch is the Priory. It's such a nice sandstone church dating back to the early 11th century. I just love looking at the beautiful stained glass windows.

Christchurch priory

Am reading a book about the Reformation at the moment (a little *light* holiday reading). The history of the Church of England is quite interesting. The Christchurch priory actually escaped being demolished during the reign of Henry VIII when he was destroying monastries in rebellion against the Roman Catholic church.

Nearby is the ruins of a castle. Christchurch castle was apparently ruined during a civil war but I dont really know details.

D would hate this - too many birds & she HATES birds

Was a beautiful day today and a great day for a walk around. The priory has a pathway that leads to the town quay. The gardens around the priory are so beautiful.


Had lunch down by the water and saw the largest swans i've ever seen. And they're quite brave coming right up to you... one got very close eyeing my food but luckily it didnt manage to steal any.

beautiful! this one came up so close and almost took my lunch out of my hands...

AECC

Well today Bournemouth turned out an absolutely crapola day. Was rainy and cold which is such a change from yesterday. Today i went to visit the Anglo European Chiropractic College (AECC) which is the UK's oldest chiro college. I think there's McTimmony in Oxfordshire and a very small college in Wales.

AECC - the side view, pathway leading to the student clinic

AECC isnt actually in Bournemouth proper, it's more like Pokesdown so i had to take a bus there. The college itself was in Bournemouth before but moved to this current premises in the 1980's. Apparently the building used to be a nunnery. It's quite a beautiful sandstone building.

It's a separate college on its own that is loosely affiliated with Bournemouth uni. I guess it would be like early days with Sydney college of Chiropractic and Mac uni... only now chiro is a full uni course at Mac.

Got to have a look around the rooms. The buildings are pretty old... and some of the equipment seems pretty old as well. Had a chat to the principal and some of the post grad staff about the post grad certificates, diplomas and masters. It's not a bad structure - you can do 3 yrs for a masters... but after the first year if you opt out then you come away with a cert. and if you opt out after the 2nd yr you get a dip.
The only thing is they seem to have things you have to attend every month which isnt feasible for me as I cant be flying halfway around the world every month. So i think i might pass. Actually Murdoch has a really good post grad sports program but where is the fun in flying to Perth?? I would rather study outside of Aust so i can travel and claim the tax deduction.

Weather was still pretty bad when i left AECC so since i had an all day bus pass, I decided to take the bus to Poole to have a look around. But i walked around and got totally wet and in the end there was nothing there... although i did manage to buy a pair of ballet flats for 3 pound which is less than AU$6. bargain!! there's not that many shoes that fit me here as i'm a uk size 3 or 3.5.

Australian Bar down Old Christchurch St.

Coming home from Poole i walked past the "Australian Bar" so decided to pop in for dinner and a drink.
Well they didnt do dinner but i ended up having a drink before getting italian food nearer my hotel.




In true Aussie style, the bar is a sports bar so there's heaps of screens inside showing the football (soccer). The thing i find hilarious about the Australian bar is that i was probably the only one in there with an Aussie accent. The bartenders were wearing green and gold Wallabies jerseys but they had pommy accents!!

Bournemouth

The full photo album can be found here.

Today I travelled to Bournemouth... which is about 2 hrs out of london by train.
Bournemouth is a seaside town in the south-west England in the county of Dorset.
Tomorrow I'm heading to the chiro college nearby - Anglo European Chiropractic College (AECC).



I arrived at around 1:30pm so just took a walk around the area. Was a beautiful sunny day. London this morning was dreary and grey and rainy and then I come here and it's beautiful and sunny and warm!
Decided to take a walk out towards Bournemouth pier.

you can rent these pods for 8 pounds/day

the beach walk towards Bournemouth pier

 Bournemouth has some amazing walks and paths. There are some pretty grassy and flowery areas where you can just sit and enjoy the sunshine and scenery.

hanging out around harringay & woodbury...

still feeling slightly jet lagged... woke up early then was so tired i crashed out again.

at home we have possums in the roof... here there are squirrels. spent the morning checking out a family of squirrels on the roof. they're sooo cute!! so i think there's a mum and dad and then 2 little ones. one of the big ones kept climbing down the drainpipe and running across the fence and then up a nearby tree.
i was having breakfast watching them out the window when one of the little ones tried to climb down the drainpipe... but it didnt make it... and must have fallen 4 meters onto the ground on the other side of the fence... oh it was awful... was like it happened in slo-mo... i was watching it and then it fell and then all i heard was a big *thud*. so i ran outside and the poor thing had fallen in the passageway between the two townhouses and it couldnt get out. i went to help it but i must have scared it cos it ran off...

sooo cute... family of squirrels on the roof...

poor baby fell in the corridor and was trying to climb out but kept falling down

i was trying to help the little baby but i scared it so it ran...

ended up taking it easy... went shopping for a bit (mainly for groceries but popped into some fashion stores) and managed to get shoes that fit me at marks & spencer yay!!

harringay has a heap of turkish and greek restaurants... had some awesome turkish food. some people reckon stuff is expensive in the uk but i think food is actually really cheap. the only thing that is really expensive is meat... but the rest is cheaper than oz.

Sydney to London

well it's no secret that i really dont like flying.
it's incredibly boring for somebody who doesnt like to sit still.
so... 8 hours sydney to singapore... and i was so tired from being up at 4:30am to get to the airport my natural instinct was to sleep but i didnt want to as i thought it would muck up my sleeping patterns. so i watched a few movies and read some magazines.

one of the only times i like the fact that i'm short is when flying. my knees never touch the seat in front of me and if i want to stretch my legs then i just straighten them under the seat infront of me.

Singapore:
the first thign you notice when you step out of the plane is the humidity that hits you the second is the pollution. although singapore turned out a nice sunny day with blue skies. for some reason i always smell the pollution in any asian city. so i got into sg at 2pm and my flight to london didnt board till 10:30pm. what to do...

i decided to go out for some good food. i'll never be a skinny person cos i like my food too much. and hawker singaporean food is sooo good...and cheap! it's what i miss most.

i so didnt want to sit around the airport for 8 hours so i decided to catch the mrt to raffles and have a walk around. there is a new development around marina bay. they've built this huge complex with hotel, casino and shopping centre. so took a walk around.

Marina bay sands

F1 map

the F1 was also on so there were heaps of people out and about and lots of crowd control. the one thing i notice about singaporean people is they just dont seem to know anything though. i walked along the river and then tried to get back to the mrt station and even the police didnt seem to know directions.

i havent been back to singapore in 10 yrs... not since my grandparents passed away. so much has changed. it's so commercial and developed and i dont feel like i know where anything is anymore. took a walk around suntek city cos i used to like to shop there. again it's just so different to wat i remember.

decided to go back to the airport via east coast food stalls. still needed to find some good food.
but took the mrt to bedok and decided i couldnt be bothered to wait for the bus... so ended up eating at the hawker centre at bedok interchange. sooo cheap... i walked around and wanted to eat everything.
in the end i got hainanese chicken rice and durian ice kachang... and that cost me S$4.50 which is prob only AUD$4. cheap cheap!!
disappointed on not finding an indian store to make me my usual egg roti pratha... will have to be on my way back.

back to sing airport... i still hada couple of hours to kill so played around on the net with the free wi-fi in the airport.

ready for the long flight to london.
i boarded the flight to london at around 11pm (1am syd time). so i'd been up already for over 20 hrs. sooo tired which is good cos i thought that i woudl sleep most of the london flight.
the flight is scheduled to arrive 5:45 am london time so if i sleep most of the flight there then i should be awake for the day when i got to london.

sat next to 2 songaporean girls studying in the uk and had a good chat. i'm so bored of movies now... over the two legs of the flight i managed to watch: knight and day, the last airbender, a-team, prince of persia, iron man 2, some weird italian movie that i only watched cos it had subtitles and they hadnt handed out earphones.

London: 
heathrow airport. immigration was a pain... huge long lines and the lady gave me 20 questions. which was fine
but she wanted to see my intinery and everything... problem was i had printed it but i think it's sitting on my dining table at home.
and then i had some things to show her like my itinery for the ireland tour... she was not a happy lady... and i was grumpy from the long flight.
so anyway she let me into the uk in the end... yay! far out i dont see what the problem would be.
luggage took ages to come out and for about 10 mins i was contemplating the fact that it might have not made the transit. but all good in the end.
got on the underground ok. for some reason i was having a heart attack cos i couldnt reload my oyster card at the airport. so i hoped there was enough money on it to get me to turnpike lane.
met celeste at the station and then back to her place. chilled out for a bit cos it's pretty early.
decided to have an easy day... out for some vietnamese food and to check out some of the local markets. just kinda reminded me of paddington markets.
the one i went to is considered to be pretty trendy. liked a few things but in my head was doing the conversions and wasnt willing to pay that much for stuff i dont really need.

nighttime. i couldnt keep my eyes open. by 8:30pm i was just gone... zzzz

Travel tips #1 on the plane

lol this is just a little fun post on stuff that happens on the plane.

1. dont watch the inflight comedy movies. it's actually quite a trick to try and stop yourself from laughing.
you just feel like a fool sitting there with your earphones on laughing cos ppl just kinda look at you.


2. if you are seated on the inside, go to the toilet when the person next to you does.
aeroplane acrobatics skill still eludes me. ie. the art of getting out of your seat without mangling too many feet.
the space between seats is phenomenally small... it's so hard to get out when you have a window seat...
the trick is also not to knock anything or spill anything on people or step on their toes.
so best to go to the toilet when the person next to you gets up then you dont have to step over too many people. go even if you dont have to cos it's terrible to be busting to go when the person next to you is asleep cos people really dont like being woken up...

3. even if it's warm... it will get cold. getting your jumper or jacket out before you take off saves you the
hassle of trying to get it out of an overhead locker mid-flight.

Sydney Airport

Well its some stupid o'clock. Or rather I had to get up at some stupid o'clock to get to the airport for a 8am flight.

As predicted my luggage is overweight cos one whole bag is stuff for the friend I'm staying with in London. Lol courtesy of her mum. But anyway they let me get away with it cos its not hugely over.

Well its been a while since I actually was up for a sunrise cos I'm soooo not a morning person but Sydney is turning on a beautiful day that makes me dread the cold of the UK and Ireland.

Feel strangely disorganised for some reason but sure it is all ok. But airports are pretty boring I just wanna get going already.....

first post

the last few weeks have been crazy. just cos i've been working a lot. it will be nice to go and have a break.
today was my last day off to get stuff done for my trip. so i'm meant to pack today cos i wont have time thur and fri cos i'm working crazy to try and see everybody who wants to see me before i go (work and socially).

so where is the trip at... well... the roadtrip still isnt really planned. all i know is i start in newcastle-upon-tyne on the 4th oct and end up in bath on the 11th.
so here is the plan so far:

- fly out of sydney on sat 25th sept --> stopover in singapore for around 6-7 hrs and then off to london
- arrive in london on morning of sun 26th uk time. hang out with celeste for a couple of days
- go to bournemouth cos i'm visiting the chiro college there and attending a talk on the 29th
- up to newcastle-upon-tyne on the 1st oct for kinesiotaping course
- roadtrip - just drive aimlessly around the uk looking at stuff from 4th - 11th oct
- some stuff around wales i think 11-14th oct
- southern ireland tour - meeting up with es and doing a coach tour which is one of the only things i've booked for the trip. 15-21st oct
- gonna go visit and stay with my uncle in northern ireland. meet rellos i dont know/have never met?
- back to london sometime prob 26th (havent booked anything)
- leave london on 1st nov for singapore.
- stay in singapore 3rd to 6th nov and get into syd 7th nov... 6 weeks away... wow