stressfree - travel blog

Married and back from the honeymoon

David — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:40:29 +0000

On the 7th February Emma and I got married on a brilliantly sunny (and hot) Auckland day. We then had a great honeymoon in Nelson and Golden Bay, where amazingly the weather held out very well compared to the rest of the country.

In Nelson we stayed at Te Puna Wai and in Golden Bay we had a comfy bach at Adrift. Both of the places were excellent, and if you are in that part of the world definitely consider them both if you are after great views, spa baths and hospitality.

For posterity I have put some of the photographs we took of our travel online here.

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The Coromandel on a bad day

David — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:52:48 +0000

We went up to the Coromandel again this year but the weather was not nearly as good as last year - in fact the words 'tropical cyclone' spring to mind....

A bad day on the beach (click to enlarge)

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A weekend on the Coromandel Peninsula

David — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:11:22 +0000

This weekend we went up north to Whangapoua Beach in the Coromandel Peninsula for a bit of R&R. It was the first time I had spent a decent amount of time in the Coromandel and I came away really impressed. The weather was generally very good, the beaches beautiful and the swimming in the 3-4 foot waves awesome fun. Now I just have to get back to work, the only problem being the weather in Wellington is still brilliant....

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Most Japan conference photos online

David — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 01:05:22 +0000

Over the weekend I went through the photographs I took in Japan and put most of them online in the Gallery section. You can check them out here:

Kumamoto, Japan - March/April 2006 Gallery

japan

Mount Aso Tour

David — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:48:14 +0000

Today was the second full day CAADRIA tour around Kumamoto. We boarded the buses at 8:30am and did not get back to the hotels until 7:00pm. During this time we travelled up to Mount Aso and took in a number of landmarks and prominent buildings. It was very tiring, there was lots of busing about and many things to take in. The most interesting thing to see was the quantity of Japanese tourists, I think, but in actual fact there are more Japanese tourists touring Japan than anywhere else.

japan

Touring southern Kumamoto

David — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 14:19:31 +0000

The CAADRIA conference has come to a successful close and we are now into the touring side of things. Today after lunch we boarded buses and headed south to Yatsushiro to checkout some Toyo Ito architecture. Afterwards we headed north-east into the hills to visit a very pretty lumber town and then went to a Japanese puppet theatre for a small show and dinner. Fortunately our table was lucky enough to have the english translator sitting with us so she was able to tell us what everything was along with a tonne of background to each of the foods. It was a very good tour and tomorrow we head north to visit Mt Aso, an active volcano and then some more architectural spots. Click on the photos below to enlarge.

japan

Scouting Kumamoto University

David — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 08:37:43 +0000

Today I went walking around Kumamoto to find out where Kumamoto University actually is. The conference doesn't start till tomorrow as it starts early in the morning I needed to figure out how long it would take to get there from my hotel. The answer is about 30 minutes walking time but initially it took about an hour and a half to find (after a number of back-tracks and wrong turns).

japan

Sightseeing around Kumamoto City

David — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 10:11:55 +0000

Today I met a friend of a friend of my mothers (figure that one out) who took me around a few of the sights of Kumamoto. The weather was great and the cherry-blossoms where flowering all over the city. Lunch was interesting, it was at a resturant that specialised in tofu. We had a four course lunch that consisted of tofu salad, tofu soup, fried tofu, steamed egg and eel rice all finished off with a tofu and mandarin desert (which tasted a lot better than it sounded at the time).

It was a very good day, my thanks goes out to Mrs Tobioka for taking the time to show me around.
I took a lot of photographs and here are just a few of them (click on a photo to enlarge):

japan

CAADRIA 2006 Conference in Japan

David — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:54:02 +0000

I left for the CAADRIA conference in Japan on Monday 27th March. It was a 3:30am start to get the 6am flight to Sydney before jumping on a Japan Airlines flight to the very cool Kansai Airport near Osaka. The flight into Kansai was late and consequently it took an hour to get through customs as a number of other planes landed at the same time. I got through customs at 10pm and found that the bus I would be getting to Itami Airport where my hotel was near would not leave until 10:30pm and wouldn't get there till 12am. Rather than spend more time waiting in the airport I got a room in the hotel inside Kansai airport, cancelled my other hotel and got to bed at a reasonable hour. The coolest thing about the hotel (apart from it being inside the airport) was the crazy super-toilet which resembled an ejector seat and had just as many options (spray, clean, water pressure).

Travelling between Kansai and Osaka airport in the morning rather than late a night was very worthwhile. There was lots to look at and a good nights sleep and buffet breakfast had cleared my mind. Kansai Airport is a large artificial island miles from anywhere (a lot like Hong Kong airport) so a good 20 minutes of the journey was spent just going over the massive 10 lane bridge joining it to the mainland.

The flight to Kumamoto was funny. On takeoff and landing the movie screen showed a camera view out the front of the plane which then switched to a downwards facing camera view soon after taking off. Coming into land there was a lot of low cloud so we were flew in pretty low and because of a hill the pilot couldn't just fly straight in, he had to do a 60 degree turn and then land. Thanks to the video screen we are seeing all the action as the pilot made this turn onto the final approach. Somehow he managed to completely misjudge the turn, leaving us well off the runway flightpath but headed directly for the control tower. Throughout the cabin there is all this mumbling in Japanese and then the engines roar to life as we buzzed the control tower at about 100-200ft (which in a 767 is pretty cool and very close). It reminded me of playing around in Flight Simulator with the language set to Japanese and the reality settings maxed out :-)

My first impression of Kumamoto is that its the Japanese equivalent of Hamilton with a castle in the middle. It is not built up like a major city and it is surrounded by rice paddies and aggriculture plots. Fortunately within central Kumamoto the street names are given in Japanese and English which makes navigation a little easier. My room at the Ark Hotel is fairly decent, the hotel has reasonably nice decor and it is central. The hotel has free, unfiltered (all services not just web) Internet access within the rooms which is brilliant as I can do work in the evenings as the television here is very weird and difficult to understand.

Outside my hotel, some very tight carparks

japan

Testing the new camera on a Wellington weekend

David — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 09:13:32 +0000

It was a sunny weekend with lots of activities on so I took the chance to test out my new Canon Powershot S2 IS digital camera. The camera's 12x optical zoom is a massive improvement over what I have been used to in the more compact digital cameras I have used. The camera is also very fast at focusing and shooting images and the end results are pretty impressive (as you can see from the bottom set of photographs).

In one afternoon we walked along the waterfront to checkout a dance festival, the Volvo Ocean Race and then headed up to the Westpac Stadium to watch New Zealand play the West Indies in a one-day cricket match. All in all a very good afternoon and evening (especially as New Zealand won the match).

Click on the images to enlarge...

photographs

Back from Christmas Holiday

David — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 01:06:58 +0000

We got back to Wellington yesterday after a 10-day Christmas/New Year holiday in Tauranga and Auckland (with a day trip to the Coromandel). Generally the weather was very good and I had time to finish reading Prey, The Google Story and Agile Web Development with Rails. All in all a good holiday but now there is a lot of work piled up for January and February.

A west coast beach on the Coromandel (click to enlarge)

A view of Auckland from Rangitoto Island (click to enlarge)

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Toast Martinborough Wine & Food Festival

David — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 08:55:06 +0000

Today we went out to the wine and food festival in Martinborough. It just happened to coincide with my birthday so the trip served a dual purpose (what better way to celebrates ones birthday than walking around in the sun drinking wine). Below is a few photos and a movie snapped during the wandering. Anyone who has not been before it is well worth the time (and expense). Lots of good bands, plenty of nice food and wine everywhere. The weather tried to play nice but what the photos do not show is that it was very windy at times. The girls got to see Goldenhorse up close (Goldenhorse is a very good apparently) whilst Mike and I got to sit back, sip wine and admire the views.

Movie (Click to play)	Tasting in the sun (Click to enlarge)
The streets of Martinborough (Click to enlarge)
Partying in the vineyard (Click to enlarge)	Listening to a band (Click to enlarge)

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Sinking of the frigate Wellington

David — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 05:14:37 +0000

This afternoon the decomissioned frigate Wellington was sunk off the southern coast of Wellington (just off Island Bay) to create a cool place for divers to visit. For the last five months the frigate has been tied up next to Te Papa and has been a floating night club and events venue (perhaps the best use for the New Zealand navy). Half of Wellington turned up to watch the explosion and the subsequent sinking. The actual sinking was a little late and when it did occur it was all over in a few minutes. It was worth the wait as it is not every day that you get to watch a ship of any kind sink.



Click images to enlarge

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The Journey Home

David — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 04:11:44 +0000

After four months on the road we finally made our way back into Wellington last night.


Asian elephants (small ears) on display	The 'Big Budda'

A week earlier on Saturday we booked a private tour of Koh Samui. Fortunately the ute used to take us around the island was air-conditioned because the temperature outside was in the mid-high 30s. Some of the sights were pretty amazing. We went to an elephant display and a snake show. Whilst the treatment of some of the animals did not look too nice it was still amazing to see (and sometimes touch) elephants, pythons and cobras up close and personal. There is a lot of construction taking place on Koh Samui as its sheltered location makes it safe from any threat of tsunami. The Thai government is in the process of changing the law to ban beach side construction to minimise the danger poised by the tsunamis. This move should also help preserve some of the beautiful beaches that surround this island and ones nearby.


The snake show (a big python and some smaller poisonous snakes)	The cobra man and one of his cobras

On the following Sunday we flew out of Koh Samui after a very satisfying six nights of comfort and excess. Twenty four hours later we were touching down in a rainy, cold Auckland where we spent the week with Emmas family. It made for a nice transition between holiday and the real world as we got to retell all of our stories and acclimatise. The following weekend we drove down to Wellington via Tauranga to begin our hunt for a flat before we get swamped by professional commitments. Fortunately it is a long weekend so we have an extra day to checkout flats and catch up with people before the short working week begins.

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Leaving for Thailand

David — Sat, 21 May 2005 17:18:42 +0000

This is our last day in London, our plane for Thailand leaves at 10pm tonight. Fortunately we are flying Qantas for the rest of the trip and the inflight movies look very promising for a change. We will be in Thailand for a week before flying back to Auckland.

In Thailand we will be staying on Ko Samui at Le Royal Meridien. Ko Samui is a small resort island off the eastern coast of mainland Thailand and was unaffected by the tsunami of Boxing Day 2004. The resort sounds really great and is something we have been looking forward to during the snow and rain of the last few months. Weather wise it looks like its going to be warm and wet but we are hoping to get a bit of a tan when there is a break in the clouds. The island has a lot of tourist orientated activities such as elephant treks which look like fun.
We are almost all packed up. I had to buy a carry on suitcase in order to fit all the books I have picked up over the last couple of months. Hopefully there will not be any major trouble at the airport as our bags are getting very heavy...

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