Student Leaving Party Photos

Andrew has shared photos with you.

			You're invited to view my online photos at the Gallery. Enjoy! - Andrew
	WSI Ss Leaving Party (1 album)

If you can't see the link, copy and paste the following directly into your browser: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=13ipx02e.701dh5h6&x=1&y=-qbo6zs Questions? Visit http://help.kodakgallery.com.

Paris Hostel Search online

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Boots N All
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Student Party Tonight! I'm really worried that 1000 people will show up. I'm sure our little local pub won't mind. It's normally quite quiet there, our little "scrabble place" (as we go and play scrabble there on Sat because teaching 6 hours of English isn't enough...!)

I've got a kick-arse 2 hour class of Fun & Games beforehand which I'm expecting 50+ students to turn up to, involving theatresports and Bush Dancing!!! Pictures when I can.

Blanking Out

I woke up this morning and I was shocked... I saw my To-Do List whiteboard which is now more white than ink. Things have been done and, although there's still a lot to do in my mind, the most important stuff has been taken care of.

I finally got my backpack yesterday afternoon after so many little trips to different shops over the past few weeks. Kath doesn't understand how I shop - I can't just buy, I have to look around and sleep on it before I'm convinced its a good buy. Anyway, now I have something to put my stuff in and carry for the trip - from Proaston. We'll see if it's up to the job.

The counter says: 5 DAYS!

VISA - Polish Ministry of State Affairs

Msz lists the countries of passport holders that don't require visas. Phew! Australia is on the list... Was worried for a while.

Poland Info

I just read in our Monkey Shrine traveller's guide that Aussies need a visa for Poland. While searching I came across this useful info page about Poland :Commercial and Economic Section, Consulate General of Poland in Hong Kong - Practical Info ... but no info about visas yet.

Tickets Tickets Tickets

The last couple of days have been quite successful at crossing things off our to-do list. Kath picked up the Europe East Rail Pass yesterday which covers most of the European countries that we are visiting, including Poland, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

 

Travel insurance hopefully is being arranged this morning... and train tickets for our longer legs in Europe have been looked at. The problem is collecting the tickets - we want to book trips like Berlin - Paris in advance, but of course we can't collect our ticket anywhere - they mail it to you but we're going to be on the road as of next week.. (Wow time flies!)

 

Finally mannaged to get Eurostar tickets. It happens to be cheaper if you aren't British. Using Kath's British credit card actually bumped the price up by about 25%.

 

Only things left are the remaining train tickets and accomodation in Paris. Anyone have any suggestions?

Scavenger Hunt Done - 2 down 1 to go...

Scavenger Hunt was successful!
Seemed like everybody had fun.
Started in Central at yum cha (where we couldn't even order enough to cover the minimum charge!) and 4 groups set out throughout Central in a sweltering 32 Celcius. Some extremely hilarious performances throughout the day by all, including sparkly beachwear, HK$175,000 D&G outfits, movie in a minute performances, fountain dipping, supermarket trolley bashing, YMCA posing and other sorts of havoc....
I'll see if I can post the pictures up sometime! What a laugh. Thanks to everyone who didn't bail on it... we know how much those who piked (which is an aussie term for "bail out", Izzy...) missed out.

ONLY 1 PARTY to Go - Saturday's Student party...

Day Count: 9 days!

Eurostar site not a star

On first viewing the Eurostar website you think - "this is pretty convenient... all the train times and ticket details are available and easily searchable - we'll save some time by using this site instead of going to the travel agent." You get all excited because the deals are cheaper than the travel agent quoted and it's really a matter of choosing the right train time (Kath: "should we arrive 6 or 7 to avoid peak hour traffic... or later maybe... but that's too late...").

But then you get to payment and things ALL go wrong.
The postcode box was the first little hint things were going wrong (when will websites learn that Hong Kong doesn't have postcodes, so what do HKers fill out in these mandatory fields?).
But then you get to payment and things all go wrong... You put in your credit card details and then it says transaction cancelled and then you lose all the details you just entered, plus the prices on the website all change from US$ to Pounds, and they are all twice the price, and I can't get back to the deals they first quoted us. All of a sudden we are looking at GBP200 instead of USD180!
I really hope they don't charge Kath's credit card too, as we did go through the whole booking procedure and it failed right at the end. Now I can't get it back in US dollars too. Frustrated.

1 Down 2 to go...

WSI Leaving Party Pictures have been loaded!!

WSI Party

Had our WSI party at CEO Karaoke, which featured a full hotel-style buffet, big room, and 32 fluffy friends...
Was a blast and I was glad everyone could come.





Spent most of today preparing our next party (next weekend)...
Scavenger hunters be weary...! You'll need stamina (especially in this heat)!!

The To-Do-List seems to be getting smaller, though it's still long enough to swing from.

First of 3 Parties

Tonight is the first of our 3 leaving parties. It's all quite exciting and it feels like leaving is becoming official. It also feels like a full time occupation. Luckily enough quite a few small items on the endless to-do list have been crossed off over the past couple days.

 

We made this little leaving card for everyone.... I know, it's a little on the lame side but I think it's a pretty decent idea. Kath is going to try and get them printed onto cards today.

 

Beijing hotels are booked! YAY! So only Paris to go...

 

DAYS COUNT: 19.

WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

It's all about a trip from HONG Kong to lonDON.

bACKgROUND

Recently Kath and I have taken up teaching positions at Utahloy Int'l School (裕达陆学校） in Zeng Cheng (增城), China. Resigning from our current job at Wall Street in Hong Kong, we have roughly 3 months before we start working again - what better way than to spend it doing a trip of a lifetime...

tHe TRiP
On June 2nd we depart Hung Hom train station in Hong Kong bound for London. We travel first up to Beijing, then over to Ulan-Bataar (Mongolia), through Irkutsk to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian, over to Warsaw and Krakov (Poland), Stop briefly in Vienna (Austria) and Bratislava (Slovakia), check out Budapest (Hungary), Prague (Czech Republic) and Berlin (Germany) before cruising by Paris (France) on the way up to our destination.


iT hAppEns HErE
This is our travel diary. We promise to post updates and snippets and pictures and stories and other stuff on this page.
If you do visit... PLEASE leave a comment or two so we don't feel shut off from the world on our trip around the world!! Leave us an address and maybe you'll get a postcard!

The Ops Room

WELCOME TO HONGDON!
Andrew:

Last night, while Kath was working hard in dreamland, I salvaged 3 whiteboards which will mask my bedroom into the OPERATIONS ROOM! Tackling tape, rulers and whiteboard markers, I created this GREAT calendar which has become the pride and centerpiece of the ops room... I'm glad I've finally found MonkeyView which is hosting my pictures. I hope I'll be able to upload pics on the road to MonkeyView. It'll be a pretty boring blog if I can't give yas pictures to see as we go!

DAY COUNT: 24 !

Next step is to launch this blog - that's item 50-something on the TO DO LIST that's occupying another whiteboard!