Author: kymdt

No person need go hungry on tour

Posted on by kymdt



No person need go hungry on tour, originally uploaded by kdt.

The caravan is an amazing temple to consumerism. Like a Christmas Pageant on steroids a very long cavalcade of vehicles with pretty young things gyrating to pulsating dance music travel for the length of each stage. Alternating between taunting and delighting the crowd. The objective is to get the spectators to worship the products. This year a sausage maker is celebrating 40 years – the crowd sings its Happy Birthday in French. The sweet manufacturer has the crowd chanting its name. The bottled water supplier sprays the crowds with water while conducting acrobatic contortions from a slow moving truck. There are banks, newspapers, betting operators, television channels, the police and fireman are represented.

The photo is some of the stuff we have collected in two days. We need buy no more water, madeleines, sweets, snack foods while in France. I have a hat for every occasion, a baguette back (one of the best), pens, bottle openers, washing detergent (yes, that’s right we can wash our clothes), hand clappers, and to Helen’s delight three massive PMU hands.

After 5 Panches (A no alcohol beer freely served to the crowd), Helen was a convert. Oh did I mention the fresh bread and Nutella! If only I were a kid!

If only it passed through poor districts or visited the homeless!

Subway eat your heart out ……

Posted on by kymdt



Subway eat your heart out ……, originally uploaded by kdt.

You may all be expecting a TDF report, but you probably have a better idea of what is happening than I do. We stayed the night in a gorgeous (well priced) guest house at Les Rosaires beach. It has no wifi or tv in our room. A great break from it all (sounding like a person who has been on holiday for weeks and not the actual few days we have).

I digress, the purpose of this post is to share with you the wonders of the French boulangerie and what were described as American sandwiches. They are quite simply what subway should be. A well sized (I.e. Not overdone) piece of fresh baguette (yes, real bread) with a very simple but tasty fillings (no choice overload). Best thing is you can get a fresh pastry and an oragina and the cost for all of it is €10 (for 2 people!!!), that’s cheaper than a footlong and Subway meal deal for one in Australia. What gives?

The photo is one of Helen’s.

Biclooing around Nantes

Posted on by kymdt



Biclooing around Nantes, originally uploaded by kdt.

We have completed the first ride of our bike trip. This wasn’t one that has been agonised over for weeks, days or even hours. We had a need to find our car hire place.

We walked out of our hotel across to the train station, just happened across some fine French pastries (oops) and then we found the Bicloo stand. It was like a siren calling a captain. We gravitated helplessly toward the Bicloo stand. Hey we had 30 minutes surely thats enough to see Nantes???

We stood in front of the device haplessly pressing some buttons (the English button is particularly useful) shoved in my credit card (Why is it that everyone expects me to enter a PIN, but the machine never actually wants it???) to the machine and €2 later we were on our VERY HEAVY 3 speed bikes. While they could not possibly break time trial records they were easy to get going even up an over some bridges. In fact, we saw quite a few nice spots of Nantes. As you can see from our photos below.

The best thing, is that you can just drop it off and leave it. I reckon there is no better way around town. Can’t wait to try them in London, Paris, and Copenhagen. I hope it catches on in Melbourne and that perhaps we see more in Australia.

Noodles in Narita

Posted on by kymdt

Like Close Encounters of The Third Kind there has been one though that has dominated Helen since Australia.

Noodles in Narita!
Noodles in Narita!
Noodles in Narita!

Well we are in Narita. So where are the noodles?

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We could have got some at the Hotel Nikko, but no… We have to be authentic.

So it was on to the Shuttle Bus to the old town centre. We walked to the shrine and back, saw competing groups preparing for next weeks star festival. We looked for plastic noodles, we could have gone in to the Barge Inn (english pub) or the Jetlag Club (same time zone, thus no jet lag) or the friendly Japanese restaurant with Engrish menus.

But no…. We went for the upstairs smoky bar with no English menus. Somehow with a combination of very bad fooood japanese and bad English we muddle our way through. Had very nice soba, grilled pork, omlette and tempura. The complimentary fried tuna was scrumptious. Beer and plum wine the perfect accompainent.

So it’s good to be singular in your thought, sometimes!

Sydney Sunrise

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It is a fine morning here in Sydney. The sunrise at the international airport was rewarding. But not as rewarding as an express path through immigration and the popcake automated pancake machine in the lounge.

I would add a photo of the popcakes, but they are all gone. Besides, my ipad has no camera!

What not to do while in transit

Posted on by kymdt

Maglev Evidence, originally uploaded by kdt.

We could not help ourselves, or to be precise I couldn’t. In Shanghai international transit passengers need to collect all bags and then go through customs and immigration. Which of-course with a dual entry visa means we were free to roam the streets of Shanghai for an hour or two.

I had done my research and new that there was a very convenient baggage deposit service. We dumped our bags and headed towards the worlds highest viewing platform and the 100th floor of the World Financial Centre in Shanghai.

We didn’t have too much time so we caught the fastest land transport in the world, the Maglev Demonstration Project and as the picture shows, we got up to the 431 km/h… But it still left for a very tight schedule. Helen in her full librarian voice demanded of the customer service officers to let us bypass the “experience” and go straight to the top. After some consultation with their leaders through their two way communication system we were quickly ushered to the lift.

The views through the murky stuff were still pretty impressive. I’ve uploaded a few photos to Flickr.

For most of the holiday the heart racing for fear of missing a connection was mostly absent. But this little journey did create a little race. You’re meant to be at checkin 2 hours before hand. We got there just after 1:30 hours before hand. It was sort of a blessing because there was no line! But it also meant that the bag checkers were bored. So our bag of goodies was subject to examination.

Helen had to explain the Mr Brush, the balded headed plastic icon with a brush mohawk for cleaning keyboards. I had to explain a few special bike bells and my super groovy new lightweight bike locks… I can see how those items looked suspicious on the x-ray machine. But we were let go after amusing the inspection man for a few minutes. By this time were moving towards the departure gate. Helen must have looked suspicious because her handbag was searched and she created much amusement with the staff by showing the lomo digitial camera!!

Ahhh… to think we could have just had a rest!

Japanese Beauty

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Japanese Beauty, originally uploaded by kdt.

The mobile phone does capture Japanese beauty as well as my EOS400D, so I thought I would post another photo from today’s kimono fashion parade. It was a complete surprise to turn up a the Nishijin Textile Centre to be treated to a fashion parade. There were a lot of snappy happy Japanese photographers there.

Kyoto Best by Bike

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Kyoto Best by Bike, originally uploaded by kdt.

There is absolutely no doubt, Kyoto is best seen by bike. Yesterday we met up with volunteers from the Kyoto University Good Samaritans Club. They showed us their Kyoto. We hired bikes ate lunch at the University and enjoyed giant servings of green tea sweets! For good measure we saw a shrine or two! But the best bit was cycling around parts of Kyoto that are well off the tourist path! For good measure we hired bikes again this morning and did some of the most rewarding cycling. Their tiny streets and interesting buildings make it a great joy. As soon as you arrive in Kyoto you should hire a bike from the Kyoto Cycling Tour Project. The things we happened upon were interesting real world shops, good coffee, a small shrine and kimono parade!