Author: jennigeltravel

서울

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So country 88 and country 91 South Korea. We’ve both watched Squid Games so we knew what to expect. We also knew to avoid men with briefcases in the Subway.

Our flight landed very early in the morning and so there is always the “Can we check in early” gamble to take. Thankfully after bussing it from the airport to our hotel in Gangnam (Whoopah Gangnam Style) we won the lottery (There is a whole joke there about Won being the local currency of Korea, I just can’t think of it) and got into our room at 9am. Had showers and naps and then off for our first culinary adventure.

Found an awesome little bbq place nearby and settled in. Not long after getting our food a single woman at the table next to us sidled up to me and told me I was using the wrong glass for the Soju (rice wine). She then proceeded to chat away in broken English and a bit of google translate. She then taught us that you need to put a soju shot into a glass of beer, put one metal chopstick in and clang it with the other chopstick to mix it and turn the beer cloudy. Apparently that’s how all the locals drink soju and beer. After about a half hour of chatting she started to get very touchy…huggy…”oh I do love you” stuff. Awkward! And Weird! And obviously the road to some sort of scam.

We’re still not sure what sort of scam it was as we saw through it pretty quick and disengaged with her suddenly. She got the message and left. Chat GPT gives three suggestions.

1. Cult recruitment that then requires donations and monetary support

2. Distraction to get you drunk and then steal your stuff

3. An invitation to a bar where you will be told it’s free drinks but you will be charged a hefty fee to leave. Ha! We’ll never know coz we didn’t fall for it.

We spent the next few days exploring and eating more amazing food. In Seoul you are never more than 20 metres from an icy cold ice tea and as it was 32 degrees most days we had plenty of them.

Our first Subway experience was hilarious. They don’t necessarily have the names of the stations in English, so often we were looking for 양재 “two circles thermometer man big H” to make sure we were going in the right direction. We also hadn’t paid enough money for the ticket so when we got to the other end the gates wouldn’t open. Thankfully a lovely lady came by and spoke to the intercom to work out what we had to do and then made sure we were ok before leaving us. I don’t think she was trying to recruit us into a cult. That’s one thing that will last is how helpful and sweet the South Koreans are.

Google translate has also changed the game when travelling. We had an entire conversation when we went to get the refund on our travel card before we left, they guy spoke no english at all. Then turned up to the actual office to get the money and he greeted us in English with “hello how may I assist you today”.

We went to a local market to try the local food. Found a local restaurant filled with locals (always a good sign) then looked around at what everyone was eating. Number one South Korean delicacy, beef tartare with freshly chopped baby octopus (still writhing) and a raw egg. When in Seoul… Nigel ended up with a few blood blisters inside his check as the suckers tend to fight back and suck on your inner cheek. I don’t know as I had the bean sprout fritters.

But you can’t get that close to North Korea without trying to get as close as you can to North Korea. So we booked a trip to the demilitarised zone and to the observation point where you can see into North Korea. What an interesting day. You can google the history of the Korean Peninsula but basically at the end of the Second World War Russia claimed the top half and America claimed the South. Then North Korea invaded the South in the 1950s and the Korean War began. In 1953 there was an armistice but there has never been a peace deal signed so technically the North and South are still at war. As recently as September 2024 there were still niggles going on. The North Koreans were sending balloons over the border containing trash and used toilet paper and manure along with the key message “We are the best”. The South Koreans were sending usbs with K Pop videos and Southern propaganda. Kinda funny when you think about it. However, there have also been some recent missile launches over the border and a bit of shooting back and forth and the whole area is still covered in hundreds of thousands of landmines. It’s not entirely safe to visit.

At the observation deck you can see the massive Hollywood sign on the North Korean side that says “We are the best”. Ironic that it’s just behind the propaganda village they have built to look like everything is amazing but no one actually lives there. We did see people wandering about in other areas doing their daily North Korean thing. Their flagpole is also one of the tallest in the world. For a long time there was a tit for tat war with South Korea where they kept increasing the flagpole height. Now the South has given up and the North has an ungainly tower with a few tacked on extensions to it which is taller than the South. It was a surreal experience to be voyeurs into a strange and unknown country.

The thing we love most about travel is exploring new places, learning about new lands, seeing and breathing the culture and growing as a human. Every country teaches us more about what makes the world great and what makes it not so great. We are grateful to be able to do this. Overall our time in South Korea was 엄청난 “Circle thermometer over box, man with head and thermometer over oval and L thermometer over short L”

Singapore La

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We’re locals now la, we’ve been here multiple times in the last 3 years la. We even know enough Singlish to know that you put la at the end of every sentence la.

What a lovely feeling to arrive somewhere that’s so easy and familiar and you know how to get around. Tag on tag off the MRT with your phone or watch. Contactless payments everywhere. So easy. But the heat, it’s oppressive and exhausting and leads to making activity driven decisions based on how much you feel like tackling it.

We stayed this time in Little India, a vibrant area of Singapore filled with flowers and temples and spice stalls and pani puri and samosa. We stayed right next door to a very famous and well attended Hindu temple. We also had the temple bell literally right outside our window. So three or four times a day the temple bell rang and the ceremonial horns and drums created a cacophony that lasted about 45 minutes. And yay it started at 6am. What made it even more special was that we were there for the birth of Ganesh festival, which meant that the festivities continued all day and into the night. By the end, Ganesh himself may have suggested earplugs.

I had three Singapore things that despite being here so often over the last few years I hadn’t managed to tick off.

1. Universal Studios on Sentosa 2. Satay Street for satay from stalls 7/8 3. The light show on the waterfall fountain at the Jewel at Changi airport

Each of these things have been missed in previous visits for various random reasons. We thought we were being clever tackling Universal Studios Singapore without an express pass. “How bad could the queues be?” we said. Answer: bad enough to melt a human. Within minutes the tropical sun had us resembling slightly wilted theme park mascots. So, like true survivors, we caved after the 40 minute wait for the Minions ride and bought the Express Pass. Best decision of the trip. Suddenly we were breezing past the queues like VIPs. Heatstroke averted, rides conquered. The next day we did the sensible thing and swapped roller coasters for air-conditioning at the Singapore Oceanarium.

If Universal was sweat and adrenaline, this was serenity and awe. Jellyfish glowing like floating lava lamps, manta rays gliding like underwater kites, sharks doing their best to look menacing (but also kind of smug). There were dolphins, schools of neon fish, and endless reasons to just wander amongst the fishes and forget about time. Honestly, it felt like stepping into another universe, but cooler — literally. This Oceanarium has now become our benchmark. Everything will always be compared to this. “Well it was good, but not as good as the one in Singapore” “Yeah the jellyfish are cool but not as impressive as Singapore”. “ Awesome shark tank but nothing like Singapore”. There are loads of things to recommend in Singapore but this one is right up there.

Of course, no adventure is complete without Nigel’s input, and Nigel’s input is usually craft beer. He and his mate Tony had sniffed out Smith Street Taps, tucked deep inside a maze of a Chinatown warehouse, the sort of place you’d expect to find secret societies rather than hops and barley. Some truly bizarre brews were on offer including a yam and banana smoothie like beer and a Long Island Iced Beer that tasted more like alcoholic lemonade than beer. It was worth the hunt: icy pints in hand, satay skewers sizzling nearby. Hot tip — nothing pairs with an IPA like smoky satay in an industrial-chic hideout overlooking the infamous tiled roofs of Chinatown.

But the food highlight came later at Satay Street. Imagine rows of tiny tables plonked right in the middle of the road, people squatting elbow-to-elbow, smoke from dozens of grills curling into the night sky. The air was thick with the smell of charred chicken, peanut sauce, and that unmistakable Singapore buzz. We feasted until the satay sticks piled up. Magical chaos, deliciously smoky, and very, very Singapore.

And finally — the ultimate airport flex. We finally made it to the Jewel at Changi to see the famous waterfall sound-and-light show. Standing there as music and colors played over the world’s tallest indoor waterfall was genuinely breathtaking. Only in Singapore do you find yourself lingering landside in an airport just to watch a fountain put on a show — and only in Singapore does that actually feel like the perfect ending to our Singapore adventure.

Seoul next! Whoopa Gangnam Style! Also solidly avoiding being taken to a remote island to play a Squid Game.

So yes, Singapore gave us sweat, spectacle, sea creatures, satay and stout. Would we do it all again? Absolutely. But next time, we’re buying the express pass first.

Sometimes Careful isn’t Careful enough

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In the middle of our life in Dunedin I had a pre planned trip to Queenstown with my beautiful bridesmaids. So I flew from Dunedin back to Auckland to get on a plane to fly to Queenstown so I could fly back to Auckland to get on a plane to Dunedin. It was all a bit confusing.

Last years bridesmaids event I fell over on the last night and broke my foot, I then got home and whilst hobbling down the hall I caught my right toe on the door and broke that too… then I got Covid!  So this years theme was CAREFUL. And I was… very careful… until the last night. We walked around a corner and there was one step that I missed in the dark. I grabbed a rail with my right arm before I landed on the ground and that was that.

Both bridesmaids came round the corner and I’m on the ground with a bouncer standing over me.

“Oh Jen what the fuck have you done!”

Well, it turned out I’d dislocated my shoulder. My right humerus (not funny in the slightest) was about 6 centimetres from where it was supposed to be (nice and comfy and in a joint socket). While I was sitting on the ground working out what the hell I was going to do, a guy walked around the corner tripped on the step and smacked his head into the wall. “Yeah it happens all the time” the bouncer said. “We’ve been trying to tell the council to do something about it”. 

None of that helped me when I realised I was a 10 on the pain scale and was absolutely going to need some help to get this back in.  After ringing 111 they said it’s probably easier to get an Uber to the hospital as they had a wait time of about 3 hours. It was 2 degrees so we decided to do that instead of freezing to death on the ground. 

After a pretty horrific trip where I focussed on my giving birth breathing and everyone was worried I was going to puke, we arrived to a fairly empty Frankton hospital. Within about 10 minutes I was sucking on gas and boy did I laugh.

I laughed so hard! The A&E doctor laughed! Both bridesmaids pissed themself!  Then two clunks later I have never been so relieved in my life. Yes it was still sore but the relief of it being back in took over from that. “Oh thank god… thank god!”

20 minutes after arriving I was in a sling and in an uber and on my way back to the Air BnB.

The story from Nigel’s end is that he was already worried that I might hurt myself considering my bad balance, especially in the dark.  So when he went on Life360 to see if we were back at the apartment yet and saw I was at Frankton hospital… he knew it was me. 

About 5 minutes after my arm was clunked in and before the gas had worn off I received a text. “Why are you at the hospital?” I quickly rang and said everything’s fine but I dislocated my shoulder but it’s back in now and I’ll call you later. 

We were back to the apartment within a couple of hours of falling down and I could ring and sob my heart out about how no one will ever want to go anywhere with me ever again because I’m such a liability.  I know that’s not the case but at that moment that’s how I felt.

I’m now 11 weeks post dislocation and my physio is using me as a poster child for shoulder rehabilitation. I learned that needling (acupuncture into the muscle) is the weirdest/ickiest thing to do on a Wednesday.  That shoulder strapping makes you look like a loose head prop and that if it clunks with no pain then that’s not too much to worry about.  I’m consistent with my exercises to strengthen the muscles to hold the bone in place and my mobility is coming back really well.

I had three goals when I started Physio: 1. To hook my own bra. 2. To play pool and 3. To be able to put my luggage in the overhead locker all by myself! Gradually over the weeks I’ve ticked all these boxes and I’m feeling way more confident.

My physios last words to me have been… You’ve done great, keep up the exercises and …

Don’t do it again!! 

She’s a Dunner Stunner!

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Part of the deal of this new contract I’m on with MTF is that they wanted me pretty much full time in the Dunedin office for the first 3-4 months. They would pay for me to have an apartment and a car whenever I wanted one, they just wanted me there. I had a chat to Nigel and he agreed ok let’s move to Dunedin… leading up to winter! Maybe it’ll snow?  

So we packed up and flew to Dunedin and checked into our little city apartment.  One block from the octagon, one block from the supermarket and two blocks from work. 

In the first few days we worked out that a few things would make our time in the apartment a bit nicer so off Nigel went to the warehouse. We bought Bee cards for the buses and set about exploring Dunedin. I had an entire company of colleagues to give handy hints on places to go and so followed their lead and found some great local haunts.

Speaking of my MTF colleagues, what a lovely smart bunch of people. In what is actually a very complex business I have encountered nothing but patience with learning the language and a genuine willingness to share expertise. We also spend every lunchtime doing the Otago Daily Times quiz in the the lunchroom and every Friday, there’s chips and dips and drinks. There’s soup and bread days every couple of weeks in Winter to warm you up. And in my time so far we have had two dress up days to raise money for local charities. At the end of the year there will be a volunteering day where everyone can give back to the local community. I thought we had loads of free food and drinks in Media!

We had some weekends that were absolute Dunner Stunners so we’d walk around seeing everything in the city. Castle street with all the student flats was as broken glass rubbish all over the place and grotty houses as you would think. The botanical gardens has free duck food and so if you feel like getting attacked by ducks and seagulls you are welcome to go get some. Watch out when the seagulls feet get caught in your hair. 

Loads of really nice restaurants in town and an awesome fully roofed stadium. We went to an open day there to have a look and it’s such a great venue. We then went to see an absolutely incredible All Blacks v France game.  the Octagon was closed off for the whole day with bars and street food. Bands played and we all congregated to walk to the stadium accompanied by a bag piper. It was freezing cold there was an air of excitement and we loved our walk to Forsyth Barr. What a great stadium. So much better equipped than Eden Park, more toilets, more food and drink stands, more buses to get you away from the area after the game. I did however think I was going to die by spectacularly falling down the incredibly steep north stadium concrete stairs. Truly brilliant experience. And all of them covered seats! No rain ponchos required. 

The locals respect when any artist or game comes to Dunedin and everyone I knew was somewhere there that night: they know that if they don’t sell out they will miss out. 

One of the first Dunner Stunner weekends we got a car and went to the albatross colony and saw the Armstrong disappearing gun. Built in 1889 when there was a fear that the Russian’s were going to take over. This massive gun had the ability to pop out of the ground, fire off a round and then duck back down before it hit the ship. “Shit! Where the heck did that come from” would have been the response from the Russians. The gun never got fired in anger though even after it was brought back for the Second World War. But a group of locals have lovingly restored it and it’s a pretty interesting wee part of Dunedin history. 

There were 36 albatross chicks there and we got to see the parents fly in with their feet outstretched to feed the chicks incredibly un-gangly creatures but super cool nevertheless less. 

We walked the beaches keeping well clear of the sea lions and seals. One of the locals told me it was really bad form and you will be verbally reprimanded to allow your dog anywhere near the sea lions if you took them for an off leash walk. I wondered if any of that would work at Orewa beach considering the huge number of out of control dogs you see there.

So we started living our best Dunedin city apartment life. It was a bit of a curated Dunedin experience though as it was a serviced apartment with double glazing and central heating and underfloor heating. So apart from the short 5 minute walk to work and back we were super warm! We did have frost a few days so the footpaths were a bit slippy.

We also have to keep reminding ourselves that living in a city isn’t just a living in Dunedin thing.

There are large numbers of homeless people around our apartment and you get to know the characters. On a Sunday morning there might be a shopping trolley and a couple of road cones dumped at your front door. We regularly see and hear the students joking about outside on the weekends despite the double glazing. But it’s all part of the fun. 

We took the railroad to Oamaru for the Steampunk festival, we did the Taiarei Railway trip, the Dunedin mid winter festival, went to Arc Brewery twice for food trucks and great brews, and went to Aramoana to walk amongst the sealions. We walked everywhere, tried a different restaurant every weekend and found our favourite spots to return to (shout out to Biggies Pizza Dunedin).

And then it was over. We packed up our little apartment life, donated all our half used boxes of spices and half used bottles of oil to anyone who wanted them in the lunchroom. Had three check in bags to brings home and that was it. Back to reality oops there goes gravity. Next stop the fortnightly three day commute. 

Hotly interspersed with the jennigeltravel trip of 2025 to Singapore, Seoul and Tokyo kicking off end of August. Before heading back to Dunedin end of September to begin fortnights again. It’s all happening here. 

Dunedin we loved you. You are such a beautiful city. Your wildlife accessibility is amazing. Your weather (while cold) is so much nicer than Auckland. Your bluebird days are stunners. And your people? Genuinely lovely and thoughtful and chatty in the coffee shops. Your hospitality staff are awesome as they are all studying medicine or dentistry or some other person based profession. And most importantly as the saying goes, you’re never more than seven minutes from anywhere in Dunedin!

I laugh in the lunchroom when I hear people complain about how it took 12 minutes to get home last night instead 7. 

So grateful for our awesome Dunedin experience.

The last leg Canada and Byron with Besties

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In 1989 I met Ang when we worked together in Palmerston North, so she’s one of my oldest friends. She was there the night I met Nigel and so he’s known her a pretty long time too. Ang married a Canadian and moved to Vancouver Island which is one of the nicest little islands you will ever find in Canada. Over the years any chance we had to get together either in NZ or on the island it’s always been so great to catch up. 

So after leaving Seattle we headed over to Vancouver Island and were greeted with huge hugs! We in had our first night at Wednesday Wings at the local pub with Ang’s beautiful daughter and her lovely partner. We had visited Ang when Melany was just a baby so it’s lovely to see the awesome human she has become.

Our next day we went on a full tour of some amazing sites around Victoria. We went to Malahat Skyway which is a cylindrical tower that you walk around and around on a slow incline up to the top for amazing views. There is also a slide back down for the adventurous ones (not me, I walked… Ang squealed the whole way down).

Vancouver island is incredibly beautiful and we got to see a lot of locals spots. That night we utilised one of Ang’s sons to drop us into central Victoria for drinks and dinner and then utilised her eldest Mel to come and pick us up. 

Before we left NZ Nigel had said “there is a possibility we will see the northern lights on this trip, either in Europe or Canada”. We have never seen them before and so we were very hopeful to tick it off the bucket list. There were some when we were in Sweden but we missed them as they were quite faint. So we were really hoping for some activity in Canada. Nigel got a notification from the Aurora app that we would get some good activity that night. So we messaged Mel to say would it be ok if she picked us up and went to the top of the mountains to see something amazing. She was all in and so we spent the evening with a whole bunch of other people in car parks across Victoria watching what has to be said is the most incredible natural phenomenon ever. We kept saying, “I can’t believe it”. The night sky dances with colour. It’s amazing in the photos but to see the movement and how spectacular it is in person was incredible. We ended up back at Ang’s house where we could sit in her backyard and watch the night sky. Needless to say it was a late night. 

The next day Ang had decided to bring forward Canadian thanksgiving a couple of nights so we could celebrate our first thanksgiving with her kids and their partners. But first we needed to go get some pumpkins from the pumpkin patch down the road. A bit early for Halloween but we wanted to carve them anyway. 

We went to the dollar store and got pumpkin carving tools and headed home. We had a lovely afternoon cooking the turkey and all the trimmings for thanksgiving. Mel arrived with mashed sweet potatoes that were covered with marshmallows and grilled. Odd, very sweet but kinda worked. 

Then we had a lovely dinner with all the kids and ended watching Ice Hockey (which in Canada you just call Hockey) and playing board games. Each one of Angs kids came in to say what they were thankful for. It was a really lovely evening. We were so grateful to have been a part of it all. Heart was full. 

Next thing you know we are on a long haul to Sydney. I had a great sleep, Nigel not so much. So when we arrived we had a very cruisy nap type day. Sometimes you just need to hang out and get into the time zone groove. 

Then we were off to see our besties in Byron Bay. Love that town. Great vibes, great food, great weather and great company. It was a really lovely way to finish our epic journey.

Then Sydney airport lounge and time to get back to NZ. Is it weird? Yes… Do we need to sort out life? Yes…

Have we had an amazing time? Yes…

Would we do it again? Yes…

What’s next? Not sure, but life is an adventure and we are all about having an adventure.

An eclectic few posts on the way!

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One thing I realised as I was scrolling through my iPhone the other day is that when I return home I never finish the last blog. I’ve done this a few times now and so I am attempting to remedy this. I need to round the trip off with a bow before moving on to the next thing. And the next thing is imminently approaching. Nigel and I are off to Singapore, Seoul and Tokyo in three weeks! Eek But adding to our country list with South Korea is going to be fun.

So over the next few days you’ll see an odd few blogs that are well overdue. Including our recent four month stay in Dunedin.

Three days and two nights on a Train

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In 1996 Nigel and I drove from Fort Lauderdale Florida to Los Angeles California over a couple of weeks.  What we learned was that the landscape in the US is varied and different and very atypical of exactly what you would expect. Louisiana is all swampy and misty and Arizona is all dusty and cactusey.  What it doesn’t do is change very quickly.  So when you drive for hours and hours through desert and cactus it gets very mundane.  You need to be able to amuse yourself in the hours of travel.

The Amtrak train from Chicago to Seattle was exactly like that.  The views and scenery changed, just very slowly.  We had a cabin with a small bathroom (thankfully) and in the evening they would come and make up the bunk beds for you.

All meals were included and every meal you would be seated with another couple.  We seemed to be the only foreigners on the train as everyone was very surprised to find some New Zealanders on there.  Everyone we sat with had the same story.  We’ve always wanted to do this trip, we didn’t realise it would be so much movement on the train and so difficult to walk and the food has been surprisingly good.

Having balance issues in the first place meant for me it was technical difficulty HIGH to be on a heaving rambling lurching train.  But we stopped for a few minutes at a number of stations along the way and so that was the ideal time to try and have a shower, or try to move around a bit.  That’s when we would zoom to the dining cart before we started moving again.

The rest of the time we watched the world go by and napped and just generally enjoyed our time together.  On the final night I woke being violently ill (thank god for the bathroom) and spent the whole night trying to keep bottled water down.  Dammit!  Food poisoning I thought. I felt quite a bit better by the time we arrived in Seattle though and our gorgeous friends Simone and Gareth picked us up to go to their amazing house in the woods just outside Seattle.

We had drinks and snacks (I took it easy) and then had a lovely dinner until Nigel got afflicted with the same bug.  Because Simone came down with it a night later we can only assume that Amtrak gave us Norovirus.  We also felt like the worst friends in the world.  Thankfully though it was a one day bug for all of us and so we were able to carry on our way.

So how to rate our trip.

Did we enjoy it? Yes                                                                                                           

Were we late?  Yes, two and half hours late (after a near miss with a car, some technical issues, high winds, a near miss with a walker on the tracks and some signal issues).

Would we do it again? Probably not

Would I have used more hand sanitiser? Yes

IT

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I’ve always wanted to go to Maine, for a couple of reasons. Firstly it’s supposed to be incredibly beautiful (which it is), it’s supposed to be especially beautiful in Autumn (which it is) and Stephen King lives there.

I have read every Stephen King book he has ever written. Most of them I have read more than once and I have read IT more times than I care to remember.

Almost all of his books are set in Maine as that’s where he grew up and where he still lives. He sets many of the books in a fictional town in Maine called Derry, which is actually based on a real town called Bangor.

Many many years ago I told Nigel that one day we would go to Bangor and we would go and see all the Stephen King sights. Every time we saw a Stephen King movie, I would tell Nigel about the places in Bangor we will go and see as they are so explicitly described in his books. He said “yep” and really didn’t think much more about it. Next thing you know “We’re going to Maine!”

Before arriving in Maine we had to go through the Canadian/American border. 

I’m not sure that some of the more remote parts of the US border see too many New Zealanders who are travelling for four months, have been to 12 European countries in the last eight weeks and forget that they’ve been to Turkey twice in that time.

“Turkey? What do you want to see in Turkey?”  “Umm Istanbul?” “Why did you go twice?” “Umm we are flying Turkish Airlines and it hobs through Istanbul?” “What are you doing to do in the US?” “Ummm going to see Stephen Kings house?”

After a bit of discussion as to whether NZ is a visa waiver country or not we got our passports back and we were on our way! ‘Land of the Free… Home of the brave… in the midst of a very contentious election campaign, which means it may not be free and people are possibly not so brave’. What an interesting time to be in the US, but kind of glad we will be back in NZ when it gets decided (or litigated)… and as Forrest Gump says… “that’s all I have to say about that!”.

Bangor didn’t disappoint and proved that sometimes someone goes to the Science Museum for a day and sometimes someone drives their wife around a small American town to take photos of random buildings and drains. That’s love.

From Bangor to Salem to get our absolute Halloween fix even if it wasn’t even October.

In the late 1600’s, the English Puritan immigrants had a period of hysteria which ended in 29 people being accused of and killed for being witches. It all started with two girls in one family, who according to legend either ate too many fermented grains or were actually possessed by a witch (although they could also have been a couple of teenagers wanting attention). These girls (plus no understanding of who was actually in charge at the time) convinced a whole town to turn on each other to rid the town of evil witches. It’s a great Wikipedia read if you ever have the chance. 

What the Salem Witch Trials has done for Salem is given them an annual tourist Festival of ghouls and witches and cauldrons and costumes and decorations that epitomise Halloween.  They make millions from the tourists it attracts to this tiny town in the middle of nowhere USA.  It’s a really fun vibe and the streets can be packed. We were there at the end of September and spent more than a half hour trying to find a car park in town. Hocus Pocus (movie from the 1990’s) was also filmed there and so you get Hocus Pocus girls weekends where they turn up wearing matching teeshirts, smoking legal marijuana and on the search for the nearest Cocktail bar.

There is a statue in the town of Samantha from Bewitched the TV show of the 60’s-early 70’s. The tourists love it, the locals hate it. They regularly protest its existence and she’s been covered with paint and all other types of graffiti to get her gone! 

The opinion is that the witch trials are not something to be trivialised or romanticised, they should be recognised for what they were as a rather abhorrent aspect of history that should never be repeated. 

Half of the walking group we were on were “they should just get over it”, the other half were “I can see the point”… and that’s all I have to say about that.

Leaving Europe and the UK

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So we went for an amazing dinner in West Hampstead with Stefan and then we hugged and told each other we loved each other and said “see you next year”. I cried all the way on the tube back home.

Then we were off to Paris where we had the world’s most perfect croissant. Then a couple of relaxing days in Istanbul before heading off to Montreal.

In 2018 we were on a boat in Vietnam to see Halong Bay. We had brought some beers onto the boat which had no fridge. It did however have an air conditioning unit over the door spouting out cold air. We lined all of our beers in front of the air con unit and went to go to dinner.

In the hallway we met a couple (Lise and Daniel) from Montreal who had put their beers in the same place! We started chatting, in a mix of English and French and clicked straight away. We found them hilarious and we had a shared love of craft beer and travel.

The staff on the boat wanted to give the travellers something to do in the evening while they went drinking at the back of the boat and so they would give us fishing rods to catch squid. 

Lise was the only one to catch a squid and we had a hilarious night capturing the ink squirting creature. 

Lise and Daniel said “if you are ever in Montreal, let us know” and we said “Don’t say it lightly because we will turn up!”.

So six years later we say ”Guess what! We are coming to Montreal”. They said “You are most welcome, I will put down a NZ IPA brew ”.

So we arrived at Montreal airport and Lise and Daniel were there to take us to their beautiful home. We were so welcomed and spent some lovely time including connecting with their amazing kids. But most importantly we connected with Lise and Daniel. 

Two incredible humans who took two NZers into their home without really knowing them. Daniel is an amazing contemporary artist and Nigel and he stayed up until 4am talking art and life and the universe and everything.

We went squirrel hunting (in their backyard). Found raccoons on the top of the mountain, we went and ate smoked meat at Schwartz (owned by Celine Dion), Old town, Markets and a weeks worth of sightseeing in two days . We used their washer and drier and made and ate dinner together in their kitchen. 

Life has a way to pay life forward. We have a huge amount of credit so we look forward to hosting them and their family or any other random’s they care to send to New Zealand. We promise we will look after you all, the way you looked after us. 

The journey to the other side of our house!

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The premise and theme of this whole trip was to get to the precise latitude and longitude of our house in Orewa but on the other side of the world. We would make a sandwich of sorts with the world in between. We realised with no air conditioning in the caravan that we weren’t going to drive there so Ryanair was the next best solution. We flew to Malaga and had a lovely Air BnB 5 minutes walk from the beach in Marbella.

When my family went back to Sweden when I was little we had a package holiday down to Marbella. Marbella was a very common and desirable destination for Swedes in the 1970’s and 80’s. They all flew down and loved it and bought holiday homes there. That’s why you can get Swedish meatballs, pickled herring and Lingonberry jam (among other Swedish foods) in the supermarket. 

It’s also why there is a Swedish restaurant on the waterfront and every bar you can hear Swedes speaking Swedish.

We spent a couple of days eating tapas and drinking sangria and then went and collected Stefan from the airport. 

Our first night we went and had a lovely barbecue dinner on the beach with the waves lapping at our feet.

Then we were off in search of a dropped pin on google maps which was literally in the middle of nowhere. 

The roads got narrower and narrower until we were on a one lane road. We pulled up outside a farmhouse and there we were. A completely random and pointless trip that no one apart from us would find interesting. As we drove Stefan was tracking an antipodean app that shows your exact location. “We’re just coming into Warkworth, right we’re just on the edge of Waiwera, ok we’re in the sea now” and then “Right we’re at the neighbours house”.

We pulled up took a whole lot of photos of an empty paddock and left.  I did have a translation into Spanish on hand if we needed to explain ourselves but it must have been Siesta as we saw no-one. 

We loved it. 

We were then very close to a gorgeous village called Ronda so went there for tapas and sangria and listened to all the swedes talk about how beautiful it is in Ronda. Nigel sang ‘Help me Rhonda’ a couple of times and we had a lovely day. 

The next day was our adventure to Gibraltar. As you all know we collect countries (it’s a hobby). We have an official ISO postal code list which includes countries and territories. It covers for the fact that you can’t say you’ve been to France if you’ve only been to Tahiti. Same with French Guiana. Anyway Gibraltar is a British territory at the very bottom of Spain. A little piece of England with some incredibly proud Gibralten’s. We happened to arrive on National Gibraltar day and so the whole village was covered in Gibraltar flags and the locals all wear red and white. We queued for ages to go up the cable car to see the incredible views.
As soon as we arrived the maquque monkeys were literally leaping down in front of us.  They were everywhere playing and sleeping and were a lot friendlier than the ones in Bali (who provided us with the infamous monkey incident). I think a £4000 fine for feeding them means they don’t see the tourists as being the food providers. We did see a guy get attacked for his backpack though. 

Back to Marbella and we joined a group of South African women and a couple from Florida on a guided walking Tapas tour of Marbella. Stefan quickly chatted up the South Africans who weren’t really drinkers and so we ended up with all their wines to match the Tapas (well done Stefan). 

We learned about the beautiful old town and how it was heavily occupied by Islamic and Jewish people for many years. The Roman Catholics came and took over and appointed a leader who was very dictatorial. He forced everyone in the village to convert to Catholicism. Everyone decided to just say yeah ok and then practice whatever religion they wanted behind closed doors. So the leader decided to go door to door with pork sausages. If you didn’t eat them you got turfed out! 

We wandered around the small streets and ate amazing food and drank beautiful wines and had a really lovely evening. 

Then as soon as it had started we left the 27 degree days and landed back at Luton to 12 degrees and squally showers. Ugh!