Japan continued.....

So as I left you we were in Tokyo.....next stop Sapporo!  As we flew out of Tokyo we had a great view of Mount Fuji on the plane - here is the best photo I managed to get out of the window.

Mt Fuji and Tokyo!

We could have got the train I guess, but the closest we got to a bullet train was a picture in Tokyo.

The duck billed platypus of trains?

When we arrived in Sapporo we got our first view of snow.  It was exciting sat at the airport seeing the snow outside knowing we were going skiing

snow!!!

We got the bus to Niseko which was our ski resort for 3 days.  It snowed on our journey which is always good when you are heading skiing.  Niseko gets 10+ metres of snow in a season so I was very hopeful for the skiing conditions.

This was the view that met us from our hotel room when we arrived - night skiing and snow!

The most surprising discovery of our hotel was the onsen! There was lots of instructions we had to learn - washing beforehand, wearing nothing (!!!) and putting a towel on your head, but once we got over the rules sitting outside in a hot spring with the snow coming down was an experience to remember!  Sadly there are no photos (see previous comment about wearing nothing to understand why....)

The skiing was great - we had fresh snow on the first day which meant some nice tracks through the forest, and even on the windy day the snow was blowing onto the hill so still worth hitting the slopes.  Hannah did her version of snowboarding (aka snowboarding lite - 2 hours a day is plenty for anybody) and I tried to do at least a few more hours than that.

snowboarding dude

forest tracks

this hand signal means 'i've had enough, can I go to the cafe now'

The village in Niseko was also great fun.  We went to another izakaya one evening and then also discovered a very tasty ramen cafe.  In between we found a bar behind a fridge door which served good beer and cocktails - as you will guess from previous blogs once we found this we then visited the following two evenings.

Tasty ramen joint (of course with beer)

There is tasty beer and cocktails behind that fridge door :-)

After our fun in Niseko we got the bus back to Sapporo and then had one night to enjoy Sapporo.  Our first trip was to the ski jump.  It had decided to start snowing heavily so after a walk through deep snow in the park we made it to the ski jump and got the lift to the top.  The snow did not do wonders for the view but it did make the walk there all the more pretty.  I've got a photo from the bottom, for the top I'll make another plug for my flickr site here

we went up the lift on the left

After the ski jump there was only one other thing left to do in Sapporo - beer!  Sapporo beer has been a personal favourite of mine ever since I was served it by my dad in a rather exciting "almost round but slightly hexagonal" can back in Ramsbottom many years ago.  So we made our way to the Sapporo beer house and brewery.  We had found out that the beer hall is famous for "Genghis Kahn" which is essentially BBQ lamb served with vegetables.  We also then discovered that you could have an all your can eat and drink deal for 100mins (yes, measured by time!) which of course was a challenge we could not turn down.  I've got some photos of beforehand but not after - suffice to say that after this feast all we managed was to spend too much in the gift shop (due to the all you can drink) and then waddle back to our hotel (due to the all you can eat!)

warming up for the beer house with a can in the hotel

not quite Christmas at the brewery, but it felt like it!

the BBQ, soon to be covered in lamb, and me, soon to be full of beer and lamb

and then on the Sunday we sadly had to leave to the airport and fly home.  Japan had been a great trip and we left it full of happy memories (and beer and lamb of course!!)

 

Guangzhou grey skies and Tokyo blue ones

Months to catch up on seems, this one is going to require a search through some photos and calendars to remember what we have been up to!

We left you at Chinese New Year way back at the end of January and our trip to Manila (from which I am sure you are all pleased to know Hannah has fully recovered and is back to eating crisps and sweets in copious amounts).  February contained our first ever trip to the mainland.  First we got our visas sorted - because the UK charges Chinese to visit the UK, China very helpfully does the same for UK citizens visiting China, which is fair enough I guess.  Then we bought our train tickets, booked our hotel and headed off to Guangzhou for the weekend.  Guangzhou is in fact the 3rd largest city in China which I guess makes it the Leeds of China.  However, there the similarities probably end.  It's a bit of a hard place to describe really - in some ways there was quite a bit to see, but in other ways it was a big mass of urban grey sprawl that did not really grab you as somewhere to visit.  I'm glad we went, but probably won't be rushing to go back.

Gardens (and grey sky)

Hunger games type crazy performance stages

you don't buy rubber bands in ones in Guangzhou

Church with some colour flags at least

hello kitty cafe

the nicely lit up Guangzhou tower

We were also lucky to have lots of visitors in February, both friends and family.  I'll save you from their photos (am concerned about image rights!) but it was nice to show some more people our current home and have an excuse to visit lots of our favourite places.

In March we then had a long planned trip to Japan.  This has been booked for months (probably in fact nearly a year) and it lived up to all the expectation.  We spent the first few days in Tokyo, then flew up to Sapporo to spend some days skiing in Niseko before spending a night in Sapporo on the way home.  Japan was brilliant fun - friendly people, loads to see and do, tasty food and beer, easy to get around - pretty much everything you could want in a holiday.  If you get the chance then go!

Firstly in Tokyo we stayed on the river and spent 3 days walking around and seeing everything we could.  Its a big list only really slightly captured by photos - but we went into gardens, temples, markets, bars, restaurants.  A couple of highlights were visiting the Gonpachi that is supposed to have inspired one of the big scenes in Kill Bill - food was OK, but for atmosphere and a place to see it was great!  and then also finding great craft beer bars in lots of places.  There are loads more photos here

Kill Bill inspiration?

found some blossom (not sure if I mean Hannah or the tree)

and of course we found the best pizza

and the best beer....

and Hannah found shopping

the hotel view was not bad!

note the blue sky, slight different to our previous trip!  sadly it was too windy when we tried to go up the tower

After Tokyo we flew up to Sapporo - but I think I'll save that for another blog, mainly because its the weekend here and I have a appointment booked with a local beer establishment.  Goodbye till next time :-)

 

Chinese New Year 2014

Oops, another month gone by where the blog got neglected, try again...

I'll start with 'Kung Hei Fat Choy', though probably it's inappropriate to say it a month and a half late. Nonetheless we had a very enjoyable Chinese New Year.

Since the weather was pretty much perfect for walking (blue skies and not too hot) we got ourselves out of bed very early for a public holiday and set off up Mount Parker Road to Jardines Lookout.

The bottom of the trail is just down the road from our flat.

Halfway there....

Made it! 

Pretty awesome views, obligatory panorama shot over the city.

We got home about 11am, not a bad effort considering we'd walked about 6 miles and climbed over 500m, that's normally about the time I'd surface on a day off!  

Then it was time to head to the airport for we were Manila bound! Flights over CNY are always $$$ but luckily we'd booked these some time ago. The Philippines is really close and flights there often come up cheapest on Skyscanner, however on closer inspection they're usually with some local budget airline not permitted to fly in european airspace.... Luckily for us we managed to book early enough before prices went crazy and were flying Cathay Pacific (i.e. 'proper' airline).  As Stephen travels all over for work he's now got enough tier points to be a Oneworld Silver member... this means airport lounge access for me :-)

Might as well take advantage of the benefits right ;-) Enjoyed a few complimentary cocktails before we boarded!

On arrival at Manila airport we quickly established it was a crazy mayhem place. Fortunately for us we'd booked a fancy hotel and planned to do very little but eat, drink and chill. (Though I was slightly concerned the super bargain rate I'd booked on some dodge hotel website may not come off... luckily it did. In fact I should really write them a review on TrustPilot to try combat some of the negative ones that gave me cause for concern!).

We stayed in the Peninsula - the lobby didn't disappoint. 

First stop - the bar, obviously! This was incredible, I think we paid £15 each for all you can drink - not your average 5* hotel bar prices! They also kept replenishing the snacks, dangerous.

We spent an enjoyable evening working our way through the bar menu and generally just chilling having escaped the HK mayhem. The next day was spent lazing / reading / knitting by the pool before heading out across town to an epic buffet. (Oh yeh we also went to the gym on holiday to attempt to offset this buffet... madness....).

The restaurant is called Spirals, I was too busy eating to take many pictures so I'll just have to refer you to this guys blog here - hopefully you get the idea!! All the food really was amazing and they just had everything, I've never seen anything like it - awesome night out :-)

Unfortunately it possibly wasn't all that awesome because the next day I really wasn't very well! I'm not sure what I ate, or whether it was too much, or maybe just a bacon overdose at breakfast but the following day was less than fun! We went out to a massive shopping mall nearby and I had to head back to bed because I felt so bad. Stephen realised I definitely was ill when I turned down shopping (including a wool shop). Thankfully by the evening I was feeling a lot better and we were able to go have dinner in the lobby and enjoy the atmosphere.

Evening drink by the pool.

The next day we thought we best try do something remotely cultural rather than just eat and drink our weekend away so went to the Ayala Museum. Allegedly it's really good but turns out it's shut on Mondays - never mind, we tried.

Instead we found a cafe to sit in and people watched for a bit. 

Snap of the hotel on the way back. 

And before we knew it it was time to head to the airport.

And that was that, a weekend in Manila! I don't think we'll head back to the Philippines but well, we've been now at least and had a great time relaxing and recharging the batteries :-)

Hannah's Actual Birthday

To continue on from Stephen's previous blog (yes, this is Hannah - I've remembered how to blog!) I thought I'd share a few pics from my actual birthday.

Last year I finally got myself organised enough to apply for Chartered Professional Review with the Institute of Civil Engineers. I'd done a lot of the hard work back when I was in the Leeds office and 'just' needed to sit the actual review. I submitted my reports (after much writing and re-writing) in August and went for the actual review in September (a one hour grilling / interview, followed by an essay in exam conditions) and then awaited my fate.

Results day was a Friday in December, the very same day Mr Greene was coming to the UK for a week for work. I went to pick him up from the airport (yes, I remembered how to drive when I was back home!) and while I was waiting I thought I'd check my email... lo and behold I got a very nice email telling me I'd passed, just as he came through arrivals , awesome!

This email also said that the presentation ceremony for certificates would be on the 16th January, my birthday! If I was in the UK I'm not sure I'd have bothered to go, it would have meant a day off work and a trip to London. This was an evening bash and only on the other side of the harbour, the invitation also mentioned free drinks, which may have influenced my decision.

Anyway, I roped Stephen into coming to hang out with a bunch of engineers for the evening (he loved it...) and went to collect my certificate from the president.

Bit of 'fun time' on the stage, standard.

The event was held in a posh Japanese hotel, this panel in the toilet was quite interesting!?

Woo, I did it! When / if we buy a house I'm framing it and putting it in the toilet....

We walked along the waterfront to get the Star Ferry back to the island, I couldn't resist an obligatory picture with the skyline.

Got home and Mr Greene had got me some balloons and presents :-) 

And SIFT CAKES! Yums. (The best cupcakes in HK).

And that was that! A random but fun birthday and I'm pretty chuffed to have the letters CEng MICE after my name (not that I actually ever use them but you know, nice to know I can!). I'm having a year off this year, next year I'll work on becoming a MIStructE... then should I manage to pass that (might take several attempts...) that's me done with exams for a long time!

Hannah's Birthday weekend

Hannah recently celebrated her 21st birthday in Hong Kong and we had a Saturday of fun to mark the occasion.  Michael (my brother) had very kindly bought us Ocean Park tickets as a Christmas present, so we decided to head there for the day.  The Saturday in question was a risk because of the "cold weather warning" that was in place for Hong Kong.  Usually this means that temperatures are due to drop below 13 degrees centigrade (I know, freezing.....) but on this Saturday it turned out the warning actually meant it was going to be 20 degrees and sunny.   No surprise that we did not feel particularly chilly.
Ocean Park is a theme park, panda park and aquarium all in one on Hong Kong Island.  It also had great views as it is situated up on the hills.  We had a great day out with friends - arriving like all good theme parkers just as it opened and making our way round all the rides and attractions.  Think Hannah's personal favourite were the pandas - we are still hoping to see these in something a bit closer to their natural habitat in Chengdu one day, but hopefully this will be the subject of another blog if we make it!

Hannah and I showing off our roller coaster skills

I should have bought this hat

Panda!

Panda (same one but closer!)

Not a bad view for a theme park

In the evening we met some more friends for some drinks in an area on the island called Tin Hau.  It's an area that seems to have more bars and restaurants being added to it over the past few months - one of the things you really notice in Hong Kong is both how quickly places to eat/drink open and close, but also how there seems to be certain areas in which there are suddenly lots of new places.

Buddy Bar

The we headed to what must be the smallest curry restaurant I have ever been to!  We thought our friends were joking when they said it may be a struggle to add two more people to our table, but given the restaurant only held 14 people in total, 2 more was quite an increase.  The restaurant was called Chor Bazare and was another excellent Indian restaurant in Hong Kong - we definitely plan to visit again.  Hannah seemed to enjoy her birthday cake, even if we could not quite fit 21 candles for her to blow out and make a wish.  With that (and maybe another drink or two afterwards) we ended and very good birthday celebration day!