I must get some more pics of the girls with Minnie as well.. but she’s pretty skittish of the kids (and adults too really).

Continue reading to see about the trip to St Andrews…. (photos from the day are in Canada – 2010 – Group 3.

We’ve had a lot of rain here in NB, it’s the only thing that’s made the trip a bit tedious really.  It would have been nice to have some nicer weather and get out and about more.  There’s so much to see in NB but it really does want nicer weather, especially with kids.  On Monday (June 7) we took a chance on the weather holding at cloudy and a touch of drizzle to head down to St Andrews for some seafood.  The day turned out perfectly.  It was cool and windy when we got there but the sun was mostly out and the rain completely stopped.  It was great for walking around the town, not so good when you stopped to look though haha

We decided to eat at the Harbour Front Restaurant on Water Street, just about 150m from the Pier.  We went here because of the big platter for 2 they had on offer.  Well, really it was just a platter for just one Yuki, but I managed to distract her just enough to get a few bits from it

Some photos of the seafood feast

The first basket is what I ate, the second is what Yuki ate .. the last photo is of the lucky ones that survived the feast

It was a great day out and everyone had fun.  I made Yuki drive back home as she needs practice driving in Canada, she’s going to help with the non-stop drive back to Ontario on Wed night.  I’m getting way to old to do it myself now hahah

I sat in the middle row of seats and enjoyed the ride and surfed using the pocket access point and USB rocket pictured above, it was bloody slow haha

Lisa was playing on her DSi (Thanks to Nana Carol)  the entire trip down and back to St Andrews, killed the battery completely on the trip.. she’s junky already.  Emma, well it was just all too much for her, she had to crash for the entire trip home.

It’s Tuesday now and I’m blogging this from the Chapters – Indigo Bookstore in the Regent St Shopping Mall, sip’n a Starbucks coffee.  The girls are all out getting their hair cut and ready for the Wedding on Monday of my Dad and Carol.  There will be plenty of photos posted from that

Well, just got a text, the girls are done and heading for home.  I’ll go and meet them and get yuki for a bit more shopping.  We need to get a few more things and get back and start getting stuff packed up for tomorrows departure.

On the Sunday we went for a 90 min boat cruise around Kingston and Wolfe Island.  Here’s a couple of photos from the boat with Emma and Lisa taking turns at the helm (before leaving port haha)

We’d stayed until Monday morning when we packed up the van and headed out for Burlington VT.  We planned to stop here and shop, but clearly we made some wrong shopping choices as we didn’t find much in the way of bargains or much of any thing really.   Here we are crossing the bridges at Cornwall Ontario heading for the US.

Here we are taking the ferry across Lake Champlain that separates New York state and Vermont.

After a good nights sleep, but a stupid early wake up for some reason (still a bit jet lagged I guess), we got an early start on the second leg of the journey to New Brunswick to see Nana Shirley and the family in that part of the country.  We’re pretty well shopped out now I think   The girls have been spending money getting all kitted out for the wedding back in Kingston on the 14th of June.  I still need a shirt and tie but other then that we’re all set haha

When we arrived in New Brunswick it was starting to rain, and it rained for the next couple days.  Today we’ve had dry weather but it’s threatening to rain again for the next couple of days.   Saturday (June 5th, our wedding anniversary) we’re hoping to get an early start to the day and get down to St Andrews for sights and seafood, Yuki is a seafood-a-holic if ever there was one.  However, the weather forecast isn’t looking good for Saturday, so that might get pushed off until Monday.

Tonight we took the kids around to my cousin Gregg’s house to play with their 3 kids (Chanse, Dakota and Kendall), they were great and our girls had an awesome time playing with them.  That Kendall is a real cutie.  The kids had a great time running around and playing games.  I hope their kids sleep as well as I hope ours sleep haha.

Like usual, all the photos from our trip will be on Flickr.  They’ll all be in the Canada 2010 collection.

I’ll try to blog more as the trip goes, I’ve been time sharing the computer with Yuki so I don’t get to use it as much as I’d like

It was a decent enough few days.. the weather could have been better but at least it didn’t rain the entire time. I did manage to get 3 Geocaches in while i was up there too.  Nice easy ones.

We went to the Metrocentre Shopping Centre in Gateshead, besides just walking around looking at the huge number of shops we also enjoyed the entertainment area there .. they had loads of those “grabber” games where you have get a prize out of the machine plus a number of other games of luck/skill/chance where you get tickets if you win and you can exchange them for crap.. and I use that term in the most loving way possible  

The other thing they had were dodgems (bumper cars) .. Lisa was bugging us to let her go.. being too small to go alone I went with Lisa.. man I tell you, I’ve never seen a kid laugh so much and so hard for so long.. I was dead certain I’d have to be yelling “clean up in dodgem #10′” haha she had a great time.. I had to operate the “gas peddle” as it was out of her reach, but she did most of the steering and the ramming of others out in on the rink or whatever you call it.  Yuki took Emma out as well in another car.. Emma had an OK time but she is just a little too small and got chucked around too much.  Lets just say it’s a good thing the cars are well padded including a 6-8 inch thick patch on the steering wheel haha she hit that a lot.. but she survived.  I think Lisa and I ended up having 3 goes on them.

On Tuesday we’d gone for a walk around the town centre, one of the places we visited was Castle Keep,  Pretty slick place and quite well preserved but it’s not had an easy go in it’s life that’s for sure.   Here are a couple of photos from the place .. check out the rest by clicking on any of the photos..

We also visited The Cathedral Church of St. Nicolas just up the road from Castle Keep.

Check out more photos by clicking on any of the above.

Check out blog postings over at Dean Read dot net. Here is the video of their Ennerdale Wainwrights video.

I don’t have a plan as to when I’ll do it, but I’m thinking mid-late summer.  Need to plan to do some day walks first and get an idea on what I’m in for.  The other “problem” is also finding someone to do these with.  It would be pretty foolish to attempt this sort of thing alone with the lack of experience.  So, I need for another nutter up for some fun too   If that’s you, lets chat, drop me a comment.

Devices that require power

• Dell E6500 Latitude (with 9 and 6 cell batteries)
• Nokia N97 (read my other blog postings for my opinion on this device)
• Zoom 4506-N 3G Travel Router
• Microsoft wireless travel mouse
• Jabber BT3030 headset
• Power adapter for laptop (travel adapter for use with mains, car and air plane (I’ve never been fortunate enough to travel in the right class where I can use it on a plane )

Devices that use power but leech off other sources

• Vodafone K3820 3G/HSDPA modem
• 500GB portable USB drive
• Numerous Flash drives of various capacities, some have bootable OSes on them some just for data

Misc items that I carry that don’t need any power themselves

• A number of 8cm CD’s and DVD’s with bootable OSes on them (all Re-Writable for reuse, and for those machines that can’t boot of USB, WTF?)
• A couple of sets of head phones (in case of loss or damage)
• Various cables to connect devices for data transfer or charging, most use the same USB cables so it keeps these to a minimum

All in all it’s a fair bit of gear slung on my shoulder.   The double batteries for the laptop are really just to make sure I can go for hours and hours..  One question I’m sure many are asking themselves – Is all that gear really necessary?   Of course the answer is NO, BUT it’s just become the norm for so many years now, not just with me but so many people.   I can do just nicely with only my phone in most cases.  I managed quite nicely last year to post very long blog postings while out camping.  However, it wasn’t as convenient as it would have been had I had my laptop with me.  I should put my normal “battle load” into my backpack and weight it.  I’m sure it’s the best part of 8KG, might be a  bit more.

The only reason I decided to write this blog posting now was because while I sit in the Starbucks here in Newmarket Road in Cambridge I pulled out my travel mouse to find the battery was flat in it.  That got me thinking about what else I have in my bag that might need a change of batteries.  Thankfully that’s really the only device that can’t be recharged (however that’s a bad thing too really).  By that I mean I can’t plug the mouse in to charge the battery, it’s just a single AA battery.  That in itself is a good thing really, I can get replacements anywhere for it, that however can’t be said for any of the other power hungry devices I carry.  They all have bespoke batteries, so they require having some sort of charger/power adapter (be it wall wart, USB cable or some such).

So, What do you carry with you on a day to day basis?   What do you wish you could carry with you but choose to leave at home for some reason?

The weather this past week has been brutal here with highs not much higher then 14C in the day time and loads of rain. I’ve been told this is not normal weather for this time of the year, especially since this is the summer time down here.

This weekends plans were a bit scuppered due to the weather but what can you do. I just hope we have better weather this coming week. I’d hate to think I brought shorts and didn’t have a chance to wear them, save for the first day I arrived.

I’ll try to get some pics and post them later, unfortunately the broadband speeds down here are less then desirable so uploading photos would be very tedious and time consuming.

I’ll post more later when I have something more interesting.

The trip to Johannesburg started with a taxi ride to Heathrow Airport in London. The trip was uneventful and actually quite educational. The driver gave me some great tips on alternate ways to the airport that avoided nearly all f the dreaded M25. As I will be going to Heathrow in Dec to collect my mum when she comes over it will give me a chance to test the routes.

Getting through security was about the easiest I’ve seen in years, well for me anyhow. Unlike most others around me (men and women) i didn’t need to take off my belt or shoes. A short wait on the secure side for the gate to assigned and opened, then about 90 mins ish in the boarding area. The flight was late owing to “catering and security checks”… Hmm security checks on the catering. On the flight I have seat 51J on a 747-400, flight VS601 with Virgin Atlantic.

The take-off was quite late. However it was announced the expected flight time was reduced from the original 11h5m to 10h15m or something, so this will make up for the later departure.

There weren’t many seats free on the aircraft but that didn’t put a dampener on all the people bent on moving around trying to find a better seat somewhere else. Speaking of seats, there several rows of some new fangled seat that Virgin is trialling to be the new economy seats. I wasn’t in one of these rows, oh well haha.

Shortly after take-off they started the ovens to cook dinner, I’m sitting right next to one of the galley’s and smell of dinner is starting to get to me haha… The last thing I ate was at about 12pm, its now 720pm.

Dinner was beef stew, roll, pasta salad and a small “Gu” chocolate thing.

This is the first time I have flown since all of my weight loss, and I have to say that flying is a hell of a lot easier now. Everything from simply sitting in the seats, no more need for a seatbelt extension but most of all just walking around the cabin and toilets haha.

Its now 00:49 Johannesburg time and currently we are somewhere over southern Niger. Extreme boredom is setting in. I’m in a middle seat so getting up for a walk isn’t easy. Curiously, as I typed the above House Of Pain – Jump Around has just come on the music player haha could the have been a more inappropriate song for the moment

I suppose what I am typing now should really fall under day 2 haha… I have arrived in Johannesburg. The rest of the flight was uneventful and breakfast was actually quite good. We has scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns and beans. There was a muffin also, that got eaten and a yogurt pot, that did not haha.

Passing through Immigration consisted of first looking into the FluIR camera to check for illness, a little late if you ask me, they should be doing that BEFORE people board the aircraft. Then it was my turn with the immigration officer. This consisted of me standing silent, her thumbing to a page in my passport and inserting a sticker and stamping my entry.

The only hitch of the day… No driver?!?! I call the hotel to enquirer. She informed me the driver had waited for me yesterday morning. Clearly they were confused about my travel arrangements.. So now I wait for my driver to get dispatched… Not sure if thats a correct term to use in SA or not haha.

I finally made it to the hotel, got checked, showered and changed. Then had to get over to another colleagues room to had out too a braai across town. That was very good. It was being hosted by one some of the folks from a business partner. It was nice to meet them and chill out eating great food.

I finally got back to the hotel about 7 I think it was.. had a bite to eat at the hotel then back to the room to chill out. It was a great day but was very glad to get back and get to bed. I’d woken at 7am Saturday morning UK time and finally got to sleep about 930pm Sunday night, UK Time.

Monday was good at the office, got a fair amount done in the office so that’s good. Looks like we won’t be able to move the people in the office to new office until Wed or Thursday this week, so that means we’re a few days behind.

I’ll post more when I’ve done something more interesting

I’ll have to get some photos as well and get them posted.

Expect some blog postings from me while I’m there, certainly not a day by day posting like previous trips haha there’ll be way too much boring work stuff I’m sure. I will however post when I’ve done something fun and have some pics to show as well.

Follow me on twitter and on facebook.

Wednesday, it was back to the Albert Cuypstraat Market again for a couple of things that we didn’t get the day before.  We’d only walked a small part of that market.  Then it decided we’d take in the Tropenmuseum.  This is quite the place.  Four floors of Dutch history centred around the Caribbean and tropical areas.  They also had a great “Getting to know China” tour in a special area of the museum, the only problem was it was given entirely in Dutch by a Chinese guy.  It would have been nice for a just a little bit of English to be given, but oh well.  They covered the Chinese art of Tai Chi and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese cuisine, Chinese writing with hair and feather pens.  They also spoke about Chinese traditions for celebrating and honouring the dead and Chinese tea ceremony’s and different famous Chinese teas.

I have heaps of photos from the museum which I’ll get up shortly.  After the museum we headed for the “China District”, which is just on the edge of the Red Light district.  Bloody shame too, we had to walk through the RLD twice again that day   We had lunch at a Chinese Dim Sum restraunt.  The sign outside (I have a photo somewhere) that read “All you can eat for 8.95, in 1 hour” haha

After stuffing ourselves with Chinese food and leaving the owner suffering from a minor stroke having witnessed the awesome eating power of Yuki (I’m certain he’ll change his sign either increasing the price the cutting the 1 hour to 30 mins), we headed back to Nieuwendijk and Kalverstraat shopping areas and Dam square.  One of the tram drivers from a previous day liked his job a lot, when we approached Dam square his announcement over the tannoy was something like “Now stopping at the Dam square, all those going to the Dam square get off here at the Dam square”.  We wandered around the square and got a photo with all the girls and Batman, which nearly made Emma cry, what a scary cat.  Yuki then went to the Amsterdam Diamond Centre.  I stayed around the square with the kids.

After that it was back to the hotel, rather early then previously, but we were all completely knackered.  Poor Yuki, when we got back to the hotel we’d found out the Internet had been shutdown due to some technical problem (apparently their open wifi was used by spammers or something so the ISP killed their connection for 24 hours).  It was a long and boring night with no Internet haha

We all just chilled out for a while then about 1830 Lisa and I walked down the street to the Domino’s Pizza and picked up a medium pizza and some chicken wings for dinner and took it back to the hotel room.

Thursday morning we got all packed up and had breakfast and got a taxi back to the Olympic Stadium Park and Ride.  We had too much stuff to carry on the Trams there, it was just easier.  The Park and Ride was by far the best bargain of the trip, 6 Euro per day, so 24 Euro and the car was kept safe in a well lit, underground 24hr guarded parking facility.  I was well impressed.  Anyone planning to drive to Amsterdam should seriously consider using the P-n-R facilities they have, it’s cheap and easy for sure!  Wish more cities has those sorts of secure short/longish term parking facilities.

We then made our way back towards the Hook of Holland port, taking our time and exploring some of the county lanes along the way.  There weren’t many windmills to be seen really, to really experience those you need to get on a bus tour from Amsterdam .. we didn’t bother as they were quite expensive and very long.. they were 32 Euro for each adult and 16 for each of the kids plus they were 5 ½ hours out on the go.  There’s no way the kids would have survived that trip

We took a bunch of photos of the countryside and settled in the Hook of Holland to explore the small town here and have lunch before getting on the ship.  We found a nice little clothing shop and managed to find Yuki a cute PJ set with Snoopy on it (that’s her fav), plus we picked up a bunch of things for the kids and I got a fleece jacket I’ll keep at the office (since our AC is mental and seems to be set on “Fend off Global Warming” mode all the time), that was a bargain as well, a huge bag of clothes for 40 something Euro.  Much better then shopping in Amsterdam haha

That brings me to the current time, 1426hrs.  Currently sitting on deck seven of our ship just waiting for them to cast off and hoist the mainsails, heave the anchors and get the cat-o-nine-tails out to encourage the rowing team to crack on with the crossing.

Yuki has given up on getting online for now and decided to sack out over 3 chairs and try and sleep.  It’s highly unlikely that will happen, now with our kids.

Speaking of the kids, they’ve been in the kids play area for about the last hour or so since we boarded the ship.  We’re sat right next to the kids area, I’m not sure if that was a good or bad idea.. haha we can see the kids but we can also HEAR them too.. do they sell mufflers for children?  If not they should, there’s a fortune waiting for the smart bugger that brings that to market!!

Right, enough for now.. we have about 7 hours until we land I think.. then it’s straight home with the kids and get them to bed.  We’ll deal with the aftermath of the clothing and bags tomorrow or something.  I’ll be ready for bed myself as son as I walk in the door I think.

Good bye Amsterdam and Holland, it’s been mostly good but had it’s moments as well.  Can’t say we’d hurry back again, but mostly that’s just because of the cost of visiting verses a couple of bad experiences.

Once there we found a nice kebab shop where we had what appears to have been a faeces free lunch, much to our delight. After lunch it onto a tram heading towards the Central Station. We ditches the tram at the Rokin and Grimburgwal stop. There was a tour boat leaving in 15 mins so we got out tickets and boarded for a 1hr tour. Sadly this boat didn’t do cover the canals through the Red Light district, however it was still very good. It has a GPS triggered multi lingual playout system for the commentary which was neat.

Once back, we embarked on a monumental walk which I will try to work out with google earth later… But it went from the Allard Pierson Museum NNE along Kloveniersburghwal, down Oude Hoogstraat, before entering the Red Light District we stopped for a snack.. Another experience of cost of living here.. 2 average sized chocolate dipped donuts with sprinkles, 1 chocolate topped waffle with crushed peanuts, a coffee, a bottle of Lemon Ice Tea and use of the bathroom … €14. Unreal!!

Now we set off to the Red Light District. I have to admit I was a bit bothered about having the kids there, just on principle. However, seeing how many other famines there were made me feel better… Two wrongs might not make a right but it give some validation haha. It was interesting and loads of ladies hanging out in their windows looking for punters to ‘do business’ with. The place was very clean and tidy. I’m sure its much more impressive at night though. We leave that area and head WNW through the Warmoesstraat district, mostly sex shops, sex screening and what not, then out past Beure van Berlage shop, sort of your Harrods of Amsterdam I guess, 6 floors of ass dragging shopping goodness.

We then joined Nieuwendijk and headed SSW on there till we reached Dam Square. We continued south along Kalverstraat till its very bitter end at the Kalvertoren and the Flower Marker… tulips, tulips, tulips…. And yup more tulips. Bulbs for mile.

Right, for those keeping locational tabs, we are now (still on foot I might add) at the corners of Singal (flower market), Heiligeweg, Koningsplein and the start of the Leidsestraat shopping area. We now walk SW for the full length of this area, starting to remember some of the muddle we found ourselves in yesterday looking for tram tickets.

Getting hungry again due to the now 4 or 4.hrs that have passed since walking..er I mean lunch. I’ getting a union signed up for my next holiday! We found a nice little Mexican place and ordered 5 starters, those left us stuffed. Total damage was only €31, a record for the week!!

Right, fed watered and leaked we were now able to get back to the hotel to get the kids a much needed bath. That simply consisting getting 2 trams with a change. Luckily we guessed right and even managed our stops without the need for one of our soon to be patented

‘oh shit missed the stop, never mind, get off at the next on and either walk back or tram back, screw that its too far just get a tram’

This time it all worked out perfectly, how said you can’t teach imports new tricks. The rest of the evening was uneventful back in the room. We should be fully chilled out and ready for tomorrow…..

Posted by Wordmobi

Having walked around for about 1.5mi looking at shops that apparently don’t open on on Monday until 11am, or if at all. One lessoned learned is NEVER go to Amsterdam on Monday, it’s shut!! We were looking for a tourist info booth, which should have been somewhere around the Diamant Museum, so we could buy a couple unlimited travel cards. Turns out they hide them from the tourists, never found either that was in the mile or so radius of each other, shocking. Finally managed to get some tram tickets, not the ones we wanted but whatever, got us out of the rain.

Then it was onto a tram heading towards the Central Station, looking for the Magna Plaza shopping centre. We’d missed the stop so had to fetch another tram going back the opposite direction to get back, we did that a lot today .  After the Magna Plaza, we wandered the entire length of Nieuwendijk Street shopping area.  Ok, HOLY CRAP that’s a lot of places to go in and out of.  There must be 500 stores in about 1/2 a mile.  We finally decided to stop for lunch, the kids were starving, we were too to be fair.  We wanted to get some of the Holland pancakes.  Right, this is where our day starts to take a major shit, pardon the French but you’ll see why.

(Continue reading… it’s a beaut)

So, we go into this place called “Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner”, not the most creative of resaurant names to say the least but it looked ok, it was busy which should, by most accounts suggest it’s half decent.  Right, we get ourselves sat down at a table, it was some cramped, I’m glad I’ve lost all that weight, we’d have never gotten in.  Next to us was a table of 5 girls, they finished up and cleared out.  We asked the waitress if we could move to that table as it had more room.  There was a hesitation on her part suggesting it might be a great inconvienence to her and the planet if we moved, but she said fine, just bring our own cutlery from the table we were at already (they hadn’t yet layed out the new table, only wiped it down), no problem.  Whilst at the first table we’d caught a whiff of what I thought was either dog or horse droppings.  Figured it was coming from outside through the open window.  The number of dogs walking around on leds in Amsterdam is quite impressive.  Anyhow, after we moved it was still there.  Anyhow, we get our lunch, which was alright I suppose.  The pancakes were really only crepes with our selected toppings, the kids had those.  I had a club sandwich, which was average and Yuki had a plate of chicken wings and chips.  Right, not long after getting our food the waitress notices a big turd on the floor near the 2 seat table next to ours.  She says, get this, … Is that yours?  Dead straight I might add.  I’d have considered saying yes, I’m often in the habit of pinching a loaf in the middle of a crowded restaurant, but figured it might well have been lost on her.  We answered, no, it most certainly wasn’t ours.  Now, this having been my first trip to Holland and admittedly not being fully versed in the local customs, she then accuses our kids of shitting on the floor.  Is it normal for children in Holland, or the parents of children in Holland to allow their kids to drop their britches and shit in restaurants? I’d really like to think it’s not.  Anyhow, now having noticed the aforementioned turd on the floor, it took the staff a good 8 mins to clean it up.  We’d finished up, only just, and Yuki mentions to one of the girls that was doing a fanstasic job with a mob to really spread it around the floor, she must be a farmer because a John Deere couldn’t have spread it better!!  Yuki askes her for the bill.  The women snaps back “Can’t you see I’m cleaning up your mess”  well shit (pardon the pun) that was a red rag to a bull for Yuki, she lost it a bit.. but rightly so.  She demanded to see a manager.  Things go from bad to worse now.  The women snaps back at Yuki to her demand to know who the manager is, she says “Ok, fine then, I’m the manager”, I’m guessing not.  There was a battle or words about how it WASN’T our group that crapped on the floor.

I spoke to a guy that was dressed quite nicely and asked who the owner or manager was, he claimed to be manager.  I explained how unimpressed I was about his staff member accusing my children of crapping on his floor and demanded to know what will be done about the bill and we weren’t happy.  He said “Ok ok ok no problem, it’s finished, no problem” I asked if that ment we don’t pay the bill and we can go? “Ok, no problem, you go”.  Right, with that we leave.   He then chases us down across the street demanding payment.  WHAT THE FUCK?!?!  We have a discussion about the incident.  He’s demanding we go back and pay the bill or he’ll “take me back” hmm I said “No, phone the police and I’ll speak to them about the matter”  He kept saying no to that idea.  After he phoned for 2 heavies to come and help back him up I decided it best if I phone the police myself.  There’s no way that’s going down.  Anyhow, the police turn up.  We explain everything to the cops, one goes off and speaks to the now 4 people (2 staff from the shit hole and 2 heavies).  He comes back to inform us we have to pay, the law is the law.  They were completely unwilling to listen to reason.  Fine, I fork over 42 Euro for what will amount to be the worse lunch of my entire life ANYWHERE.  I handed the money to the cop and told HIM to give it to the guy I wasn’t speaking to him, the cop looked upset by this, but at this point I didn’t really give a shit (because apparently earlier we already had).   They returned my change and we finally went on our way.

That experience alone has just about put me off this country completely.  I’m sure it’s isolated and we might not ever encounter something like that again, but geezus, customer serivce and respect for the customers?  ZERO!!!

Right, back to the rest of the day.  We continued our quest for the shops.  We’re very wet (it’s not really stopped raining much of the day), were pissed off at how we were treated, not only by the staff but by the cops as well I think, and just generally in a unhappy state.   Eventually we made it back to the hotel to chill out and warm up for a while before heading out looking for dinner.  I’d found a number of places close by using Google Maps on the phone, awesome application BTW, if you haven’t got it on your smart phone GET IT!!!  However, it failed to remind me it was Monday and most of them were shut.

We finally found a very nice Indonesian place called Desa (selected it from the 2 listed on that page).  It wasn’t busy really, but there was a large party that arrived with near perfect timing of all the food hitting the table so as to prevent them waiting about.   We selected one of the sort of all inclusive meals for 2, they said it would be more then enough to include the kids (free), boy howdy, they were right too.  It was like 12 or 13 dishes of food that came out with 4-6 pieces in each dish, but combined it was massive.  We brought heaps back to the hotel.  Well, anyhow, Yuki mentions to one of the servers that it’s Lisa’s birthday, expecting maybe a free ice cream or something but the waitress brought around a couple of gift bags (pics on flickr once we get back to a proper internet connection, free wifi works but only just), and inside each bag was a few little toy things for the kids and a load of sweets.  These looked to have been made up before hand to give out in these sorts of occasions.  No free ice cream but the kids didn’t care, did I mention they have one to each of the girls?  They were over the moon haha    Well that experience was a good start to making up for lunch, certainly the meal was 100000% better for the value, which BTW was only 8 Euro difference, shocking.

Back at the hotel the girls got into their bags to see what they had.  I have an un-bagging video which I’ll get up later at home haha

And with that, the day is pretty well over.  Going to check emails and what not then get to bed.  Sorry for the long winded posting today, but there was a lot to say for sure.

Once on-board we made out way to a window seat near the front of ‘Food City’ close to the kids play zone. We had breakfast on board then the kids disappeared to the play area only to return for nibbles and drinks and the occasional potty break. Just after lunch a magician came out to the kids play zone and put on a show for about and hour… He was like the pied piper, kids from far and wide appeared to watch his magic and balloon tricks.

The arrival and disembarkation was uneventful, as was the drive to Amsterdam, well mostly. A couple of wrong turns due to clarity issues of the GPS coupled with the giggling at it speaking road names of infinite length.

We attempted to get to the hotel to unload the car, that failed as there was no where to stop for blocks.. Literally. We decided to just got the Park and Ride at Olympisch Stadion. Here can park for just €6/day (24hrs). That comes with a free tram/bus pass to and from the PnR. We made it to Albert Cuypstraat on the tram and stopped to feed the kids at McD’s. Then it was about a 10 min walk to the hotel.

I failed to notify my over zealous bastard of a bank, who might I add will shut down my credit card at the very thought of a foreign purchase, shut down my card when the hotel attempted payment. A quickish call to them and several insults at them later had my card restored to service.

That pretty much brings me to now as I am typing this blog entry… Lisa is sleeping, Emma is fussing about and Yuki is on my laptop and that leaves me on my phone to blog that pretty much does it for day on in Holland. Stay tuned for the results of day 2, tomorrow.

Posted by Wordmobi

I’ve finally got the photos posted on Flickr now. The easiest way to see them all is by going to the Camping 2009 Collection.  You can see we had a great time

While we were away I was blogging using my Nokia N97 phone with the use of Wordmobi (WordPress Blogging Tool) and QuickOffice 6.  Entering text into Wordmobi is fine but there’s no spell check available in the tool.  So, the process I used was to write up the posting content in QuickOffice and saved as a Word Document.  Once it was complete and spell checked I’d copy the text and paste it into Wordmobi.  This then allowed me to post direct to the blog and add the tags and whatever I wanted.  All in all this process was very good and worked well for me.  I had my laptop with me including my datacard and power source but never once turned it on during the week we were away.  I was able to do everything I needed to using my phone.  Other apps I used were the Facebook App that came installed on the phone and my favorite Twitter App – Gravity.  I would have been online using Nimbuzz, but for some reason I just couldn’t get authenticated, but it worked fine from home, not sure what happened there.

I’ve received a lot of positive comments from people via various paths about my blog postings while away.  Thanks for the comments and thanks for reading them too!

I really must try to blog more often… perhaps with the new found process using my phone I will feel more like it.  Since moving from Windows to Linux full time on my laptop it’s not as convienent to use my one beloved Windows too, Windows Live Writer … truely a great application for blogging on WordPress sites.

Thank again for following our holiday and reading the site.

It was a bit of an early day again today, Lisa woke us by filling her sleeping bag again, rather then getting up to use the bucket we’d put out for just such cases. Oh well, hung everything out to dry on a line for the day.

Today we spent the day in Southwold. parked up at on end of the town and only paid £3.80 for all day parking, brilliant for a tourist trap really. First stop in town was the Pier. This was not like most piers in the UK… It had an arcade but was small and clean, but the pier lacked the usual tat and flashing lights and head pounding noises. It was very clean and tidy with shops selling decent looking products.

After that we headed into town and walked about 2 miles around the streets and looking in shops. We needed to get the girls some swimsuits or shorts so they could play in the surf. Once the new shorts were acquired it was time for food. This proved to be the most difficult task of the day… First it was 1425hrs when we started the quest for food. The first pub stopped serving at 1400, the next place stopped at 1430 (missed it by that much (insert any number of corresponding scene from “Get Smart”)), finally found a place. The timing was perfect, I was preparing to beat several sea gulls to death for a meal.

Fed and watered it was time to get wet. We headed down to the beach. Its a very long and fairly well maintained and clean. It was very windy down on the beach and as a result we all ended up getting several layers of skin sand blasted off haha and people pay big money for that sort of treatment, fools. We spent just over an hour at the water I suppose. The girls had a great time and got well soaked and cold… Warm water my ass but they had fun blue lips and sand in places it shouldn’t be haha

Time to head back to camp, but first a stop at a Tesco first for a few more supplies. Dinner was bbq pork chops, boiled carrots and potatoes and a tossed salad.

Right now as I type this Yuki is in giving the girls a showered to get the sea, sand and stink off them

Next will be a short sit around the neighbours camp fire with them and roast some marshmallows and make some chocolate banana’s in the fire… Then bed time again. We were going to see about staying Friday night too but decided to pack it in tomorrow… The weather is suppose to turn tomorrow night and no point temping fate We’ve had a good run this week, no point pushing our luck.

Its been a great week away. We’ve had some great times and some not so great but all in all it was positive. Being home in my own bed tomorrow night will be very nice indeed. Cleaning all the camping gear wont be much fun but it needs to be done I guess. The gear will be packed away for another year (or in the recent case, two years as we didn’t get out at all last year).

The girls are all in bed now and I’m just finishing off this posting and having a cup of hazelnut hot chocolate, yummy. Then check some emails and off to bed myself. Time sure does fly these past few days… 10pm comes ever so quickly. Normally I’m struggling to stay awake at home this time of night, but not out here… All the fresh air is going to be sadly misses when we get back home…

Right, enough of this babbling, time to close the post, finish my hot chocolate, count some stars and then to bed.

Night all!!!

Oh yeah, once we are back I will be uploading heaps of photos… Got about 400 or 500 to sift though and see what’s useful and get them uploaded.

Posted by Wordmobi

Then it was up about 8am or so to get cleaned up, fed and packed up. Breakfast was some left over sausages and a hamburger and some scrambled eggs that were collected by the owners the day before, YUMMY!! By 1115 we’d cleared the camp site and were on the way back to Diss for the laundrette, thankfully it was open.

We arrived at the new site, the Orchard (IP13 0SJ). I assume at one time it was, there are still a couple apple trees around, not eating apples though. While Yuki and I got busy setting up camp the kids went off to play, they quickly acquired their new victims … Err found a couple of kids to befriend that are both sisters and only 6 months difference from our girls. Turns out they just down from north of Peterborough and arrived an hour or so ahead of us, very nice couple they are.

We didn’t feel much like cooking tonight so headed into a town called Woodbridge. We found a very nice pub called The Seal. The bar keep turns out to have schooled at Queen’s Uni in Kingston so had a bit of a chat about that.

Back to the camp site… We finished setting up the tent and all. Then it was over to visit with the folks we’d met earlier. The girls had gone go to theirs and were “helping” with the fire and roasting of marshmallows. stood around for about 90 mins chatting then it was time for the “glow stick shower”. Every Wed and Sat nights after dark they assemble all the kids/teens near the shop and after a very loud count down from 10 they hurled about 100 of the thin flexible glow sticks into the air from a couple different directions. All that can be said about what happened next is… WOW… The kids had a blast collecting what they could. After that was done they handed out the joiners for the glow sticks.

That brings me to the present… 2230hrs and I’m wiped… Again. Blogging this not from my chair under the stars but from bed. Our neighbours have also just returned, not overly concerned the others could be sleeping but never mind.

Time to post this and sign off for the night… No ideas yet for tomorrow… Likely head to Southwold to the beach or something.

Sorry for taking so long to post this tonight tata from Suffolk!

Posted by Wordmobi