The West End is AWESOME!!!

As we found out early in the week... the area around Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar square, etc is just amazing! The buildings all look like palaces. They are absolutely magnificent and they just seem to go on forever, one after another. There are really cool fountains and at night the whole area gets lit up... kinda like times square. Very cool.

We went back last night to go to the theatre. Saw 'Waiting for Godot', which was fantastic. Ian McKellen (you know... Gandalf, etc) and Roger Rees (he was the Sheriff in 'Men in Tights') were hilarious! So glad Andy found out this was on. And walking around the west again had me almost squealing "I love it here!" :D

Why so cheap...?

For some reason a lot of the stuff at the supermarket is cheaper here. Obviously even when you convert it into AUD. It's really odd! Best find was a pack of 16 ibuprofen tablets for 20 pence. That's less than 40 cents! WTF?!!! Makes me feel like we were being totally ripped off in Australia :P

At least it makes the expensive London rent and public transport easier to cope with :)

Some shots from Kuala Lumpur...

As already mentioned, we stopped over in Kuala Lumpur, and I figured it's about time to show you some of our photos from there.


Petronas Towers, from the KLCC park


Andy, stuffing his face with a Beefacon and Egg roll (you heard.. beefacon!)

The middle of the feeding session at the KLCC Aquaria

Rhiannon and a weepy tree at the KLCC gardens

Some more photos to come, or if you click on one of the photos above, it will take you to the flickr stream...

Geovisiting..

In a fit of... coffee...? I have added a page counter over there on the left - not only does it show visitors, but it also shows where they are coming from, and the larger the dots, the more visits from that particular location.

Not only will this be cool so we can see how many people actually read, but it'll also start to show where WE visit from.. so when those little red dots start appearing in the middle of Europe.. that's probably us :D

Home of Global Warming...

And what's with the superheating people ? I get that it's a little cold outside (and ok - I agree, it's the end of winter, but it's really not THAT bad) and so I get teh need to heat the inside of places.. but really.. Over the past 2 days, every single building i've been in, I've had to strip down to tshirt, and still been too hot.

So back off the heating a little bit, and stop creating your own global warming! :(

In case you're interested, I'm currently sitting in a Costa's coffee store - it's kind of like a starbucks (you better beleive they exist too) drinking coffee, while Rhiannon is meeting with the consultants at the teaching agency she is going to work through. We're not sure what we're going to do with the rest of the day, however we've already walked down Oxford St, and Westminster Abbey has been suggested... :)

Of cards and stores...

So before we left, we changed our account type with NAB from a basic type, to a Gold - basically, we pay 10$ a month, and get no atm fees or anything like that, and it's linked to the visa plus network, so it's all good to go, no problems, etc etc. At this point, I should mention, it was NOT a visa debit. We don't have a visa debit.
Combine this above, with our afore-mentioned VISA problem. So here we are, in London, with no credit card, and a Plus debit card.

So first time we were at the store, we tried to use the debit card, thinkin "well, this is how we always do it, it's a global network, should be fine"
nuh uh, no way, not no how. Our debit card does not work at stores, or anywhere except ATMs. this is no major deal, except we're used to living off cards, one way or another.


WE had to go into a bank here yesterday anyways, to create accounts, so we figured we'd ask about thiss... turns out every single card here, has a chip on it, similar to our visa card. So we now have a UK bank card, (but no PINs) with a chip on it. And they are going to issue us a visa debit card.
We spoke to NAB, they are also going to issue us a visa debit card, since it seems our current debit card is, more or less, fucking useless.

We have a 'flat' !

So... got to London yesterday. Trains were good. People were all very polite and helpful. We made our way to Willesden Green station without getting lost (yay us) and then stepped outside... OMFG London's 3 degrees is so not the same as Canberra's 3 degrees! Absolutely freezing!!! My guess is that it's something to do with the humidity making it feel colder. Anyway, we stopped at a cafe, had some breakfast and waited to be picked up by the accommodation people.

Fish food....

I've got about 3 or 4 entries to make covering the past 36-48hours, but I don't have a lot of energy to write them (well) now.

However, suffice to say.. fish eating your feet is a remarkable treat.. albeit odd and ticklish to start with. We do have some videos and photos, which I'll put up later. Possibly back at KLIA where they allegedly have free wireless internet !

(These are not my feet...)

Malaysian Airlines.. first cut.

Ok so we flew over here using Malaysian Airlines - Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur, then KL to London Heathrow.

Overall - our first experience using Malaysian is, easy quick check-in, open about 4 hours beforehand. Left on time.
Food quality was ok... .flight attendants left something to be desired... overall we probably find that based on this leg, Air Tahiti, when we went to LA, was a better effort.

Got some sleep on this leg, but not a great deal.. and then we landed in Malaysia at about 5:30am, the airport was deserted...

(this post has been backdated)

Fraud Ahoy!

So on Friday, we went out for lunch to the Sherlock Holmes with mum , Mike and Belle, and tried to pay using the trusty visa card... no go.
We were off to the bank after that anyway, so I asked them about the card, and apparently they detected fraudulent attempts that don't fit with our normal pattern.. a couple of miniscule transactions with Netflix (definitely not us !!)

Anyway - they have blocked our card, so now every time we want to use it (about 4 or 5 times now) we have to ring them, to get it unblocked, then ring them again to reblock it.
It's frigging annoying. The only other option however, is to get a new card sent out - that would have totally fxxkd our ability to pay for our accommodation.. so we're sitting on it a few days and trying not to use it.

It's fucked. I'm glad they detected it and took the action they did, just, why couldn't it have happened before now !
And for the record.... we have no idea how this could have happened - we're very careful with where we use our card, and receipts and things like that. I know there's a big fraud going on with Mcdonalds card machines being swapped out, but we haven't used it at mcdonalds, and I never pull cash out at an atm, so that only leaves online.. but those transactions are few and far between.....


(this post has been backdated)

Last Day... sniff.

So - this is my last day at work. Coincidentally, it's also the end of any guaranteed internet until, well, I'm not sure when exactly.
Apparently the place we're staying (http://www.accommodationlondon.net) has free WiFi...

And if sunday goes to plan, I might have a chance to jump online quickly at Mike's place before we head off to the airport.

Here's a timeline for the next couple of days:
Today: actually.. not a lot.
Friday: ., See real estate agent. Post office. Bank. Medicare. Lunch in the city with Mum. use the last of our food
Saturday: packing madly the last of our kitchen stuff.
Sunday: Truck at 8:00am. Cleaners at 11:00am. visit mike and bel and take them chinese for dinner, and left over food.. then the airport, to catch our flight that leaves at 00:45.

Then we get to Malaysia at about 5:30am local time, and have a few things planned including the Aquarium, Imbi plaza, Petronas Towers, Times Square with the amusement park, petaling street, etc.
We fly out of malasyia at almost midnight again, then get into London at about 6:00am on the Tuesday morning, local time (it'll be almost Wednesday here by then!)

my little mind is whirling away.....

per person per nigh t?

Oh come on, I mean really, how can a hotel justify this? We're currently looking at booking two nights in Venice at the Hotel Orion through a travel agent, and directly. Through the travel agent, they are offering us per person, per night.
I just don't get how anyone can justify this for a hotel room. It costs the same for 2 of us to stay there as it does 1. I can understand a single supplement, that's all cool and fine.

But really, per person per night? In a dorm, yea, I understand. But this is a hotel, people.

when we look at booking directly, we get the one flat fee...

Counting down....

Only a few short days to go now ! less than 2 weeks to go. And less than 7 days at work, cause this one is half way over.