The most beautiful moment of perfection

Today, I think I witnessed "a perfect scene."
I was sitting in the gardens of Leed Castle in the province of Kent and it was perfect. It was beautiful.

What made it so perfect? You may ask.
Well, the greatest part of sitting in the garden of a castle that is 800 years old is that there was no noise.
And by noise I mean man-made noises. There were no cars, no planes, no roads nearby, no suburbs... Nothing. Aside from the occasional group of quiet chat from passer by's, the only sounds to be heard were that of nature. The creek nearby was swishing through the rocks and there was a plethora of different birds chirping in the trees and by the lake. And these birds were not loud and annoying like crows or galahs, it was really pretty.

I was sitting on a patch of a grass by the lake under a tree with thick foliage so there was plenty of shade. It was so incredible. It was so relaxing and peaceful. I could have sat there for hours upon hours enjoying the peace and quiet. The clean fresh country air was also a very refreshing sensation. And also, considering it's in England, it was actually really nice weather! Pretty sunny and there wasn't a drop of rain all day and the breeze was only light and wasn't cold. It was incredible. It was perfect.

Only my girlfriend's smile could top it.

English chocolate

I just thought I'd throw it out there:

English chocolate is about a million times better than Australian chocolate.

I bought some Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate today for £1, just the plain chocolate, and it is far nicer than the chocolate of the same type sold in Australia. It tastes so much smoother and has a much richer flavour. So goot.

London journal entry 2

Today I had to vacate the hotel room that I was given by 10 am.
It was definitely the worst hotel room I have ever stayed in so I was glad to leave.

After packing up my stuff and leaving at the hotel for the people to move when my proper was ready, I grabbed some breakfast.
I found a little cafe thing that did a huge breakfast, so I had that.
From there I went to a big stadium called O2. In there, I went to a museum.
This museum showed the history of popular music in Britain.
It went from old rock in the 50s through early heavy metal, to punk and to the modern pop rock bands. It was actually really sweet. I spent alot of time in there. It had heaps of items that were actually owned by the musicians, such as Ozzy Osbourne's stage coat and one of Brian May's guitars. Absolutely fascinating.
Unfortunately, photography was not allowed in the exhibit. But I did get a good photo of me with a huge statue of Eddie the Head (Iron Maiden's mascot) outside the museum which was sweet.

After that, I had some Starbuck's coffee and caught the train back to the hotel. I got the key to my proper room and it is much much nicer. I unpacked and now I sit here typing up this blog.

Tomorrow I will be taking it easy because I am really exhausted.

London Calling

It is currently 5:30 local time here in London and I am sitting on my bed in the hotel.
As you may know already, I caught a bullet train to London from France. The train trip took 2 and a half hours.
The London train station is pretty huge, and it took ages to get out of the station and grab a taxi.

When we finally got to the hotel, there was a slight problem.
The woman that was staying in the room I had booked before me had a medical emergency and can't check out until tomorrow.
The only spare room is a very small room and they managed to cram to single beds in. Albeit they are both sitting right next to each other.
There is virtually no space now in the room. It is REALLY small, but at least it is only for tonight.
What a great start to my 2 weeks in England.

Because of this woman's unfortunate incident, both this room and my actual room that the woman is still in have to be cleared for the cleaners.
This means I have to spend all of tomorrow in the city out of the hotel. I was planning on spending tomorrow lazing and catching up on some energy after a week of running around 2 different cities looking at all the sites.
Not that I have any idea what I will be doing tomorrow, but London is huge and has plenty to do so I won't get stuck.

I will be London for the next week so it's going to be fun.
After that, I catch a train to Bolton via Manchester.
Bolton is a small town that my father grew up in so that could be interesting.
I will spend that following week traveling around some local areas and seeing what goes down.

Internet is not free at this hotel so don't expect to hear from me often, but keep checking this blog or my facebook if you are interesting in keeping up with what's happening. :)

I believe that's all for now. I need to buy some internet and upload this. I am currently writing this in Notepad haha.
But first, I want to eat and have a drink.

My time in Paris

I've only been in Paris for the last 3 and a half days, but I have done and seen so many great things.
Of course, I saw the Eiffel Tower.
Among others are:
The Arc De Triomph,
Notre Damn Cathedral,
Montparnasse
Palais Garnier,
The Pantheon,
Place De Vosgos,
Flame of Liberty,
And various other buildings. Majority of which were seen as part of a bus-refined tour around the city.

I didn't get up to alot aside from seeing all these landmarks.
I ate heaps of food including some croissants and french fries, had a few lazy drinks at a local pub and lazed about in the city in general.

But seeing all of those buildings was definitely the best part about Paris.
There are so many beautiful buildings here and so many of them are so old it's incredible.
The Notre Damn Cathedral was probably my personal favourite with its aesthetic pleasure. Absolutely beautiful architecture.

The first night I was here, I visited an area across the river from the Eiffel Tower which provided the best viewing spot.
Behind it there was an electric storm and I took some videos as it closed in on us. Looked amazing.
This storm eventually caught up to us and I ran to the nearest metro, getting soaked in the process. When the rain died down a little bit, I walked back to the hotel.
The rain and lightning didn't stop all night.
The weather on the 8th was the worst: Cold and wet all day.

I went up a tower called Montparnasse but because of the weather, the visibility was reduced. But so was the price of going up.
The view was still remarkable despite the heavy fog. The tower allowed a complete 360 degree view of the surrounding city, with half of the Eiffel Tower visible underneath the fog.
The rainy weather meant the windows were wet so the photos didn't come out the greatest.
Next to the Montparnasse was a shopping mall. I looked around there a little bit but didn't see anything interesting.

Today (9th June) I had a lazy day, but I bought myself a bottle of French Rum. I can't wait to crack it open when I get back home!
Also today, well tonight, I will be attending a System of A Down Concert. SO KEEN FOR THAT.

And I believe that is all I really have to talk about. Check my facebook for photos!

I have had a great time in Paris and I think that this country is absolutely beautiful.
Tomorrow I catch a train to London where I will be traveling around England for 2 weeks.

Until next time, bye! :)

A day in Dubai

This place is the city of skyscrapers.

There are seriously a buttload of skyscrapers.
The city expands along one highway, called the Sheikh Zayed Road, with some random and organised expansion outwards, so it is just one long thin city.

First off, my dad and I caught a taxi to a spot along the river where we hopped on a ferry that went down the river about 200 hundred meters and then across. The ferry was just a piece of wood with an engine basically.
The market place was just beside the jetty we got off at so we went there, which was called Souk Dubai. I learned, firsthand, the meaning of "running the gauntlet." As you walk through the markets, the owner of every single shop walks up to you nagging the hell out of you to walk into their shop and buy stuff and they just don't give up! It was absolutely nuts.
There were bulk shops selling spices, gold, watches, clothes and jewelry.

From there we caught a taxi to the Metro train station.
From there we went to the Mall Of the Emirates. We bought Gold class tickets which is a comfortable little room at the front of the train, and the trains here are automated so the view was awesome. Behind the Gold class train cabin was the Women and Children only section, and behind that was just the normal.

The Mall Of the Emirates is just a bloody big shopping mall. It was like 5 stories high at least and covered huge area. The stuff there is so cheap. There is a ski slope section inside the shopping mall which is obviously full of snow, but I wasn't there long enough to go inside.

After the mall we caught a taxi to a place called Palm Jumeirah. the Palm Jumeirah is a giant man made island with a huge highway and monorail running down the middle. It is still under construction so there are large sections of just sand. The completed sections are fancy houses with heaps of greenery.

At the end was the Dubai aquarium, which was huge! It was called Atlantis and is fairly self explanatory but I loved it.

We hopped on the monorail from there and traveled down the Palm and the view was incredible. We then caught a taxi to a 7 Star hotel and had a look around. My god it was SO fancy. Walking in there made me feel like dirt.

After that we jumped on a train back to the hotel which is now where I sit, typing this blog. I am yet to go out for dinner and I'm not sure what we'll be having.
But, I must say that I'm really not a fan of 21 being the drinking age, sigh.

Tomorrow I travel to France. I'm looking forward to Paris very much!

On the plane to Dubai

"I am currently on the plane from Perth to Dubai. I have been sitting on this plane for 5 hours and still have 6 hours to go. It doesn't help that I have a killer throat and a throbbing headache that just won't go away. This plane flight has been constant turbulence with the seat belt sign going on and off, on and off...
The plane left at 6am Perth time and is scheduled to arrive at 5 pm Perth time, which is 1 pm Dubai time. So at least I get to travel through time to the past.
Oh and the weather report for Dubai states that it will be between 40 and 50 degrees C.
..
The plane is now experiencing some epic turbulence and I am feeling kind of sick and my hands are shaking. Is it too late to say that I'm not a good flier?
The pleasures of holidays, right?

*update*
It's now 12:30 Dubai time and the captain predicts 30 minutes until boarding so we are right on schedule. The temperature on the ground is 42 degrees Celsius. Gotta love the summer desert at midday. Nice and warm for sure."

---

I am now sitting comfortably at the hotel in Dubai at local time, 2:37 pm. Perth time is 6:37 pm. Did someone just say jetlag?
I had about 4 hours sleep last night at the most and didn't sleep a wink on the plane.
But anyway, now to talk about this incredible city.

First off, it's a giant city in the middle of the desert. There is sand just, everywhere. As you would expect. But despite it's boring, plain, sandy, rocky, dusty, humid, boiling, smoked filled appearance, it really is quite beautiful.

The airport was absolutely massive. So ridiculous. I was walking for ages just to grab my suitcase.
I met dad outside the airport and we jumped in a taxi. The cars here are left hand drive so I sat in the front on the right hand side and it was weird!
Driving down the 6 lane highway, I got to have a good look at the city. It looks incredible.
There are huge skyscrapers that make Perth look like a babies sandcastle and then there are small hovels just around the corner that make me feel like I'm playing Battlefield.
The sky cannot be seen at all because of all the smoke. It's just constant haze.
And the humidity levels are so fricken high!

But enough of this sitting in a hotel room. It's time to explore!