Aidan at Versailles

On December 14 we went on a tour around Versailles.

The whole main idea of Versailles was to be fancy - SERIOUSLY!

And what's with all the silent letters? There's so many around here!

We also went to a restaurant and I fell asleep at the table.

33 Kilometres in Paris

The meander

One of the great delights of our last long service leave was discovering the joy of avoiding the A roads in France and instead driving through small villages and along lanes. We have been doing the same this time. Today we have meandered past massive windmills being built, farms in the mist, beautiful  scenery and driven on Roman roads. As I write this we are driving into Paris and have just finished lunch in a little town where  the only place open was a tiny grill shop. The owner and customers spoke no English but we managed to order and have a feast! We had many laughs with the owner over our appalling French. This is the stuff of memories!

Rookie Errors

For seasoned travellers who have done this before and spent a full 12 months prepping for this holiday – we still make rookie errors that raise the stress levels and test our godliness to the extreme - 

Error 1 – booking for three people in a two person room (twice over) and not checking they will provide 3 beds for said room. Where do you sleep? Thankfully fold-out beds can be hired!

Error 2 – prepping arrival and booking info on the plane and then accidently packing it inside a book you’re reading. Where is it when you need it? Thankfully not still on the airplane!

Error 3 – not packing a map, not buying a map at the airport, not prepping a GPS device or internet phone connection. How do you figure out where to go? Thankfully Maccas has free wifi!

Error 4 – miss-hearing the GPS (yep it was pre-loaded in the car) and winding up on a toll road and in a toll booth lane that only accepts French credit cards. How do you get through the barrier? Thankfully English speaking staff eventually find you!

Error 5 – not pre-reading the road rules, not checking on the local customs. Who gives way to right turners at an intersection? Thankfully they mostly make it up as they go!

What will happen next? Who knows! Praise God learning new things on the journey is most of the point of the journey anyway.  

Amiens at night

The Cathedral at Amiens this evening (Dec 17). When originally constructed it was colourful, now they recreate the effect with lights ...

Trains, Boats, Feet and Automobiles

We awoke this first morning (Dec 12) to perfect weather for our sight-seeing tour of Hong Kong. Our guide Amy Overy of Hong Kong Greeters met us in the lobby and we were off!

Trip 1 was a train down to Kowloon from the Lantau Island where our hotel was located near the airport. The trains are amazingly efficient, clean, fast and safe. Glass sliding doors stop passengers approaching the platform edge and the driver always manages to line up the train doors with the platform doors perfectly on the first try. The trains come approximately every two minutes and the double-decker platform system means that people movement is swift and simple. No graffiti, no rubbish, no spitting and no petty theft made it all a very enjoyable and trouble free journey. Along the way Amy introduced herself and gave us basic tips and history about moving around Hong Kong.

Trip 2 was a mini-bus which picked us up in a car park area off the train station which also just happened to have a shopping centre built in. Efficiency is their middle name over here and the Octopus system made it all very simple.

A short walk through the earliest port area of Kowloon where the original “time-ball” was located and we were up to trip 3 – a ferry ride across the harbour onto Hong Kong Island proper. On landing we walked towards the historical and financial heart of the Island around the HSBC building and court area. Multiple stops for history of architecture and features of interest kept us fascinated all through this area – the building of a 1000 butt-holes, the Koala building and the bamboo sword were the clear highlights.

We gradually made our way through various features (including a stop-over at St John’s Cathedral) up to the Mount Victoria railway and took trip 4 to the top along with a crowd of others heading the same direction. A mountain top stop for traditional snacks and multiple photos and then trip 5 bus ride down to the bottom near the Ferry wharf where we then walked to lunch next door to the Hong Kong registry office – wedding parties everywhere and a Dim Sum lunch in a reception joint completed the picture.

After lunch trip 6 saw us back on the train heading for Shatin where we walked to the end of the block and entered the rain forest along a concrete path that led us up to the Ten Thousand Budha’s Monastery. Golden replicas of life sized monks lined the path up the mountain and we were treated to a panoply of fascinating figures. The Temple up the top was a fine example of religious pluralism – fervent Buddhism blended with local superstitious ancestor worship. Truly fascinating and yet terribly sad – religious slavery creating a local economy in goods to burn to keep your ancestors happy. This made us all so thankful for the freedom we have in Jesus. The local monkeys seemed to know best and showed no respect for all this sad devotion making their presence felt as we descended the hill on the other side into a slum area in one of the many gullies.

From here trip 7 took us to the market areas of Mong Kok East where we walked through the bird, flower, fish, pet, clothing and food markets one after the other. This was one of the older more traditional areas of the city and it felt like what we remembered from 1998. Trip 8 was in taxis back to Kowloon station from where we trained it back to our original stop at Tung Chung back on Lantau Island 10 hours later. Amy was a goldmine of cheerful information and seemed to know the city like the back of her hand as she regularly took us from street to street through shopping centres, buildings and pedestrian paths that we never would have found on our own. All told – an excellent journey of Hong Kong culture and discovery.

Our itinerary

So, here's our plan... (God willing!)

 11/12 - fly Sydney to Hong Kong. Plans include all day tour and Disneyland.

 13/12 - fly Hong Kong to Paris. Plans for France include Versailles, Normandy& Amiens (WW2 & WW1 sites), Paris

 22/12 - fly Hong Kong to London. Plans for UK include London (Christmas! Tower of London, British Museum, War Cabinet Rooms, Matilda, Christmas Carols and Readings at the RAH, Westminster Abbey, Globe Theatre), Windsor Castle, Dover, Portsmouth, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Bath, Cotswolds, Oxford, Blenheim Palace)

 3/1 - fly London to Washington DC. Plans include hanging out with Ian, Linda & Rowan (Karen's brother and family), basketball, walking tours of National Mall, Arlington Cemetery, Pentagon Tour, Smithsonian Museums

 7/1 - fly DC to San Francisco. Plans include church, shoe shopping, walking across the bridge 10/1 - drive to Yosemite (2 nights)

 12/1 - drive to Las Vegas (1 night)

 13/1 - drive to Williams, Az (via Hoover Dam). Stay 4 nights on a ranch! Near Grand Canyon.

 17/1 - drive to LA. Staying with the Parrish family at 2609 Orchard Court for the rest of our time here.

 18/1 - Knotts Berry Farm

 19/1 - shopping for big shoes! (amongst other things). That night Luke and Max fly back home.

 20/1 - Universal Studios

 21/1 - Reagan Library

 22/1 - Church with Connie and Chuck. Norton Simon Museum?

 23/1 - Disneyland (with Ian, Linda and Ro)

 24/1 - DCA (with Ian, Linda and Rowan, if they're not sick of us ;) )

 25/1 - pack, shop, leave!

 26/1 - doesn't exist for us this year :( not very patriotic of us!

 27/1 - land in Sydney.

 Thanks for reading along!