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Autumn leaves & window shopping

Smoke protection This morning, I noticed that the inside of my hotel room door had a plastic bag attached to it.  Instructions suggested that it is to be used over the had, puffed out with air, during fire evacuation as protection from smoke.  It really goes against all the things we’ve been taught with plastic […]

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Meeting up in Tokyo

Moving to Tokyo I woke around 0530 and met Alice for breakfast at 0700.  We wanted to have a somewhat early start so we could get to Tokyo to meet Jacqueline who had come from Vancouver, so she wouldn’t be alone all day. We hopped on the 0917 JR train to the city and got […]

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Time in hometown

I’m approaching the end of my stay in Kuching.  This time it is a little different as I’ve given my up my apartment for eight of the ten nights to family visiting from Birmingham.  I’m camping with my brother, sleeping on the mattress in the living room without aircon and having cold showers. During the […]

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Back to Malta

Flying to Malta We left our Nicosia hotel around 0815 by rideshare-ordered taxi for the Kapnos shuttle on the edge of the city where we would change to a shuttle to Larnaca’s airport at 0900.  I had booked the shuttle online, which was just as well as there was only one spare seat. Getting to […]

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Exploring Nicosia

North Nicosia With no natural light in our room, we were rudely awakened by my daily 0700 alarm.  Then my hope to doze for a few minutes were dashed with problems with a tenant’s garage door at home. Our hotel supplied an awesome breakfast and soon after that, we departed for a walk on the […]

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Crossing back to “the south”

Above: People dining on Farenomeni Square. Today we return to “the south” or the Republic of Cyprus.  We departed our lovely apartment in Gazimagusa’s old city around 0930 for the 1h drive to Ledra Palace Crossing. We managed to find parking without too much difficulty or circling around.  Once parked, we waited for the car […]

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Ancient Salamis and more

Ancient city of Salamis Our plan for the day was to go to the ancient city of Salamis as early as possible, then swim in the evening.  Information on Salamis’s opening hours were hard to find but I guessed it would be 0900.  Getting there soon after 0900, I noticed that it was 0800. While […]

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Abandoned resorts

Above:  Abandoned hotels run for kilometres along the waterfront where we swam. Moving to Gazimagusa We wanted to leave our Dipkarpaz accommodation late morning so that we’d get to Gazimagusa and not have to wait to enter our next accommodation.  However, a power outage at breakfast meant that we’d be without any fan or air-con […]

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To the Karpaz Peninsula

Kantara Castle Today we move on to Dipkarpaz Peninsula, which is the north-east tip of the island.  Google Maps suggests that it would be a 30 min side-trip to add-on the Kantara Castle but we already knew that they’re too optimistic with travel times on the windy mountain roads. We had taken things easy this […]

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Two castles in a day

St Hilarion Castle We have two sights planned for today.  I thought we’d do one as early as possible and the other at the end of the day.  That way, we would avoid the worst of the day’s 36 degC heat. After an awesome breakfast on the rooftop, we headed out about 0845 on the […]

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