A 6am start for a 4km hike to to Vatican Museums for a tour that basically is get into the Vatican Museums 90 minutes before it officially opens and head straight to the Sistine Chapel before it gets too crowded. The room itself is worthy of the attention it gets, it really is impressive. “No…
We had no activities booked for our first full day in Italy, though the Pope has an audience on Wednesday mornings, and although you are supposed to have a ticket it’s entirely meaningless – no one checks, and the Pope himself has said you can attend without one. So we started the morning early, heading…
This day started at 8:30am Monday, at Intercontinental Hotel in Hong Kong, and ended 42 hours later at 8:30pm in Rome, having done the Ferris Wheel ride on Hong Kong Island, and the Borghese Gallery in Rome, with a 12 hour overnight flight thrown in. We enjoyed our last breakfast in Hong Kong. But evicted…
Disneyland opens at 10am, so we had plenty of time for our breakfast at the Intercontinental. And it’s a great breakfast. I liked the thick slices of smoked salmon, and Jess was impressed by the large size Yakult. We caught the MTR to Disneyland and arrived about 10:30. Walking down “Main Street” builds the hype….
Up at 3am to get to the airport to catch our 7am flight back to Hong Kong. This time we were taking Mina’s mother with us for her to stay in Hong Kong with Mina’s sister. We landed in Hong Kong and were out of the airport by 10am. Mina’s sister took their mother and…
Jess spent the morning in the pool of the hotel with her cousins who stayed the night with us. We had to be out by midday, and had found a place at the Midas Hotel at 2pm. We had time to kill so we took the kids to Dreamworld at the complex. This is an…
This morning our first stop was the cemetery to visit the graves of Mina’s father and sister. Cemeteries here are somewhat different to those in NZ – the graves themselves are far more elaborate, and the fact there’s people living there. Before we left for our 4th place of the trip Mina had her “boodle…
Up bright and early to beat the heat, and go to the market. It’s much hotter and more humid in the market, and the three of us were sweating a lot.
Today we were up bright and early and out the door by around 6:30am. Morning traffic doesn’t seem quite so bad as evening traffic, but it’s slow going nonetheless. Our first stop was in Cavite to visit some relatives Mina hadn’t seen for many years. The town is called Naic where Mina’s dad was born,…
Monday June 3rd is the first real day of our trip. It’s the first full day without travelling between countries. With a healthy and useful does of jet-lag we were u bright and early, and what better way to spend an early morning than by the pool. Jess had a fine swim almost alone before…