The Golden Triangle: Delhi

(I can't believe I never posted this...better late than never I guess!)

As part of my part-time job last year, I was incredibly lucky to be able to go to India, somewhere that I've wanted to go to for ages, and which I've heard so much about from Mum and Alexandra.  I worked for several days at a conference in New Delhi, and then had a week to go exploring.  I was supposed to travel with a friend, but unfortunately she couldn't make it, so it was just me tripping around.  I didn't feel unsafe really at all, although being a white female by herself you certainly got a lot of looks outside the main tourist locations.  I did do some shopping at the Lajpat Nagar market on my first few days to get some clothes to blend in - a couple of shalwar kameez which were actually the best things to wear, nice and loose and light.

While the conference was on we did a bit of exploring, including the Hauz Khas complex which was very relaxed and a lovely green respite from the city, as well as the Qutub Minar, which is a 73m tall minaret which was built between 1192 and 1368.  The complex has got this fantastic iron pillar in it which is rust resilient, and quite advanced for the time of its construction (unknown, but predating the Qutub Minar at least).

After the conference I moved to a B&B  in the Defence Colony and spent three days doing some exploring around both that area and the central city.  As it was monsoon season it was a complete washout most days, and apparently one of the days was the third heaviest day of rain they'd had in 10 years - I can believe it!

Thigh-high water in my road in the Defence Colony - just don't think about what you're wading through...

While I was in Delhi I packed in as much as I possibly could.  I saw the Jama Masjid mosque, which is the largest mosque in India, holding up to 25,000 worshippers, the beautiful Red Fort, Indira Ghandi's house, the Ghandi Smriti (site of martyrdom, including an amazingly modern and interesting museum, full of things to interact with), Safdarjung's Tomb (taken there by mistake after the rickshaw driver didn't understand my directions), Humayun's Tomb, the shrine of Nizam-ud-din-Chishi (where I nearly lost my shoes after coming out a completely different way than I went in and taking about 20 minutes to walk around and find my original point of entry where I'd left my shoes in the first place...), the Jantar Mantar (a huge outdoor observatory) and the incredibly elaborate Akshardham Temple on the outskirts of Delhi.  You're not allowed to take photos inside the temple, but here's an image I've found online of the amazing elephant reliefs - so detailed (and there are 148 elephants in all, surrounding the base of the main temple).

I also got taken on a tour of Delhi by a very enterprising Sikh rickshaw driver who, as well as taking me to the inevitable shops, also took me to the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, the largest Sikh house of worship, in Delhi.  They feed, for free, an astonishing 10,000 people per day which is pretty amazing.  I tried the food and it was pretty good!  I also got a tour around the kitchen which was churning out food on a pretty incredible scale given the basic nature of the equipment.  Loved this guy who was overseeing potato preparations:

After Delhi I was supposed to get on the train to Agra, but fell hook, line and sinker for a scam at the train station and was conned into getting a car and driver for the whole round trip.  I was completely suckered in by the fact that everyone talking to me was in uniforms and seemed completely legit.  I should have known that it was all a big, fat con, but ah well, never mind.  These things happen!  In the grand scheme of things it wasn't that expensive (and they refunded me the price of my train tickets), and it was probably safer to travel that way as opposed to on trains by myself given I had just shown myself to be overly gullible!  My driver, Mantun, was actually really nice and friendly (and I am sure not in on the scam itself), and he took me to places I would never, ever have seen had I been on the train, so I'm happy to see a silver lining in it after all.

But that's enough for this post, next post, Agra and Jaipur!  (Although if you want a sneak peak of all the photos, the album is online here).

Kuala Lumpur and Penang

On the way back to London after the most brilliant summer in New Zealand (I know I'm skipping over several months worth of stuff - photos from Jordan etc. are coming!), I stopped over for a week in Malaysia.  Discovering the joy of the stopover has been delightful as it means an horrendous experience of staying awake for over 24 hours (I struggle to sleep on planes) is broken down into infinitely manageable 12-14 hour stretches.

I also love Malaysian food, so it was a bit of a no-brainer to organise a few days there.  Despite the pull of Borneo, I thought that a week would be best spent staying in the Western Peninsula (I'll get to the jungle sometime though!).  I had three nights each in Kuala Lumpur and Penang.

Kuala Lumpur was interesting, but it was pretty hot and humid, so that always makes things tough, and I was by myself (although met lots of nice people at my hostel), so those two things combined weren't the best.  The highlight of KL actually was a walk I took north of the city with a guide called 'Happy' who was all about connecting with nature and taking time to smell the roses etc.  We walked up this river, crossing it several times, and eventually got to a waterfall where we swam and jumped off rocks etc., it was great fun!  He took me to some delicious places for food too - it's always good to be with a local. 

 I also really liked a visit I took to the Batu Caves, which is this really interesting temple just north of the city, where you walked up a whole lot of steps beside a massive statue, then into this natural cave formation.  The monkeys there were so cheeky!  I actually saw one steal a bottle of water right out of a woman's bag, screw the lid off, then drink it.  They certainly know what they're doing...

Penang was a bit of a slower pace, and I spent most of my time wandering around the historical centre (Georgetown) with some other people from my hostel there who were really nice too (although everyone else was on these massive trips through Asia and couldn't believe I was only there for a few days!).  I loved the food in Penang, lots of delicious noodle soups and things which were so yum.  I also made my own pewter bowl at the Royal Selangor factory which was pretty cool and swam in the sea in Asia for the first time - it was like swimming in a bath it was so warm!  Again though, it was super hot in Penang - so lots of ice-cream to help cool down was definitely in order...

The rest of the photos are here!

Melting Malaysia

Just a quick update to say hello from swelteringly hot Kuala Lumpur (you know it is legitimately hot when even locals tell you they're finding it tough to deal with)!

It was 35ºC yesterday and today with only the occasional breath of wind to help cool things down.  Fortunately the hostel is air conditioned which makes it a good respite when it all gets a bit much. 

I had this delicious beef ball soup (which comes with noodles with a soy, mince and vege combo on top) for dinner last night and have also had the best freshly squeezed watermelon juice, which I ordered not knowing what it was, just pointing to something that looked good on another table - the hunch paid off! 

I'm either off to Melaka tomorrow or up north to do some walking/rafting - we'll see how the budget's looking before I decide... Travelling alone makes you very efficient with your time - I've already seen Chinatown, Little India, Petronas Towers, the base of KL Tower, the National Museum, the Islamic Arts Museum, the Central Market, lots of temples and mosques, as well as the Batu Caves! And I'm only on day 2! 

So stay tuned for more adventures...

Going to Malaysia

Having spent countless hours pouring over all the different airline sites and comparison travel sites out there, I was nearly fed up with the thought of having to buy a ticket home for the summer.  That and the ridiculously high prices!  It's seriously irritating to know that at any other time of the year you could easily get a flight for around the £850 mark, when during the NZ summer period you're lucky to get anything under £1200...

But, during my latest investigatory episode yesterday, and thanks to a friend who had shown me that the Malaysia Airlines website has a really easy 'stopover' option (why do more airlines not offer this?!), I found that I could get a return flight, with a week's stopover in Malaysia for just over £1100!  It seems like a few things contributed to this - flying out of London on Monday the 7th of Jan rather than Sunday the 6th (this reduced the price by nearly £300), and then returning in mid-April rather than at the end of March.

Hooray!

I'm seriously so excited about this, as I haven't really done much travel around Asia at all yet, and the thought of all that delicious Malaysian food has me drooling already...

Other thoughts at this stage include heading up into the mountains to the Cameron Highlands to see some tea plantations, maybe going to the jungle, and then also up to Penang and Georgetown (again, where the good food is!).

If anyone's got any hints and tips about what to see and do in Malaysia (I'll be sticking to the western peninsula as I've got limited time and budget), let me know in the comments!

Kathmandu comes to life

One of the things that I tried to do during my trip to Kathmandu was to take more videos, as I think they're great at showing a different perspective from photos.  I hope you enjoy them!

This was in one of the little Suzuki taxis taking us from central Kathmandu to Swayambhunath - I stuck my hand out (not too far!) of the window so that I could capture the incessant honking and noise, as well as the general feel of the city streets.

This is us at Swayambhunath, the monkey temple, attempting to increase our lucky chances.  I don't know if the fact we were throwing UK pennies in, rather than Nepalese rupees made a difference, but I did manage to hit the platform which was pretty good!
 

Another video from Swayambhunath, showing the monkeys being quite excited about having just been fed some apples by a visitor.  Mazida wanted to take one back with us...I wasn't so sure!


This video is looking out over a square in Bhaktapur.  It was just lovely being up there (we're atop a temple) and looking out over the cloud covered hills.  I also really liked the roofs covered in grass - looked like you could graze a goat on some of them!


I particularly like this one - it shows the view from the 'hippie temple' in Kathmandu's Durbar Square.  I could totally imagine how people could just spend hours and hours sitting up there, just taking in the sights.  It was so cool to see the square so alive with people - not just a staid monument area.




And finally the Boudhanath stupa.  The video is taken from the first tier of the stupa, looking down.  It was so magical there, really an amazing place.

Namaste from Nepal

As most of you know, I had the incredible luck to be able to spend three and a half days in Kathmandu after attending a conference for work in Dhaka, Bangladesh.  Dhaka itself was crazy - it took at least 90 minutes to get anywhere because of the constant traffic jams, and the city just seemed to have this incredibly frenetic pace with literally people everywhere.  The poverty was really noticeable, so hoepfully the country continues its work to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

But on to Nepal!

July is the low season for tourism as it's the monsoon season and the height of the rain.  I had thought that it would rain constantly, not having experienced monsoon conditions before, but I was pleasantly surprised.  While we did have one day where it rained most of the day, mostly it was just an occasional downpour, and on one of the days we were lucky enough to have over 30 degrees and sunshine.  The perfect antidote to an awful London summer!

On our first day we (my colleague Mazida and I) got our bearings, as we were staying in Lazimpat which is an area just north of the main tourist area which is known as Thamel, and the main central area of the city itself.  It was nice being within walking distance, but good to be away from the complete hustle and bustle of the city.  Just as in Dhaka there was incessant honking on the streets - I don't know how the cows coped!

We stayed at the loveliest guest house called Tings Tea Lounge which I would absolutely recommend as it was such a haven to come home to after a day out and about.  The food was great, as were their selection of delicious teas.  Not to mention the incredibly friendly staff - a rave all around!  Speaking of food, on the first day for dinner we found the best place to eat in Kathmandu (in our opinion at least), this Szechuan restaurant called Chang Chengs.  While it was in the Lonely Planet, it was a little out of the way, and we couldn't understand how it wasn't absolutely packed.  This enormous meal you see in the picture cost something like NZ$15 because we completely over-ordered but was soooo yum.  Another definite recommend!

On our first full day in the city we spend the day looking around Kathmandu's Durbar Square.  Durbar means palace, so it is essentially the heart of the old city of Kathmandu, full of temples, palaces and shrines everywhere you looked.  Mazida convinced me to get a guide, and I'm so glad we did.  Our guide Krishna was excellent, taking us on a three hour tour around the square and telling us more about the intricate system of Hindu gods and goddesses than I could ever remember.  But it was definitely fascinating at the time!

The Nepalese obviously have great respect for some of their previous royal families, especially the king who brought democracy to Nepal, King Tribhuvan.  The country has a really interesting history, and I didn't realise that it was so recently that the country was brought together as a single state, nor the diversity of people who are now part of Nepal.  The massacre of the royal family in 2001 was just awful, and I really hope the country can get back on its feet after its recent troubles.

After our visit around the city centre we went out to Swayambhunath, also known as the Monkey Temple as there are big troops of monkeys just hanging around.  It's a Tibetan stupa which is the name for a Buddhist temple/shrine complex.  I loved the prayer flags and the serene eyes of Buddha watching out from every direction.  It was really interesting to get above the city too (it's on a hill to the west) and see it spread out within the Kathmandu valley.

On our second day we went to Bhaktapur which is the  most ancient of the three royal cities in the Kathmandu valley.  We took Krishna with us again and it was really good to have the almost neverending series of temples explained to us, as there's no way we could work out from the guide book which was which!  But, as you can see, our temple enthusiasm was never-ending...  I really liked the quietness of Bhaktapur, as it was mostly pedestrianised, so the omnipresent threat of being run over by a rouge motorbike was (somewhat) reduced!  The view out over the mountains with the clouds rolling over them was also pretty spectacular.

On day three we visited Patan, the third main city in the valley.  We had a bit of a shocker as we thought we'd get money out when we were there (as foreigners you pay a pretty hefty fee to enter the historic areas) but the ATMs wouldn't take Mazida's card...  Fortunately however we had enough money to get back to Tings to get my cards and try getting money out at a much bigger bank which worked.  Phew...!  Patan was interesting in that there was a music video of traditional Nepalese music being filmed right on the steps of one of the temples which we watched for a while, and we also headed up the main market street to this crazy busy market at the bus station.  It was lovely and hot that day, so just being out and about and wandering in the sunshine was brilliant.

And then on the afternoon of day three we went to Boudhanath, another Tibetan stupa just outside Kathmandu.  This was hands down my favourite thing of the trip, as the place just had this incredible feel to it and I could have stayed there just looking at it for hours.  I loved the prayer wheels right around the edge, as well as the giant ones inside the monastery just adjacent to the stupa.  It was just so alive and interesting, yet such an obviously central part of everyday life for the people who visit it.  It really made me want to go to Tibet that's for sure.

As well as looking at all the sites we also managed to get a bit of shopping done as there was just so much on offer!  I particularly liked the gorgeous strands of what I thought were beads, but turned out to be rubies, emeralds and sapphires!  While a medium-length strand was only GBP30, it was still a bit out of my price-range.  We managed to do the entire trip, including return flights from Delhi for less than GBP300 and didn't skimp on anything, but a multi-strand emerald necklace seemed a bit extravagent for a student!  I was happy to settle for my GBP2 prayer wheel and same priced pashmina...

All in all, I absolutely loved Kathmandu and can't recommend it highly enough.  As my first visit to a South Asian country it made a massive impression on me, and I really want to go back to the region and see what else there is to see.

The rest of the photos are here, so check them out!  I'll put some videos up soon as well.

Inspiration

Not that I'm planning to walk 4000km across China any time soon, but I really love the sense of adventure and discovery in this video.  It's definitely worth a watch!

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

And if you click here, there are lots of other timelapse videos, including repainting a Boeing 747, blizzards, lunar eclipses, and an amazing one (#2) of a dot-picture being drawn.  Really cool!

Amerrrria in Tokyo

The rationale to visit Tokyo was pretty simple: my friend Nicci lived there, I love Japanese food, and it was on the way home.  Sorted!  The extra NZ$1200 it added to the cost of my flight...well, we'll just forget that shall we...

Overall impressions were of lots of shrines (Shinto) and temples (Buddhist) - I visited the Yasukuni Shrine, Meiji Shrine, Asakusa Kannon (also known as Senso-ji) Temple, Nezu Shrine, and tried, but sadly failed to find the Gyokushin Mitsuin Temple (it sounded amazing, you enter the temple, then descend to a pitch-black, 100m long stone tunnel, before emerging into a room filled with 300 candle-lit boddhisattvas...but no sign-posting at all meant I wandered the streets of Tamagawa for nearly an hour before giving up...).  And that's not to mention all the tiny shrines and temples I saw all over Tokyo - each slightly different and generally always with someone there offering up a prayer.

And then obviously the food was incredible - my favourite was probably the 'stand-up sushi bar' Nicci took me to on our first night where the chef makes the sushi up in front of you as you order it - I especially loved the salmon ngiri where they took the blow-torch to the mayonnaise on the top of it so it was all bubbling and delicious...mmmm...  I also had freshly caught tuna for breakfast at the Tsukiji Fish Market, ramen with the Tokyo salary-men during the lunch rush (I loved it, you order from a vending machine, take it to the counter, and then a steaming hot bowl of noodles arrives minutes later), an incredibly expensive prawn tempura with hand-made soba noodles (note to self, always find out the price before you order), and a very non-Japanese but delicious pizza from Costco in the 'burbs one night.

I did heaps of walking, including a walk around the imperial heart of Tokyo which includes Kitanomaru Park and the Imperial Palace East Gardens, as well as a great walking tour through a suburb of Tokyo called Yanaka, which was very relaxed and included a walk around the Yanaka Cemetery, famed for its cherry blossoms (although not when I was there - it was stinking hot and everyone was carrying around little sweat cloths to mop themselves up with...).

Other great things included the free viewing platform at the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (although it was too hazy from the heat to see Mt Fuji), the kitchen-ware district (known as 'Kitchen Town' or Kappabashi Dori) and having a traditional onsen in piping hot mineral-rich water.

Japan has experienced a 95% drop in tourism since the earthquake, so other tourists were few and far between, lending the city quite an 'undiscovered' air which was odd (I mean, come on, this is Tokyo!!).  But it was totally safe, and the wonderful hospitality from Nicci made it even more special.

Click here to see the rest of the photos!

A taste of Japan

This is at the Cold Stone Cremery, an ice cream chain which was highly recommended to me as worth a visit while I was in Japan.  This one is in Roppongi Hills where the staff were super enthusiastic!

More photos and stories of Japan to come...

Saying hi to my mate Borat

So as some of you know, I’ve now got a new job (yay!), but what not all of you may know is that it was the craziest start to a job EVER. I turn up, have a day at work on the Friday, then on Saturday morning get on a plane and fly to Kazakhstan for nine days. No, that’s not a typo. I literally went to Kazakhstan on day two of my job!

It was to look at a reservoir/hydropower complex in a small town called Shardara in the very south-western corner of Kazakhstan, right by the Uzbekistan border. There were a whole group of us from different organisations and it was fascinating to hear some of the stories from Soviet times from those who’d been working in Central Asia for a long time. Shardara itself was very dry (but lovely and hot, nearly 30 degrees) and had been pretty much desert before they’d constructed the reservoir in the 1960s. We stayed in a pretty basic guest house, but it had the most amazing views right out over the reservoir and was a bit of a stunning vista to look out at in the mornings.

It was so interesting going right inside the hydropower plant and seeing the massive turbines and all the water gushing out through the turbines and back into the river(technical term: tail water – I’m going to be such a pro soon). We had all sorts of interesting food too – it was heavily based around bread and meat, but sadly despite horse being a local delicacy we never seemed to see it on the menu (actually, only sadly for Adrian who wanted me to try it, not for me...). Every meal always included a version of a delicious, but very basic tomato and cucumber salad – the tomatoes were just amazing, so flavourful and not at all like the perfect yet tasteless ones you get in the supermarkets in the UK. I’m determined to go to the farmers’ markets now and replicate it!

Shishlek was another popular dish (basically, skewers of different meats covered in raw sliced onions) and we tried lamb, beef and catfish versions. I actually preferred the catfish version the most – it was pretty tasty! Other things included various salads (all with lots of mayonnaise), a specially prepared pasta and meat dish, and the ubiquitous ‘piva’ (beer).

After staying in Shardara for three days it was time for a three hour drive back to Shymkent – the major town of the province. Sadly, I’ve got little to nothing to report on from Shymkent as I was struck down by an evil bout of food poisoning which confined me to my hotel room for two days. All I can say is that thank goodness I had my own (and western-style) toilet as if it had been back at Shardara with a hole-in-the-floor toilet shared between a dozen people life would have been very, very miserable indeed...

But once I recovered I managed to eat a bit more of the local food – and got to try ‘plov’ which was the one thing I’d read about before the trip. Apparently there are heaps of different kinds of plov (it's a dish based around rice), but the one I had was beef with roast garlic...mmm... Totally too rich for the delicate state of my stomach, and I definitely paid for it the next day, but worth trying nonetheless!!

Things got even more farcical as we arrived at Shymkent airport to fly to Almaty – the biggest city and previous capital of Kazakhstan. I totally didn’t see the tiniest, 10cm tall step and completely bailed as we entered the airport. Searing pain = twisted ankle = not good. Luckily one of our translators had sprained her wrist the previous week and had a bandage on her which I wrapped around my ankle and which actually made the world of difference. It was basically healed within a week which was great. I had also taken some ibuprofen immediately, but in the confusion and subsequent rush to get to the ticket office and check in, I forgot to re-zip my suitcase up after getting it out and when a colleague picked it up to take it to the check-in desk for me every single person in Shymkent airport got a close-up view of the innards of my bag... Thank goodness I’d put all my dirty washing in an interior bag! It was honestly like a scene out of a slapstick comedy...you’ve just got to laugh about these things though!

It had been getting steadily colder as we got further and further away from Shardara, but the air hostess telling us that the local temperature was zero degrees as we landed in Almaty at midday was a bit of a shock, as was the fact that the entire city was covered in a thick blanket of snow! Luckily I’m used to layering being a good NZer, so I put on everything I owned and went for a small (hobbling) explore. The city is surrounded by mountains which means that the clouds stick around for a long time and winter is basically one long grey cloud. But, in its defence the snow was very pretty!

And then that was that, back in the air to Heathrow and home. It was a really interesting, eventful trip and I learned so much about my new job by jumping in at the deep end which was great. I can tell you that Kazakh vodka is pretty full on, that it’s a country of huge extremes (hot/cold, dry/wet, rich/poor) and that you can still order cigarettes from a restaurant menu! The influence of the USSR era is still enormous and it will be interesting to see how it continues to develop. There’s pretty much no tourism infrastructure (as we are used to it) that I could see, and it probably wouldn’t be somewhere I’d recommend for holidays, but an excellent experience nonetheless.

And I didn’t say one word about Borat the whole time I was there...

Here are the photos - enjoy!

20 hours in Singapore

It's official. I am seriously, head over heels in love with Changi Airport. Singapore, how did you get it so right?!


Let me backtrack...right to the beginning.


My flight (Singapore Airlines) to Singapore was pretty uneventful - bar a bout of twitchy leg starting before I even got on the plane and which got progressively worse until (sorry Dr Stone) I couldn't take it any longer and had to take a sleeping pill... It took about 45 minutes to kick in, but gave me a blessed three-four hours of relief. And it was a way shorter flight than anticipated (just under 11 hours, rather than 13, which made so much difference) so I got off the plane in not too bad shape.


However, I had a plan. I've done a bit of research on the airport and heard so much about it from everyone else that I knew all the things I wanted to do. First stop, book myself in for a free tour. I got on the tour at 11am so seeing as at this stage it was only 7am, it was off to search for a reclining couch for a bit of shut-eye. I had nearly two hours of sleep once I finally found them - genius!


Then it was up and out for my tour. I had landed on the 'colonial' one which was all about the city's heritage (rather than the 'cultural' one which went through Chinatown etc.). It was really interesting! I had no idea this Raffles character was such an important guy (apart from giving his name to a hotel of course). Our guide was pretty frank - telling us bad things as well as good about Singapore - and it made it much more interesting compared to a bland from rote tour. We got off the bus near the main city buildings and WHAM. It is rather hot here I must say... Ok, no, can't keep up that charade. It is HOT, H-O-T. The humidity slapped you in the face and it's like walking around in soup. I know this will come as no surprise to the vast majority of people who may read this, but it's all a novelty to me!!


Back on the bus and then back to the airport, where I immediately turned around and booked myself on the other free shuttle to get into town. I love you Changi! I got dropped off at a place called Suntec City which is a giant mall, which I immediately left and made for the subway to get downtown to go for lunch at a hawker food centre called Lau Pa Sat which I gather is a bit of an institution. For $4.50 (one of only two choices available at the place I chose to go to) I had 'braised meat ban yian' which was delicious (the proof of which is splattered all over my t-shirt at the moment). I honestly think I could live in Asia just for the food alone!!


After lunch I wandered back towards Suntec via Chinatown, finding interesting temples and parks and things to fritter away memory space on my camera (I'll try and upload pictures as soon as I find a computer where I can and it's not too dodgy). Several things intrigued me: what is the toasted sandwich-like thing that everyone's eating? Also what is the dried pork all about? And are televisions particularly cheap here as I seriously saw at least 20 being checked in as luggage (mostly it seemed to India??). I love the grass - it's all fat-leaved and was lovely to walk on. And all the (hundreds!) of ships up and down the coast - are they heading to China?? I also saw a Swensens! (Mention of that is just for you Mum).



Then, back on my, again free, shuttle to the airport, where I went to the rooftop pool for a swim and a shower. That's right, the ROOFTOP POOL. Auckland Airport, avert your eyes in shame! You have a lot, I repeat, a lot, to learn from Changi. A swim and a shower was glorious and prepped me for my $3.80 (no, that's not a typo) laksa from the airport food court. $3.80!!! And it was delicious! I don't know what's different about Singaporean laksa, but it always seems browner, richer somehow than Thai laksa (or is laksa not really from Thailand and I just have no idea). Anyway, totally yum. 



Now I'm making use of the free internet, before I go down and watch Algeria vs. Slovenia on the big screens they're showing all the World Cup matches on. Honestly, it's going to be hard to get on the flight!



Sorry it's been such a long one, but I do have five more hours to kill until I even have to be at my gate, so you'll just have to lump it!



Next stop, Johannesburg!!!!



(P.S. Slovenia won 1-0! If they can do it, surely NZ can...)