Calgary and the Canadian Rockies

While Japan remains one of my favourite countries in the world to visit, Canada has to be a close second. I first got the opportunity to visit the USA's neighbours to the north in the middle of 2012, and then again later in the same year. As yet, I haven't had the chance to return since then, but the Rocky Mountains outside Calgary are still one of the most beautiful places I have been lucky enough to see in my travels to date.

Fiesta de España, 2015

At the end of November, 2015, I found myself back in one of my favourite countries in the world: Japan. Despite having been there about 8 or 9 times now, I still love it and I think I always will!

I arrived on 24 November, and had a job scheduled for 25th-27th. I then had the weekend to myself before the final day of the job on the 30th. Based in Kimitsu, as in this post, but without a car, I was a bit stuck for something to do over the weekend. So, I chose to check out of my hotel for one night and head into Tokyo. I found a last minute room at Jalan.net in one of the many APA hotels that are scattered around Tokyo (and the rest of Japan). And so, on Saturday morning, I packed a backpack and jumped on a train into the city.

Parlez-vous Francais? Oui!

"London to Athens" Contiki Tour, June 2011, Post #1

Actually, the real answer to that question is "non". Forgive me, I shouldn't tell lies in my blog titles.

Following on from my previous post, we finished up our brief stay in London on June 10, 2011. I can remember waking up on the first day of our Contiki tour and panicking that we had slept in. It was bright light outside, and we had planned to get up at 4:30am. But this was just me not being used to the crazy sunrise times in the UK: bright daylight and 4:30am are two things that simultaneously occur in a British summer, apparently.

In any case, we weren't late, and we got to the meeting point for the tour and checked in. At 7am, the bus departed and headed south for Dover, where we would catch the ferry across to our first stop, Paris.

A City That Needs No Introduction

Going back a little over 4 years to June 2011, I had been in my new job, travelling the world, for almost 3 years. As you can imagine, by this point, I'd amassed quite a few frequent flyer points. So, it was time to travel somewhere and not bring my tool kit with me! I blew about 200,000 points on return flights to London, and set foot for the first time in the UK.

Taiwan: My Home Away From Home

You're probably starting to think that I spend a lot of time in Taiwan. Well... that's true. For the last 1.5 years, I have been dating a local (Avy), so I have a bit of a bias towards visiting her! Unfortunately, my work doesn't take me there particularly often, but I can usually pick up my own cheap-ish flights when I finish in a job in Thailand or Vietnam, for example. Now that we are engaged, my other half will eventually move to Australia, so I have to take advantage of her tour guiding while I can!

Royal Seasons Hotel

I sat here, trying to come up with a more interesting title for this one, but I have failed to do so!

Following on from my previous post, I had a job in Taichung during the 2nd-last week of October. As I'd mentioned, this was smack in the middle of Bike Week in Taichung, so hotels were full to the brim. However, I was very lucky to snag a room at the Royal Seasons Hotel.

Taking it Easy in Taichung

On 17 October 2015, we found ourselves in a bit of a predicament. Originally, my girlfriend and I had planned to head away for the night to see a famous traditional town in northern Taiwan called Jiufen. However, on the day, we struggled with long lines for buses and trains, and eventually decided not to go. So then, we began trying to book some accommodation very last minute for the night in Taichung. The problem was it was Taichung Bicycle Week (which seems to go for, like, 17 months), and so the masses of foreign bicycle industry companies had descended on Taichung and booked out all the decent accommodation well in advance. It took a bit of scrounging on TripAdvisor and CTrip, among other websites, but we eventually found a place to crash for the night in Taichung Ease Motel.