Home

We are back and I am now 3 days into school. There have been many changes to the area around where I live and at school. For example, there's a new shopping center called 'the well' just up the road. Also, the old buildings at school have re-opened after finishing being re-furbished. I like it when this happens, because you get a strong dose of new things, rather than a scattered one so you can go and look at all the new things straight away. JB Hi-Fi have moved to 'The Well' and have a great new area - much neater and more open.
Jetlag hasn't been that much of an issue, although I went to bed at 4:30 when we got home and woke up 13 hours later! After that I had 8 slices of toast because I had missed dinner! The plane flights back were also fairly good. The first flight (12.5 hour) went fairly well thanks to movies which kept me from being bored, but the second 7.5 hour flight seemed longer because I did'nt have any more movies to watch. luckily I managed to get a bit of sleep. The english sleep pattern is still holding although - I still wake up at 4 but go back to sleep.
The trip to england has been a good experience. I have learnt quite a lot and have been left with a few more good memories.

Last days in London and coming home

I have been really slack on blog posts so I'm going to catch up again now. I am currently in Kuala Lumpur Airport awaiting the flight home to Londo- I mean Melbourne.
The day after Westminster Abbey, we went to Lord's Cricket Ground. The ground is actually not used very often - only a few times a year for the ashes tour and a few other events. The pavillion is used more often, hosting business conferences and various events. The pitch is not actually flat - it has a 2.5m difference on both sides! But the British believe that, having ther been many games played on this pitch, that there's no real need to change it.
The next day we went to the Science Museum. It was amazing - I could have spent over a week there. There were 5 floors with exhibits ranging from a history of mathematics, to plastics to energy to materials... the list just goes on and on and on... There was a damascus steel blade, which was pretty cool. It has amazing properties - it is incredibly strong, yet flexible as well and really sharp. Dr Karl Kruszelnicki had a chapter on it in one of his books.
On our final day in London, Dad met up with us from France - he caught the TVG train from Paris straight to London. It was good too see him again before we went home - he is working at a vineyard in France and will be spending a further month travelling through France, Europe and America. We hired a car for the day and went down to Brighton, where British people spend their summers. Brighton has a pebble beach, which is really good for skipping stones. (un)fortunately, there is no sand, which is a plus for me because you don''t get is stuck in your shoes...

I have had a great time over in sunny England, but it is time to return home. See you all soon!

British Museum, Thames Cruise, Greenwich and the London Eye. Oh and Westminster Abbey too.

I have been a bit slack on Blog posts so I'll try to keep up. On Friday we went to the British Museum and saw an exhibit on Hadrian, one of the emperors of Rome. It was a very big and grand museum, and the exhibit on Hadrian was long and full of information. There were lots of artifacts - Statues, Busts, Pillar tops... the list goes on. There were also free displays which made up the rest of the building. we saw the original Rosetta Stone, which had a decree written in Greek, Egyptian script and Hieroglyphs . It was the first piece of evidence discovered that had Hieroglyphs written alongside another language already known, and as such lead to the cracking of Hieroglyph code. There was also an Easter Island statue which funnily enough was from Easter Island, where these statues were carved and erected thousands of years ago by natives to 'watch over' the island. The statue was about 2 meters tall. Also next to it was a face... a synthetic face with nothing inside as if it were a mask, but it was very big. Weird.

The next day we went on a river cruise down the Thames river to Greenwich. On the way we passed The Globe Theatre (well, a recreation of it - the original was destroyed), where Shakespeare primarily performed his plays. Greenwich was fascinating. For those who don't know, it is pronounced 'Grenich' (like spinach) and is where zero degrees longitude is located. Unlike latitude, which has a position set by the earth's equator, longitude has no real 'origin', so they decided to place it at Greenwich, where a lot of work on time and clocks was done. There was a fascinating exhibition there, showing various developments in keeping time, from pendulum clocks up to GPS systems in the 21s century. There were some amazing clocks on display, but unfortunately we could not take photos.

After the tour we caught 'the tube' (london underground) back to the London Eye, and hitched a ride.

The view was very good. We timed our flight perfectly, getting sunlight when we took off and landing at night time, giving us the best of both worlds.

Finally, today we went to Westminster Abbey for evensong. The choir and organ sounded absolutely spectacular, with an 8 second or so echo. Later that evening we found the TARDIS - see the web album.

London

We are now in London. First impressions - think Melbourne, minus tall buildings, and with almost all shops in old concrete buildings with fancy artwork - for example, the apple retail store has a mosaic above it's entrance. Yesterday we went out and looked around, catching the tube into the city center. Our first stop was the Apple retail store, which was very impressive. There were lots of macs, and many people were in there checking e-mails or reading the news, thanks to the free internet. There's also free wi-fi, and there are seminars every 20 minutes or so explaining a certain feature on a mac, or something like that - I didn't see one. The store also features the worlds biggest iPhone out the front of the shop - it's about a meter high with a TV in it. There was also a meter-high iPod nano. After this, we walked down Oxford street, then round back up Regent street, and then down Oxford street the other way. We then went to Hyde park, and saw people lying out on deck chairs. In a park. Finally, we went home. Today we are going to the Brtish Museum, Kings Cross station and perhaps Charing Cross road where there are lots of second-hand book stores!

Cambridge and Oxford, again

Over the past 2 days we have gone to Cambridge and Oxford, staying with more family inbetween. At Cambridge we saw, among other things, an incredibly strange clock. It had something to do with Stephen Hawking (I can't remember, but it was on BBC News). The clock was a round wheel, with teeth around the edge. A pendulum swung which moved the teeth around. At the top was some kind of mechanical locust, which crawled along the rotating teeth as they moved. Check out the picture on Picasa Web Albums.

We also went to King's College Cambridge, but that was mostly ABC.
We stayed just out of Cambridge with more family. They had a cat called Bubbles who was very cute and cuddly, but she dribbled!
The next day we headed back into Oxford via a park-and-ride. I'm not sure whether this service is available in Australia, but the idea is that you drive there, park for free, and then catch into the town, easing road congestion due to bus lanes. At Oxford we went to go and see the Christ Church where the harry potter dining hall scenes were filmed. Also there was the main staircase leading to the hall, which appeared for the same purpose at the start of the first film.
Today we leave for London, which will be our last destination on our 'journey'. Not to say that it will be minor - we have lots of things to go and see.

Back in Henley

We have arrived back in Henley, 1500 miles after we last left. Since my last post, we have been to Winchester, Salisbury, Dorchester and Stonehenge. We stayed at a B+B at Winchester for two nights. They had a pool which was heated, but not enough for my taste (too cold). It was on a farm so I got a few photos of the animals. There were three dogs, lots of sheep and 2 geese. We found the geese loitering in the carpark late at night. They were hilarious. They were just standing there, right in the middle of this carpark - necks extended upwards and alert. When I went into the field the next morning to get a photo, one of them kept half-charging me. The sheep are quite different - If you have a look over at my Picasa Web Album (http://picasaweb.google.com/stewart.james.webb/) you can see that they have brown/black faces. I have grown very fond of the sheep, and I now want one for next christmas (We can sell the Lawnmower to get the money - genius!)
We went to Dorchester to go Zorbing (correction, for me to go Zorbing). Zorbing is an activity where one is harnessed into or put in with water into a ball 1 meter in diameter which is encased by another, 2.5m ball which is inflated. One is then rolled down a hill for 20 seconds or so. It was great fun - I had to go with water because you needed 2 people to go harnessed. The experience was amazing - Imagine a waterslide where you slide forward and back as well, but you can't see the bends so you don't know when you are going to be upended. It was cold when I got out though, in fact it was very cold, yet very warm also today. We seem to have had the best luck in the world with the weather here - when we were in Ireland, it did not rain once! Rather, it was sunshine all the way. It has also only rained briefly once or twice over here in England. We have been incredibly lucky.
I think I'm beginning to suffer from ABC syndrome (no not Australian-Born-Chinese). It's Another Bloody Church. We have seen about 5 or 6 so far and each one has a special reason for going to. We went to Winchester Cathedral, where they filmed the blood on the wall scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We also went to Salisbury Cathedral, although thankfully it was at night and it was closed (phew!). It was very big though. It astonishes me about how grand these old churches are, and yet modern buildings are nowhere near as epic as these churches even with advances in technology.
When we were heading back to Henley we stopped off at the one and only Stonehenge. It was good, but there were WAAAAY to many people. Fortunately there were a few good photo spots and I ended up with a few really good pictures.
Tomorrow we will be going to lunch with relatives, then off to London later in the week.

On the Move again

We have arrived in Winchester after having travelled all the way from Ireland. We have crossed 3 countries in 1 day! - North Ireland, South ireland and Wales. We are staying here for a night before returning to Henley. I can promise a big post then with photos and details on what has happened - for now, I have to go. We are going to see windchester Cathedral then meeting up with someone.
P.S. - Hopefully I will be going zorbing tomorrow!

Update from Ireland

Tonight is our last night in Ireland - we are going back to Wales. It has been a pretty good time. I preferred Belfast to Dublin, but this is a personal opinion. The people we have been staying with are wonderful - they have been so generous and hospitable! I have gifts coming out my ears and they are still flowing in by the truckload...

I am in the process of compiling a Ireland album on Picasa Web Albums - for those who missed it before my gallery is available at http://picasaweb.google.com/stewart.james.webb

I have been sick over the past few days - the night we had at the hotel was awful. I was up almost all night with a fever and sore throat. The throat has persisted over the past few days but is fading slowly. I'm pretty sure that the fever has gone as well. Nonetheless, I still went out to go sightseeing. 

On Sunday we went to Carrick Fergus Castle (I can't remember exactly what it was called). It is the most intact Norman castle in the world. It was cool - there was archery! The next day we went to the Giant's Causeway and a local Waterfall. The waterfall was picture perfect and the causeway was amazing. Almost all the stones there were hexagonal. When I get home I'll put together a photo stitch I made. See the photos at my gallery. ^^^

Ireland

We have arrived in Ireland, and are currently in a rather posh hotel in Belfast. We spent yesterday in Dublin. I wasn't overly impressed but it was okay. We went to the Guinness Storehouse today and shopped like mad (To all visiting readers, I have a cat called guinness because he is black all over except for a few white hairs in his chest). Best purchase - metal plaque of a Toucan riding a dart while balancing two glasses of guinness on it's beak - Aim for a Guinness!
I tried some guinness - it tasted mostly like other beers except slightly different. The white foam on the top makes a glass harder to spill which is a plus. The exhibition was very good - it gave a detailed look at how guinness was made, exported and, most importantly some would say, enjoyed. There was a great exhibit on the cartoon advertising that was used in earlier years (see what toucan do! - My Goodness, My Guinness!) Look these up as they are great ads (I still have the 'Guinness is good fooor you' tune running laps around my head)
I think I may have had a bit too much guinness as I have a guinness-flavoured sore throat, if that makes any sense.

We are staying at a great hotel that may look average from outside but is verry nice inside. You can even use the internet on the TV (why you would want to I have no idea, but you can).
There is a wedding reception running here at the moment and the music is driving me mad. I'm going to go now, but I will try and post photos soon (this is a crappy internet terminal with no camera support)

On the Move

We have left our little cottage (see it here) and are now in Stratford-upon-Avon. This is where the famous Shakespeare buildings are. We went to see Anne Hathaway's cottage, and were reminded of Jeremy from Top Gear's car deco built around the cottage (If you haven't seen this I highly suggest you look it up, it should be on youtube)
On the way here we saw some weird things on the motorway. First off was a tank. Yes, an army tank. It was on a trailer (thankfully?) and being towed to a military depot that we saw further on. There was also a gigantic green machine that seemed to have it's own cockpit. It trundled along behind a tractor. There was also a pedestrian crossing. ACROSS A MOTORWAY. Pretty crazy.

edit: I forgot to mention there was also a steam engine train being trucked.

We are catching the ferry to Ireland tomorrow, so I'll probably post again there.

Update from Bath

I am currently at an internet Cafe in Bath. I'm using a new method to display photos - I'm uploading them to Picasa Web Albums. Hopefully this should be more reliable than before, as positioning photos in blogger is horribly difficult. Also, the files are stored on Google's servers, not mine so I don't need to worry about space issues.
The web album for Bath is located here
The Main page is here

We went to Bath today. It was pretty cool, but unfortunately I couldn't go swimming on the new rooftop spa pool - there was a 16y.o. age limit. There was another smaller, ground-level pool that I went to, but is was much smaller. We also went to Bath Abbey, and took a tour of the bell tower. It was quite interesting - the tenor bell (lowest pitch) weighs 1.1 tons. We went right to the top and got a great view of Bath. Check out the photos at Picasa Web Albums!

Windsor Castle

We went to Eton and Windsor Castle yesterday. This is one of the places where the royal family lives, but I don't think that they were there when we were.

This is the Crooked House of Windsor

Eton College is one of the worlds most prestigious schools - so much so that they wear TAILCOATS there.

I found this whole building that was just a toilet block

I'd post more photos but the rest are mostly generic castle photos. Anyway I have to scale them down to put on the blog and that takes time.

We are off to Oxford today, and we are leaving our little house. But we will be returning, later in the week. We are off to Frome after this. I am not sure if I will be able to get on the internet there so the next post may not be for a while.

We're here

Hooray. We have finally landed, after 2 flights (8 and 12 hours respectively). We were surprised to find Richard (my cousin) at the airport. After picking up our hire car (A Citroën C4) he directed us to Henley and to our home for the first few days. We are staying with his parents, Jane and Chris. The house has a very english garden. Here is the view from my room

There is a LOT of green in england.

I realised last night that I had been awake for nearly 42 hours with only 3 hours of sleep in between. Must have been the coffee. Anyway, we all had a nice sleep last night, although Mum and Dad were awake and kicking at 3 AM. I haven't really experienced any jetlag - the only bad thing about the flight was that it was boring. I endured 20 hours with only about 4 movies worth watching (Iron Man [that was so good i saw it twice], The Happening [pretty good, slightly creepy], The Forbidden Kingom [meh], and Indiana Jones 4 [*insert theme music here*]) and a few TV shows.

Photos

We found this at KL Airport. I know Toblerone has a strong presence in the aviary scene, but never before have I seen a freaking Toblerone ferris wheel.

Toblerone Much?

We got a few good shots of Germany. Heres one I touched up a bit so you could actually see what I was shooting:

Amsterdam, I think

The descent into england was creepy. Here is what we could see out of the window.

That was all we could see. I have never seen more clouds than this in my entire life.

I believe that we are going to Windsor Castle today. I hope to get some photos to upload.

Arrival in KL

I have just arrived at KL. We leave for england in about 3 hours. I must be quick, as I'm on a public terminal. I will upload photos as soon as I find a PC with a USB port.

England

Well I'm off to England next week. It should be fun, and It's nice to have a break. Especially when you miss the last 3 days of school.

We're going to England and Scotland, 1 part to see relatives, 3 parts for a break. If it's good enough I might go back for the London Olympics in 2012 for a gap year. I'll try and get to an Internet Cafe and get some photos up to the blog. I'll also try to include some daily events.