Feb
01
 After one of the shorter flights we’ve had to endure so far we finally have arrived in Amsterdamage… I mean Amsterdam 
After we checked into our hostel Tash asked me to go and get some bottled water and snacks. I walked down the little cobble stoned street and all of a sudden I hear someone tapping on a window trying to get my attention. As I looked up there was a fairly large lady dressed in ligerie… I knew our hostel was around the red light district… but I didn’t realise it was THAT close… shocked at what I saw I gave her a nervous smile and continued walking… For those of you who don’t know, the red light district has plenty of of windows similar to a shop front and above them there is a red fluorescent light and the girls stand in the window and try to get your attention to invite you in… It sure brings a new meaning to the term “window shopping”.
The next interesting thing that I noticed while we were in Amsterdam is that wherever we went, there was a distinct smell in the air… It becomes very clear when you see what many of the cafes and shops have on their signs…
I wondered why everyone was so friendly… we had absolute strangers offering to help us… Not being one to do drugs now I know why everyone is so happy there… 😛
…they must’ve been eating these special cookies or brownies on sale at the cafes…
Amsterdam is made up of a series of arched channels that start from the centre of the city and have continuously moved out as the infrastructure needed to grow. The country is actually 1-5 metres BELOW sea level… hence they need to create habitable land in a very unique way. The Dykes (no… not lesbians) or more commonly known as dams stop the water from flooding the land by making a high embankment around an area and then the water is pumped out exposing the ground.Â
The next thing that Amsterdam is famous for is windmills. Mainly built in the 1600’s they were used as grinding mills for flour/cereals and pumping water. Now they are mainly just maintained as heritage buildings… Since Amsterdam is so marshy the locals over the years have designed a unique way to get around; they use cloggs which are a wooden shoe that is worn with thick socks. This way they can walk though the marshes and when their shoes get dirty they just hose them down. Tash and I tried on a couple of pairs at a clogg factory, but it seems we may have chosen a pair that were a size or two too big…
 
 
Cheese, cheese, glorious cheese… we checked out the local cheese factory and got to sample all of the varieties ranging from French onion to chilli and cows to goats milk! One cannot come to Holland and not try the dutch pancakes… they are to die for! Because the Dutch colonized many countries including Indonesia, we were able to have some authentic Indonesian food as well… being in western countries we started to crave for some asian cooking so it was a welcomed change. During our city bus tour we met a great group of people.. Aleksandra, JP, Guntmar and off course Ramsez! Tash and I had a great time hanging out with you guys… hope to see you round soon!
All in all, the 16th Century architecture and cobble stoned lanes were a warm introduction to Europe. The sights and culture were a pleasant experience… I just had to show you guys one of the male toilets that we saw in a hotel…Â
From here we are catching a train and are off to gay Paris… Gauw to ziens!
Jan
25
New York, New York the big city to be… What can I say… This is not the first time that I’ve been to New York and each time I come back it never ceases to amaze me how beautiful, vibrant and fast paced this city is. From standing in the middle of Times Square to Climbing the steps of The Empire State Building or strolling along the paths of Central Park; the city seems to grab your attention in one way or another.
Since we were there for a few days and were adament on seeing every major sight there was to see Tash and I bought a New York Pass which gave us access to over 100 sightseeing places for 2 days straight… before we knew it we were navigating the subway lines like the locals and managed to see The United Nations Headquarters, Empire State Building, Statue Of Liberty, Times Square and Maddison Square Gardens all in one day! I would say even though it was my second visit to the UN Headquarters, both Tash and I were amazed with the work that is being done there and our very informative tour guide from Israel was able to answer every question we asked in addition to the “off the record” chat that we had once the tour was over where many opinions were aired openly… 😉
 
– Random Fact: Did you know that America is one of the only countries in the world that would not sign an agreement to never use or produce landmines for use in combat. Also they are the biggest producers of landmines in the world. For every land mine that is produced it costs $3; and it costs $1000 to remove and disarm it once it is active!!!
Over the next couple of days we managed to make our way to Rockerfella Centre, Trump Towers and Ground Zero (The site of the former Twin Towers). This truley was a heart wrenching moment as we looked around. Even though most of the twisted steel and concrete was cleared away and the foundations for the Freedom Tower were being laid down, there is still a sombre feeling around the site as there are still many memorial photos, letter, flowers and candles for those who were lost on September 11, 2001. When you look around the area it brings a tear to your eye as you read some of the cards and letters tied to the fences…
From one sad moment to a happy one… I managed to meet up with my mom’s sister (Aunty Barbara) while I was in New York. I haven’t seen her for over 12 years and I was so excited to meet her again. When I was small we always used to joke around and we have the sort of relationship where even if there is a long absence from each other we always pick up as if we were never apart. It was so good to catch up with her and tell each other stories… hopefully now that we’re living on the same continent we can make these meetings more frequent!
From here we’re off to Europe… Will keep you updated soon!
Jan
22
At first glance you’d think that Tash n I have arrived in Europe and were strolling in a park as we admired the Venetian architecture. WRONG! This is the Palace of Fine Arts located in San Francisco around the Bay Area. The beautiful architecture has been the backdrop of many movies including The Rock starring Sean Connery. Not far from there is The Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz which are two other landmarks that are featured in the film. Today Tash and I opted to trade in the night vision goggles and assault rifles for a quiet moment soaking in the scenery as we sat on a park bench watching the ducks and swans swim by…
Jan
13
Leaving family and friends is the hardest thing to do, especially when you don’t know when you’ll see them next. It was great to have a lot of our closest friends turn up to the airport to see us off. After a teary farewell we made our way though the departure lounge and boarded the aeroplane off on part one of our honeymoon in Phuket, Thailand!
The minute we stepped off the plane in Phuket we were immediately saturated from head to toe because of the high humidity and it was so hard to breathe!
Even though it was monsoon season, there was plenty of sun and it definitely has picked up in the tourism industry after the Tsunami. The food here is so cheap (especially seafood) so we’ve been pigging out on rock lobster, prawns and fish almost every meal. I’m starting to get used to seeing your food alive before you eat it because its all fresh over there. The hotel we stayed in was pretty awesome. It’s call The Royal Phawadee Village and they just opened in October so it’s quite new. We told the staff members that it was our honey moon and they delivered flowers to our room every couple of days which was really nice.
During our stay in Patong Beach we did all the tourist things like shopping (very bad move… we were 12kg over our limit even after getting an extra 20kgs)… we went island hopping, snorkeling, canoeing and I did some scuba diving. Compared to the diving that I’m used to, diving in Phi Phi Islands was such an awesome experience. We went down to 22m and the reef life was thriving. I’ve never seen such a vast variety of coral species and marine fish. In one area I was surrounded by over 200 barracudas as they circled a pillar of limestone. It was truly a breath-taking experience…
While shopping and sightseeing we figured that it was taking us too long to walk along Patong Beach so we were game enough to hire a scooter to get around. As crazy as it sounds driving in Thailand wasn’t too bad… Just as long as you ignore all the Australian road rules you’ll do just fine! I think the car to motorbike ratio is something like 1:10… so it was a case of safety in numbers!
Now that the lazy part of the holiday has ended and we leave sunny humid Thailand to the cold climates of Vancouver… that’s if we get there. We had to fly from Brisbane to LA and because of “Homeland Securities†extremely efficient and competent staff we managed to miss our flight. For them it didn’t seem like a big deal and from what I gathered it seemed like it was a common occurrence. They just scheduled us onto the next flight out which happened to be 5 hours later… I’ll fill you in on more of the adventures… or miss-adventures of Saj n Tash.
Jun
08
One of the perks working in the travel industry like STA Travel is that you get to travel yourself! Sometimes it’s for free like the last trip I just went on. In addition to your normal 4 weeks leave you receive in 1 year; you get an extra 1 week of “educational leaveâ€. STA Travel normally send you somewhere that you’ve never been so you learn about the place and products whether it’d be tours, accommodation, sights etc..This year I was lucky enough to be chosen to do a 10 day camping trip from Ayers Rock to Darwin. This was my second famil trip; my first one was to Borneo Island back in November 2005. I’ve never camped before so when this trip came up I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. Then I thought, “hmm if I don’t try I’ll never know.†So I decided to bite the bullet and did it. It was a real “roughing it up†sort of trip; All of us were pretty much bush pigs for 10 days.
Initially I was like “ooh don’t wanna touch that!”, “don’t wanna get wet†and “oh the sun is burning my skinâ€. But after the 3rd day or so, I was like.. “oh who cares†and I decided in order for me to enjoy the experience I needed to really get into it like everyone else did.. …well sort of… It wasn’t easy to transform overnight from a little princess to a warthog if you know what I mean? But hey… I did my best Â
Jun
04
Melbourne city is a very beautiful place. The amount of artistic buildings that are within the CBD are abundant and they vary from the Old Victorian style architecture to the modern day abstract sky scrapers.  Â
We pretty much spent the entire trip doing shopping… shopping and more shopping. Friday night we managed to catch up with some of our old family friends from Zambia and Melbourne. It was really good to see all of the people that we grew up with having time to reminisce about the old times. It was great meeting up with Nikoli, Sohani, Rajeevi and Praveeni (excuse the spelling mistakes) for dinner. All of you have grown up so much and its been so long since we have seen each other! You guys definitely have to keep in touch and hopefully we’ll see you at the wedding!
Saturday morning we caught up with some other friends from Melbourne and later that day we went to Queen Victoria Markets… all I can say is MY GOSH… if you ever go you have to try the Dutch Pancakes!!! They are absolutely to die for! There’s heaps of bootleg clothing for sale in the markets and if you’re after nice affordable leather that’s the place to go!
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Later on we check into the Novotel St. Kilda which is situated right on the beach front. We had a beach view room that was very cosy. Saturday night we checked went out for dinner with Ash, Grete and Tristan. The restaurant was called The River and was located on The South Bank. The view and the food was amazing. We had a table located upstairs right next to a window and we could see the entire river view. Later on we headed out to a pub for some drinks and I took the opportunity to take some photos of the city landscapes. Check out the photo galleries later and feel free to leave some comments.
On Sunday we checked out Luna Park and the Sunday Markets located on the beach front. Here’s an interesting useless fact… part of the terms and conditions of being able to have a stall at the markets is that you need to be the person that created the item that you are selling… They had everything that you would see at a market, and some interesting things like jewellery that had been formed from cutlery like forks and spoons! We got so caught up in the shopping that we had to rush to the Regal Theatre to see The Lion King that night.
All in all it was a shopping fiasco and I’d have to say it would’ve been nice to have stayed another week so that we could take in more of the sights. I would definitely recommend checking it out…