Being terrible tourists in Singapore!

Upon leaving Garsten we were supposed to head to Zagreb, Croatia to kick off a road trip along the Dalmatian coast. Instead we finally made the hard but necessary decision to return back to Australia so I could consistently see the same doctor, do some further tests and figure out what was making me sick. By this point I had been sick for around 6 weeks and although we dearly wanted to head to Croatia (and Bosnia and Turkey and Sri Lanka!), it wasn't to be.

Instead we took a train to Vienna were we flew to Zurich and then Singapore. We decided to break up the absurdly long flight back to Australia with 4 nights somewhere in South East Asia. We opted for Singapore, a new country for both Rob and I, and the only island city-state in the world! Although it would likely mark the end of our overseas travel, we were excited to be heading somewhere new for a relaxing end to the trip.

Rob crossing the bridge to find our Air BnB apartment

Singapore didn't quite turn out as planned. Aside from me being "normal sick", we both got colds, had issues adjusting to the change in time zone and the overwhelming humidity, heat and smog. We had huge problems sleeping at anytime before 3am. This left less time for sightseeing and we turned into pretty terrible tourists! However, importantly, we did utilise our Airbnb apartment's wonderful pool and did some reading.

Sleeping and pool time were high on our agendas

From what we did see, and barring a few less enjoyable things (humidity, air quality challenges), Singapore seems like a great place to live. The city has done an amazing job at urban planning and seems to be prioritising gardens and active lifestyles. We went to the Singapore City Gallery which shows the transformation of the city over the last five decades. It is astounding the changes they have made over short periods to neighbourhoods, building and lifestyles.

Not a bad view from our metro stop

Singapore model at the gallery

New meets old in Singapore?

Older style buildings with skyscraper neighbours made quite a sight

Singapore is a lovely town to wander around, especially in the evening when the heat has lifted. We enjoyed the atmosphere around the river and found lots to see. The city buildings are quite spectacular at night. I'm not really sure why but part of the cityscape reminded me of Melbourne. (Of course I don't recall a soccer field floating on the Yarra but I haven't been home for 10 months!)

Singapore turned the lights come on

Floating soccer (i.e. using the land you've got)

Love these statues. Reminded us of similar ones we saw in Santander

"Play it forward" Piano's under a bridge for the public to enjoy

We were there! 

Interesting helix bridge near where we had an AMAZING ice cream sandwich

Our "final" day in Singapore was quite the experience! In the morning we enjoyed the beautiful botanical gardens. The National Orchid Garden was just fantastic. The orchids were so varied and very colourful. 

Paphiopedilum Hybrid

Rob enjoying the lovely mist garden

Worth battling the humidity!

Fountain and flora near the entrance

After the gardens we met up with Rob's old neighbour, James, and his wife Dora and two boys for a brief but lovely catchup - shamefully, WE FORGOT TO TAKE A PHOTO! 

In the afternoon I started to feel worse for wear. Long story short, hours before our flight I ended up at the airport medical centre where I was deemed "unfit to fly" due to having also contracted gastro. We had to book new flights for the next day which wasn't great news but at that point we were just pleased to have seen a doctor. Needless to say our (actual) final day in Singapore was low key. 

Our flight home consisted of less than an hour sleep between us but we were still smiling and happy to catch up with family and friends at the other end. (And plotting to keep the 2015 travel dream alive...stay tuned!)

Cycling Adventures 2: Oudewater, Gouda, Rotterdam and the Hague

We had some excellent weather in the Netherlands. It was perfect for cycling around the country and that is what we did:

More or less our 6 day cycling route

Day 1 - Utrecht to Rotterdam
Setting out kind of late we were again excited to be on bicycles, this time tent and clothes in tow. We had a map and although we would get lost a few times, the signage in the Netherlands is excellent (for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers). 

Blue skies and cycling!

Look over there!

Not only was the weather stunning but just about everything else was ridiculously scenic and lovely. I am not exaggerating when I say most people's gardens look like Australia's wineries*. I don't mean in size but in the care that is taken to manicure a lovely, welcoming setting. I really didn't see many exceptions.

Traditional Dutch house and baby windmill

Thought this statue was great

One of many, many lovely canals

* Not to say Australians don't keep lovely gardens. They do, just not with the same consistency as the Dutch. Who to be fair, have a lot more water and probably better soil!


It was not long before we stopped for lunch. In fact, we were still in Utrecht Province at a town called Oudewater. There appeared to be a lot of witch shops and the like. Later I found out that the town hosts some "Witches' scales." During the 16th century people accused of witchcraft would come to weigh themselves to prove their innocence and avoid being burnt on a stake. The idea behind the scales is that a witch weighs less than a normal person because they have no soul. Anyway, we knew none of this, failed to get our certificates of innocence and may well be witches. 

Deciding not to muck about, we hopped straight into some wine and a cheese board. It was delightful. It must be noted though that this was when we first became aware of the slight bee annoyance that would follow us our whole trip. (Where there are flowers there are bees.) Luckily we spotted the local technique of trapping bees in an empty glass or bottle. The trick was to remember to let if free when you left or the waiter would be in for a nasty surprise!

Enjoying the sunshine in Oudewater

After lunch we were on our way into South Holland, keen to stop in Gouda to check out the birthplace of the famous cheese. (It is also the home of Stroopwaffles!) It was mostly quiet with noone about except for the main square. Seems like lots of the locals were holidaying on the coast or elsewhere. We poked around a bit, ate some cheese and moved on.

Mmm cheese sign

Gouda's gothic city hall

Rob was first introduced to the clever processes the Netherlands use to manage their water challenges back in 1994. Having never been myself I was pretty interested to find out more about how the various mechanisms work. We saw the lock shown below on our first day as we headed towards Rotterdam. We watched how they reduced the water level so it would be level with the side they wished to enter. It took a fair while but I suppose traffic lights can too!

Watching how the lock worked 

Cycling on we made it to our destination Rotterdam. Ready to eat and put up tent (probably in the opposite order), we kept on cycling right to the edge of Rotterdam zoo. Our campsite was pretty standard but the woman that checked us in was extremely friendly and very excited to give us tips for Rotterdam. Desperately thirsty and hungry, after 10 minutes of advice, we had to cut her off!  Deciding to eat at the campsite was not what she had in mind but was what we did, vowing to make an early start and explore some of Rotterdam.

Here is a CRUCIAL camping tip for the Netherlands: They usually do not supply toilet paper. They seem to have absolutely everything else: restaurants, convenience stores, game rooms, mini-skate parks, bike hire, just not toilet paper. You can often buy it on-site but its a useful thing to know beforehand. (Sometimes they have a spot for it but just don't provide it.)


Day 2 - Rotterdam to Scheveningen

The next day we searched high and low for a breakfast spot. Many of the cafes were shut until we got right into the centre of Rotterdam's port. We had aimed to go to market square and ended up there for breakfast. Markthal, the "Sistine Chapel of Fresh Produce", is a new, exciting building that hosts 230 flats and a huge food market underneath. The eye-catching ceiling has images of fruit, vegetable, plants and animals; as well as apartment windows peeking through. I thought it was pretty impressive but did wonder how long it would be before it started to date.

Markthal ceiling

View from the outside

Due to the devastating damage of the Rotterdam Blitz in World War II, the city's building are all, relatively speaking, new and modern. I think it is interesting that the decision was made to demolish the city and start afresh, providing space for innovation and improvement. Across from the Markthal there are yellow cube houses poised on an angle over the main road. The cube houses, Kubusewoningen, designed by architect Piet Blom, were inspired by the idea of living in a treehouse in a forest. Each cube represents a tree-top. The space is now used for small offices, a museum for interested tourists, a youth hostel and social housing. More on Kubusewoningen here. 

Kubusewoningen

Underneath Kubusewoningen 

From Rotterdam we cycled a relatively short distance to our campsite for the night, near Scheveningen. The Netherlands has some "wild camping" spots scattered around the place and we'd picked this one due to its close proximity to the Hague. Unfortunately armed with the coordinates and a description of where to find this particular designated area, we absolutely could not find it! AND this was after an initial wrong turn that led to a one hour scenic route. (Luckily not just a figure of speech here: it was absolutely scenic!) We found the general vicinity of where it was meant to be and split up, searching high and low, in and out, round and about. Eventually we found a football golf centre where we asked for help. We got precise directions to "the woods", still had a bit of trouble, and finally ran into a teeny tiny sign showing us we could camp. It was by then late afternoon so we quickly put up the tent and cycled into Scheveningen for dinner. Coming back from dinner we were startled out of our skins when another voice came out from the trees near our tent. Turns out we had evening companions who had managed to find the site and even later than us! What a night we were all in for as a dramatic storm thundered down around us.

Triple windmill  

Traditional tent photo: "wild camping"

Day 3 - The Hague to Zandvoort
We got into the Hague fairly early for a morning coffee and the news. Looking at the pictures in the Dutch newspaper l saw that there had been an horrific accident the day before where two cranes had fallen, flattening houses. A dog died in the accident but amazingly there were no other fatalities or injuries.

Given the adventures of the previous day (i.e. getting lost), we did not spend a great deal of time exploring the third biggest city of the country and is the seat of government in the Netherlands. It was pretty exciting to cycle right into the political centre of the country at Binnenhof. I kept waiting for someone to stop me. Then I remembered I was in the Netherlands. They weren't going to tell me to get off a bicycle!

The buildings of Binnenhof were really something special and we spent a little while admiring them before cycling through other parts of town. Before coming the political centre, the Binnenhof was originally the residence of the counts of Holland. The Ridderzaal is the main building of the Binnenhof and was built in the 13th century. Amongst other things, Ridderzaal is used for the state opening of parliament where the monarch delivers the speech from the throne.

Outside the Ridderzaal

Binnenhof and Hofvijver lake

TO BE CONTINUED....

Kanazawa? Can he ever!

The colours of a lovely garden

Kanazawa for us was a land of sneaky ninja temples, re-invented castles, beautiful gardens, the freedom of a bicycle and the height of space-efficiency. Whilst here Kat also did some research work.


A great highlight of Kanazawa was visiting the "ninja temple".  It earns double-quotes because it has nothing specific to do with ninjas, rather than it has a number of very smart in-built defense systems, its true name is Myoryuji.  To visit, you must book ahead and go on a tour, and the tour is only available in Japanese, but that should absolutely not deter non-Japanese speakers.  Being "forced" into a tour seems a little over the top at first, but I assure you, it makes the experience more enjoyable, for you could not really learn all of the elements simply from a guide book.  Our guide gave us an English picture book, for want of a better word, that contains photos and a rough English translation of what she was saying in  Japanese in each room we visited.  The most important part of being on a tour was that they could control the number of people in any room, meaning we could definitely get to see each of the tricks employed throughout the building, up close.  

No photos in the ninja temple - but we got this
Plum Flower family crest outside

The simplest tricks were probably trapdoors that couldn't be seen by a person coming from a bright room to a dark one.  Others employed were paper coverings over the vertical parts of the stairs.  Defenders could lie in wait while the attacker walked up the stairs, and the defender could spear the attackers' ankles and feet based on the silhouettes on the paper. 

The buildings of the time period were only allowed to be three storeys, so the Maeda lords incorporated a deceptive architecture that made it look outside like there were only 3, but there were really 7 levels on the inside - something they achieved through hidden stairways and other lighting tricks.  There were escape tunnels that were sealed by the action of the attacker opening the door over the very trapdoor the defender had escaped through.  It is said that the well conceals a tunnel that runs all the way through to the castle, so that the lords could be warned of any attack.  Basically, if you saw it in The Last Samurai (which is 12 years old!), we saw it here.  A highly recommended visit!

While in Kanazawa, we visited the much feted samurai district where you can see inside some reconstructed/maintained samurai foot-soldier homes which were remarkable.  The use of space and light and the arrangements of the gardens were beautiful, and the whole area was very peaceful with free or low entry prices to the various homes along the creek.

A "backyard" garden in the samurai district

The giant ice-cream sandwich

Geisha-spotting appears to be a common spectator sport amongst people visiting Japan, and the geisha district of Kanazawa is full of people hoping to get lucky, their cameras ever at the ready.  It is also an area of fine restaurants, arts, crafts and beautiful buildings (and ginormous ice-cream sandwiches!).  We actually visited at a few different times of day to see it from different perspectives.  Teeming with shoppers and visitors throughout the day, it appears abandoned at night, although you can hear the laughter and clinking of glasses through the doors and paper-thin walls.  Another great place to visit.  

Geisha district by night

In between our Geisha district visits, we found a cute little sushi bar where we were treated to a performance in the preparation of our meal.  We also provided a source of conversation and entertainment for the other customers bored with the sumo wrestling on the TV.  The sushi-chef and his wife visited Melbourne on their honeymoon 20 years ago!

Kenrokuen Gardens

The Kanazawa castle and nearby Kenrokuen Gardens provided lovely walks, and the castle was playing host to a kind of marathon event.  It was on for young and old, the competitors had great costumes and kids would run alongside their parents cheering them on.  



The castle looks re-invigorated and re-energised compared with many I have seen in the past (granted, I was 10 years old for most of them and they were European), but it seems that the people of Kanazawa have gone to some effort to continually keep the castle and its grounds relevant in a changing world.  The gardens were a busy place that you have to share with others, I would just loved to have been there without other tourists and visitors to truly absorb it.  It was splendid in springtime, but it would be great to see in winter with snow sitting on the tops of the branches, adding decoration to an already well-coordinated retreat.

Kenrokuen Gardens

If I had a castle, I'd make it look like this

We got around using the Machi-nori - Kanazawa's bike share system.  So simple and accessible, it gave us a freedom from bus timetables and routes but did not stop us from getting lost!

Kat takes over the streets in the geisha at dusk

Our stay at Ochakare Guest House was alright, we marvelled (because we weren't staying in them) at the closets off the common room that had somehow been turned into additional bunk beds.  Dorms can be annoying at the best of times with people coming in at any hour, sometimes considerate, sometimes not.  However when someone is sleeping on the other side of a sliding door while you are trying to eat breakfast, work or figuring out what's happening the next day, it can be a bit limiting.  That's Japan though, the best possible use of the space is being made and you can't begrudge anyone that.

Geisha district by night

Shang hai: the (very) good, the bad and the ugly

Shang hai was a real mixed-bag experience for Rob and I. It has probably been the only place so far where we were definitely ready to leave. This probably should not reflect on the city itself and more on some unfortunate happenings and frustrations that could have happened anywhere.

The (very) good

A highlight of our time in Shanghai was easily our viewing of the CircusWorld: ERA performance. Everyone we knew who had visited Shanghai had recommended this to us. It was very entertaining and the performers were extremely skilled. I could not fathom how they achieved many elements of the show! I was impressed with the artistic integration of live performance and video, as well as the effective use of space. My favourite performance involved a man using the crook of his ankle to lop several bowls onto his head, all this while balancing on several layers of wood planks with glasses wobbling in-between. (Oh and this was in a boat.) Rob most enjoyed an acrobatic ribbon dance that saw a couple flying round the stage, held up by the ribbons and each other.

Circus night

We also really enjoyed the contrast of old and new in Shanghai, the flowers and gardens, some fabulous dumplings, scrumptious pancakes and the waitress that spontaneously stroked Rob’s arm to touch his hair!

The new!

Enjoying a garden break

Spring: a nice time to visit Shanghai

The bad

Shanghai promised to be the place we would finally, after much hard work on an application initiated in 2014, receive our visa’s to Russia. The backbone of our trip and a part of both our travel dreams was to across Russia on the Trans-Mongolian route. It was how we described our trip before we left. However, as we found out in Shanghai, it was not to be. More details here.

Our attempts to doing anything on the internet in Shanghai were continually hampered by the Great Firewall of China. I had no idea it would be this hard. We had set-up a VPN before entering- it did not work. The biggest problem was not being able to reliably access gmail and use google maps to organise our onward travel. I now truly understand how much command Google has over us and a multitude of websites!

The ugly

A day after our visa disappointment, we met some con artists. I like to think our experience with the well-known* tea ceremony scam is further evidence that anyone is susceptible to the work of such people. (I have done a little bit of research in the psychology of sales.) All the signs were there (distraction: check, “you’re like us”: check, reciprocity effect: check, likeability: check, etc, etc.) but somehow we kept going. I think we felt defeated after our visa let down and wanted someone to be friendly to us. We also hadn’t found too many people to hold a conversation with in awhile. All that said, and despite the fact I know that this is what these people do for living and that they are good at it, we still felt stupid afterwards. And though this could have happened anywhere in the world, it has left an impression on us that we will always somewhat associate with Shanghai. On the positive side, we did see short tea ceremony, have a conversation that day and it didn’t leave too much of a hole in our pockets.

*Well known but well…we didn’t know!

Not a parade: manning the crossings on a busy Shang Hai night. We (maybe) needed one of these guys in our tea "party"

Such tourists! 

We still enjoyed much of our time in Shanghai but it probably not somewhere I will hurry back to.

SHANG HAI TIPS:

* Go to ERA performance: you will not be disappointed. 

* Shang hai is beautiful in Spring.

* There are friendly people in the world but some that appear friendly in Shang hai will be the infamous tea ceremony scammers-  be on alert!