Author archive
12 May 2005
Continuing to Ulaanbaatar To my surprise, we slept really well and woke up around 0900. We wandered to the breakfast car and found it to be different from yesterday’s. We now have a rickety but ornately decorated (with carved light wood) dining car. A breakfast of tea, omelette, slaw, bread and pancaked was CNY60 (NZD10). […]
11 May 2005
All aboard! We woke at 0545 for check-out at 0630, in order to check-in for our rail adventure at Beijing West station across the road. We had some muesli in the room for breakfast before setting off. At the impressive-looking station, our luggage were x-rayed before we entered and turned left into the international waiting […]
10 May 2005
It was drizzly and cool today. We had woken up early to get into the swing of an early start for tomorrow morning. And besides we wanted to squeeze in some minor sights after doing only a half-day yesterday. First up was the Lama Temple. This began as an imperial palace in the late 1600s. […]
9 May 2005
Above: Tiananmen Square as viewed from the Tiananmen Gate Tower of the Forbidden City. Getting going Rather unusual of us, we had 11 hours in bed and woke around 0800. Breakfast wasn’t included in the hotel rate so we had a light feed of muesli before heading out. For today, we didn’t feel like the […]
8 May 2005
Leaving Osaka Today we are Beijing-bound. We woke around 0600 but that was fine. The sun rises very early in Osaka this time of year. We hurriedly left the hotel at 0635 by taxi rather than by foot, for the railway station. We made good progress by making the 0700 train and arrived at the […]
7 May 2005
Kyoto sightseeing We are adjusting to local time and woke later, making it to breakfast at 0800 today. The weather was still spitting a little but we decided it was good enough for a daytrip to Kyoto. We got to Kyoto by metro connecting to a train. We had trouble working out buying the correct […]
6 May 2005
Above: Jellyfish at Osaka Aquarium. Osaka Aquarium We woke slightly later today and was down at breakfast later too around 0730. After the hot weather yesterday, it rained on us today. With the wet weather, we decided to do indoor activities. Osaka Aquarium was highly rated and seemed like a good choice. We got there […]
5 May 2005
Getting going We woke around 0500 but lay till 0600 before slowly getting ready for breakfast downstairs at 0700. At 0700 the concertina doors folded back to reveal the coffee and drinks machines, sushi, bakery items, ovens, salad, fruit and cereal. There was also a fridge with milk and what I thought was the world’s […]
4 May 2005
Above: Osaka’s Dotonbori area. Arriving in Osaka We arrived at Osaka for our four night stopover. Osaka’s Kansai airport was impressive in terms of the technology to build it on an artificial island, and to keep it above water as it gradually subsides. But it is very drab inside, with unimpressive materials such as lino […]
4 May 2005
Today we embarked on our Trans-Mongolian journey, but not yet in earnest. We start off with a flight to Osaka where we’ll stay a four nights before going to Beijing where we’ll board the train. Coming with us to Osaka are Kim’s best mate Rodger and his fiancée of many many years, Liisa. They came […]