bojk87

[bojk87]

Days 5 and 6 - The village walk and the sunshine home

The last full day on holidays, and we are yet to see any sunshine. Never mind the romantic idea of sunbathing by a pool or at the beach for hours on end, we are just after a little sun on a day so that we can feel like we have truly been on a holiday to a tropical island.

We start the day with our usual dance of getting up, getting ready and heading straight to the breakfast buffet, where after several days we have figured out that the eggs and bacon breakfast is complimentary, and that we should always ask for crispy bacon. While this is being done, we toast some bread, make some tea and munch our way through several croissants and pain au chocolat, which definitely does not bring any pain, but instead pure joy. The pastries here at Breakas have been really good every morning, and they seem to be made fresh rather than reheated which is as surprising as it is deliciously nice.

With breakfast out of the way, the activity for today is a walk around the local village which goes by the name of Pango. Michelle wasn’t feeling the best this morning, so she decides to sit this one out while I put on my singlet, a pair of thongs, sunnies and a baseball cap in readiness for my walking adventure. I am glad that things run on island time as I am about ten minutes late for the tour but it has not yet started, so I feel like I have very much managed to fit in. Our tour guide is a lady of about 45 and goes by the name of Lloyd, is wearing what appears to be a normal island dress and is actually a resident of the village of Pango so we all feel like we are in very safe hands.

The walk is literally up the road and it doesn’t even take ten minutes to get to the start of the village. To my eyes, the village looks abandoned, but I am assured that is not so as approximately 3,500 people call this place their home. The area suffered from a cyclone and a tsunami several years past, so there are quite a lot of broken down and abandoned houses which explains what we saw yesterday when going on our romantic beach walk.

We continue forward and we see three young children playing along the streets, constantly chasing each other, while a few skinny dogs covered in flies join in every now and then with a bark. We are taken to a monument and told a story of how Christianity was first brought to Vanuatu. The story goes that missionaries came from Samoa in mid 1800’s and were greeted with hostility, but after a few of them survived on the land, the local chieftain allowed them to join the tribe and spread their word. From that time, they spread their word to all the islands of Vanuatu, which is now all Christian, and the place where it all started was Pango.

We continue our tour past the local grassy area where several soccer goals have been set up and after a bit of time we see a few young boys come out to kick a soccer ball around. Our destination is the local chief’s hall where we sit down in some shade and Lloyd explains to us how the village chieftains work and some of the customs of the local clans. Clan life certainly seems interesting, and she talked to us how the local chieftains are chosen by a vote whenever the people deem it necessary to have a new one, and how the big chieftain is only chosen once the old one dies. Certainly feels more stable than the Australian government and its slew of PMs that has probably changed since I was on holidays.

It was entertaining to sit and listen to the stories of the true island life, rather than just see things from a touristy bubble. With our education done, we are sent on our merry way back to the resort which is only a short walk back, though we all had quite a good chuckle when we realised that we as tourists were walking along the road in thongs while the locals were driving past us in their buses. I decided to leave the others when we got back to our resort and head back to our bungalow and check up on Michelle.

Thankfully she was feeling much better so we got to chatting and me telling her about all the interesting things that I had learnt. It was at this moment that a true miracle happened. We could see sunlight. Actual sunlight, the stuff that we had come here for. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people get changed into their swimmers and run out to the pool quicker than us two. We dumped our stuff close to pool’s edge and jumped into the relatively cold water with the gusto of a five year old, only to be joined within minutes by several other resort members.

A quick splash and it was time to go and order up some drinks to make this really feel like a tropical holiday. Michelle had her usual Hendricks gin and tonic while I opted for a spiced rum and dry just for something different. It was time to lather up with sunscreen, which meant sitting down for fifteen or so minutes reading and sipping on our drinks while the sunscreen absorbed. The unfortunate fact was that by the time the fifteen minutes was up, the sun had once again disappeared and it didn’t look like it was coming back. This left us in a very unfortunate situation of being all sunscreened up with nowhere to go but back inside given a wind had started.

The exciting and sunshine filled tropical holiday feeling was over pretty much as soon as it began, so we both rinsed off and headed for the next activity which was a couple’s massage. The resort had given us some freebies, and a half an hour massage was one of the ones that we most certainly were keen to make use of. We were taken to another cottage that was right by the ocean and as we lay down on the table, we could hear the noises of the waves crashing softly ashore as our masseuses dug their fingers into our knotted backs.

It was a great way to spend half an hour, and it helped us both to relax and take the edge off an already blunt edge of stress that has been our chilled out island time. We went back to the cottage and spent the next few hours reading on the balcony while enjoying a nice cold beer before it was time to head out for our last dinner in Vanuatu. We decided we would get dressed in our island finest, with Michelle being brave enough to wear white pants, and me in my shorts and a nice new blue and pink collared short sleeve shirt. Our destination was Reefers, the place that had the nice food, great rum, awesome service and white table cloths.

We arrived and it was the most lively place we have seen in Vanuatu so far! It wasn’t long until we saw all the familiar faces from last night’s karaoke session and it made us realise that the expats all go to a given pub after work and end up staying there for the whole night. We were sat at a table right by the water which was great apart from the fact that there were a bunch of expat kids who were running around playing next to us. I had a real craving for the tuna tataki, so we ordered up that and some tacos as starters and a pasta to share for the main, while drinks were once again a gin for the lady and a straight up rum for the man. Dinner was delicious, and we spent the hour or so just chatting away about what our favourite bits of the holiday were and what we would want to be different.

It started to drizzle, so we got a bus to take us home where as diligent travellers we decided to pack the night before. It seemed that a storm was brewing so we were glad to be home and indoors.

The Saturday morning was our last morning here, so we got up, and all packed from last night we had nothing to worry about. The breakfast buffet was in order, which we smashed with our usual zeal while chatting away to our resort friends about their night and their overall experiences. A quick walk across the road to buy some water, back to the room to check our packing and we were ready to check out and start our journey back home. The sunshine had made this day the day that it properly came out to play, and as far as the eye could see there was clear blue skies and the warmth of the sun encompassing everything around us.

As we began to enjoy this, we realised that our driver was already waiting for us about fifteen minutes early which was very unusual given how much we had gotten used to the island time pace of doing life. We were blessed with a big bus, so we jumped on while our driver sorted out our bags and off we went. Stopping via several resorts we picked up fellow passengers heading back home. The trip to the airport was quick and painless if a little warm, but we arrived there, checked in our luggage quickly and were also the first through customs. While good in principle, this left a good two hours to spend at an extremely small airport. To keep ourselves entertained we did the usual mix of chatting, relaxing and photo uploading, like the true millennials that we are.

So that’s it. This quick break has come to an end and it is time to get back to reality. The reality of alarm clocks, crowded trains, work hours and the hustle and bustle of every day life. It has been an interesting and a very relaxing five days on a South Pacific island where things move at their own pace, and no one is ever in a rush. It has certainly been great to escape the big bad city for a bit and to live a totally different lifestyle. To all our friends and faithful readers, hope you have enjoyed our journey with us and we look forward to seeing you back again in the real world.

Your explorers,

Boj and Michelle

[bojk87]

Day 4 - Romantic beach walks

Another morning, and another nine plus hours of sleep. I think that being on holidays definitely agrees with me, though after all of the drinking yesterday, both of us are a little slower to rise this morning. Which was a shame really, given that by the time we got to the breakfast buffet, most of the good stuff was gone and we had to wait for everything to be restocked in island time.

Demolishing a few pastries and some toast while we waited for the bacon and eggs to get done was a worthwhile food investment. We tried to make a bit of conversation, but were too hungry to speak for any real length of time. With breakfast out of the way, it was time for the usual ritual of malaria tablets and figuring out what to do for the day. We were incredibly excited at the prospect of seeing some sunshine poke through the clouds and promptly decided that a nice and long romantic walk on the beach would be a great way to pass the time and certainly go a long way to help get rid of all the excess calories consumed at breakfast.

Being the responsible travellers that we are, we lathered ourselves in sunscreen then went to town on deet, our mosquito repellent friend. Hat, sunglasses and no thongs for me were the order of the day as we would be walking along the stunning beaches of Vanuatu.

We got onto the sand at our resort and saw our friends perched on the beach chairs with a drink in hand waving us goodbye and wishing us good luck. The sand felt extremely soft and nice to walk on, and I was told that this is very good for my feet. It was only about fifty meters up the beach that our first challenge came through where the beach changed from soft sand to being hard gravel.

Gritting my teeth and moving at the speed of a ninety year old man, we walked past what seemed like an old and abandoned resort. We took some nice photos and continued the painful experience of walking on gravel with the view of getting close to the second beach where soft sand would once again welcome us. After what seemed like an eternity of fifteen minutes of walking barefoot on gravel, we finally got to the second beach that had the soft sand. Problem at this stage was that it looked like an old abandoned ship wreck where there were old boats there, glass along the beach and remains of several old bonfires.

We both realised that this entire experience was very far removed from the usual romantic beach walks that you see in all the movies and imagine yourself doing, so we decided to head back along the main street to our resort. Feeling like a true local as I walked along the road barefoot, it wasn’t long before we were back at our resort desperately craving a drink. We went back to our cottage and cracked open the last two Coronas that we had and proceeded to relax on our balcony while reading and having a cold beer in hand.

Unlike yesterday where I was able to crack open the Coronas with no issues, these ones did not want to play ball and ended up cutting my knuckles when trying to pop the lids. While only tiny, the cuts are right on the joint which means that I feel them every time I open or close my hands. Michelle being the super planner and packer that she is, packed a full first aid kit, and was smiling with glee at the fact that she got to use it, but not so much at the fact that she had to put her beer down for a few minutes and help me to apply antiseptic cream, because you know, we are safe travellers and a little cut can go a long way. Finally then, it was time to sit back down and enjoy a few hours reading on the balcony with a mildly warm beer in hand.

That is how we spent the afternoon, until we decided it was time to have some food, and we headed out to town. Getting on a bus proved to be a harder experience today as two of the drivers had no idea where we wanted to go, or they just pretended not to speak English. Either way, the third guy seemed to understand that we wanted to go to the centre of the city, and off we were on our merry way.

We pulled up at the Brewery, ordered the nice chicken wings that we had yesterday and a few beers to help wash it all down with. We spent a few hours like this, chatting away and watching the traffic go past, absolutely stunned and confused by the fact that there was no locals or tourists drinking at one of the few bars in Port Villa. On our travels yesterday, a barkeep at the Warhorse told us that they host karaoke nights on a Thursday, so we figured we would go there, because if singing badly in front of other people while drunk doesn’t pull a crowd, we didn’t know what would.

We got some bottled water and some beer for later, and this time a bus was easy to get, so before we knew it we were entering through the doors of the Warhorse.

To our surprise and delight, there were all of five other people seated there drinking, all who looked like expats, and we were incredibly happy to see someone else at a bar apart from us. We sat down, ordered a jug of the local beer and a kilo of beef ribs, with beef being the speciality around this part of town, and sat down to see how the vibe of this place would build.

Sure enough, by about 6:30pm there were a few families that had made their way down, as well as a few tourists, and the place started to get busy and have that buzz of conversation and clinking glasses that one comes to expect from a pub. We played a few games of pool quite badly, with both of us blaming the bad pool queues and the lack of chalk, especially when two out of the three games one of us had sunk the black 8 ball within two shots of starting the game. We had fun though, and finished off our jug just as the karaoke was about to start. On our way out the door we ran into our newly found resort friends who persuaded us to stay a while longer and listen to the local singing talent.

This meant ordering a few more drinks and claiming a spot at the bar, before the most over the top, stereotypical American cowboy grabbed the microphone and got the proceedings under way. White long sleeved, collared shirt, wide brimmed cowboy hat, old jeans, and white cowboy boots with red flames all over them is what he was wearing, all whilst holding a cigarette and beer in one hand with a microphone in the other. It was truly a stereotypical masterpiece of Americana.

So, the party got started. First up was a young girl who was probably no older than fourteen and she was determined to rock the stage. If I had my eyes closed I would have imagined that it was a voice of a rough and tumble thirty year old lumberjack who was keen to let loose for the night, but no, it was a fourteen year old white girl dressed in a local island dress that was up on stage. The assault on the ears thankfully finished, but our interest was piqued when we were told it was her brother up next. Looking slightly like an island cross between Eminem and Post Malone, her brother then continued the assault on our ears with what can only be described as a consistent pitch with absolutely no variation. It was like listening to radio static that was out of tune and out of time, and it would just not stop.

Thankfully, the next five or so songs were sung by enthusiastic expats who were barely average, but it felt like I was listening to the opera compared to what had come before. Not to be outdone in terms of effort, the brother and sister duo each had three more goes, just in case we had forgotten how badly they had sounded the first time. It was through one of the performances that I noticed that they were both wearing a cochlear implant, which made me feel like a right old twat for about a millisecond. I am all up for inclusion and good on them for having fun, but it made me realise that having tough conversations with your children is something that needs to be done at a very early age.

It was somewhere at this stage that my darling angel Michelle decided to take the stage with a Whitney Houston classic of I Want To Dance with Somebody. She was fired up and took to the mic and the stage with the gusto and zeal of a true performer. The first few verses she was a bit behind on, but that’s ok because she was doing her best to imitate Pink on stage and get the crowd involved. Walking up and down the stage and throwing her arms around everywhere unfortunately did nothing to get the crowd on her side, and after our post show debrief, we concluded that this was what made the microphones go dodgy and not allow her to do her best performance. The crowds and I were certainly well entertained, and I am glad that she proof reads these blogs before I post them up otherwise I could end up in a lot of trouble.

With that done, we decided it was time to head home, and it was probably the first time on our trip that we had to wait for about five minutes to get a bus. We arrived home safe, and feeling tired from the day’s exploits, we headed straight to bed. Tomorrow is our last full day of our holiday, so let’s see if sunshine rears it’s head through the clouds to give us the impression that we have been on a tropical island holiday. Until tomorrow, wishing you plenty of drinks and karaoke from the islands of Vanuatu.

Your performers,

Boj and Michelle

[bojk87]

Day 3 - The jungle is massif

I realise that when I am on holidays I tend to sleep about nine hours every night, compared to my usual six to seven when I am in Sydney working. That and the fact that I don’t do my hair or wear a watch, and if you know me, you’ll realise just how significant of a change that is for me. We wake up on this Wednesday morning feeling well rested and quite refreshed, and definitely ready to tackle the breakfast buffet.

Yesterday we discovered that we could ask for eggs and bacon which were not part of the tropical buffet, and this morning we certainly made use of that knowledge. I went with my usual scrambled while Michelle dared to step away and get some poached eggs. While waiting for my toast to get done by the perfect toaster, I chatted to an older British lady who was here with her husband to do some bird watching. They were from place called Norfolk which meant very little to me given that it’s not London, Manchester or Birmingham, but it sounded like a damn long way to come to try and take photos of some birds, especially when she said that the flight back was via Singapore, Amsterdam and then London before doing a local connection back home.

We had our delicious breakfast and went back to the room to tidy up before deciding that the activity for today would be a zip line through the jungle. We booked through the reception and with that completed, it gave us a good two hours to spend relaxing. We took our iPads and planted ourselves at the corner section of the bar which looked out over the resort and onto the beach, all with a beer in hand. If there is a better way to relax on a Wednesday on a tropical island, I am certainly open to your suggestions and advice.

With our relaxing done, it is time to head into the city and be taken away by the tour group to do the zip lining in the jungle. In typical fashion, everything ran on island time, which in this instance meant it was half an hour late. All good, in that half an hour we had a bunch of locals try to sign us up for God knows how many tours. It is interesting in a country like this that everyone works at least another job and is always trying to sell you something else, mostly when your defences are down and you are trying to relax. Guess there must be enough gullible tourists hanging around to make this worth while.

We ran into some people at the tour who were from our resort, so as we all got loaded into the back of a ute, it was great to see that we weren’t the only ones worried about this local mode of transport. I felt like I was in a US army van getting ready for deployment, as this thing bounced, hopped and wound its way through the jungle and up an incredibly steep mountain before we arrived at our destination. Stationed atop a very large hill was the reception and fitout area where we dropped our stuff, signed our lives away on those waivers and got geared up to go. Looking and feeling slightly like an old spelunker getting ready to dig for gold, we started walking into the jungle with our tour guides.

First step was to climb a four or five storey tower with our harnesses attached, and at the top was where the fun started. Simple instructions of one hand on the rope, one hand on the wire behind the pulley to slow yourself down and we were off to swing between the tree tops. It is actually quite impossible to not feel like Tarzan swinging through the trees, which was all mixed with slight fear, a great big smile on my face and me alternating between yelling “woohoo” and “jeronimo” that I felt like added to the positive mood of the entire group. It felt amazing, and it also felt like it went by too quickly because we were back at the reception and being carted down the mountain before I knew what was what.

Given all of the hard work and the excitement, it was time to sink a couple of drinks with our newly made resort friends, and share our experiences of flying through the trees. We ended up at the same place as yesterday afternoon, a place called the Brewery, where happy hour saw us getting pints of local beer for around $6 AUD, which I was definitely a fan of! We spent a few hours there chatting with our friends before they headed back to the resort, while we headed out to another recommended place for dinner.

The place we ended up at was called Reefers, and it prides itself on being a rum bar. I can confirm that they had an awesome selection of rum, and one of the owners there by the name of Mack was very quick to tell us all about his collection after he saw me order the El Dorado 15 year old rum and drink it straight, with no ice or any mixers. We had a few drinks there and some delicious tacos, and this place finally felt like the beach bar that I had imagined in my head, complete with being right on the water, having LED lighting wrapped around the palm trees and having amazing service.

We spent a few hours there and decided it was time to head home, so we hopped onto the first bus that we saw and headed straight for home. In typical fashion, the bus driver was trying to sell us on more tours and offering to drive us around to the other parts of the island all for a nominal fee, and we did our best vague answers of “we will think about it”.

When we got back to the resort, they were having a Melanesian night, which consisted of a local band all dressed in traditional grass like attire dancing and signing to entertain the crowds. It certainly got the crowds excited and playing along, and the resort bar was the busiest that I had ever seen it. We found our friends and sat down at the bar for several more drinks to chat the night away before we all decided it was bed time. A day well spent, from relaxing at the resort to flying through the jungle and drinking with new friends, it certainly put a smile on our faces and made us excited to see what was up next.

So, to keeping with the adventuring holiday vibes, we wish you an awesome day and we will see you back in the real world soon enough.

Your tropical adventurers,

Boj and Michelle

[bojk87]

Day 2 - The rainy paradise

Turns out that it rains a lot in the tropics. Like the entire night. Literally. The entire night of rain pounding away on a thatched roof and all around us that makes me feel like I should question the structural integrity of anything that is not built out of cement. Still, having been so tired, we both got just short of ten hours sleep, so I can definitely say that it is a damn good start to a holiday.

We made our way to the breakfast buffet where there was lots of fruit and some very nicely made pastries and toast. Deciding to not devour my entire body weight in pastries was a tough choice but it had to be done, same as the now routine malaria tablet intake, we made our way back to the room to pack some stuff and enjoy a day at the beach.

Sunscreen, deet, glasses, cap and iPad are my tools of trade and enjoyment when it comes to going anywhere beach related, so we parked ourselves under an large umbrella and proceeded to enjoy our down time. There was an orientation tour booked for 10am, so we only got about fifteen minutes in to our relaxing before making our way to the TV room. Island time in this case meant that the staff were only ten minutes late, and what a difference ten minutes makes. The tropical rain came and stayed for an eternity.

Ok, so an eternity is a lie, but the tropical downpour lasted for over two hours which Michelle and I spent huddled up in the said TV room reading our books to keep ourselves entertained. I did some Googling to figure out where the best bars are around Port Villa, and armed with that information we headed to town on our first bus ride after being prepped by the receptionist about what to expect and how much we should be paying so as not to incur the tourist tax. At this exact moment the weather Gods decided it would be a great opportunity to bucket down with rain, so we took an umbrella from the resort and hopped on to the bus.

For those of you that have not been to Vanuatu before, the term bus is loosely used, and the more I think about it, the more I think that is how the idea of UberPool was born. Imagine an old van that seats like nine people, possibly a Toyota Hiace that you have hired from the local petrol station when you were moving house. Now imagine that you hail the bus driver anywhere along the road and you tell them where you want to go. Sometimes you are in the car on your own, while other times you are surrounded by random people that are being dropped off along the way.

Our first bus journey is only about five minutes long and we end up at a place called the Warhorse Saloon Bar, apparently owned by an ex-pat Canadian guy. The place is decked out like a cliched mid-Western US saloon with lots of old signs and taxidermy on the walls. We are the only ones in there, which given that this is a holiday destination and it is one of the best bars in town is a rather interesting sight. We order up our beers and get chatting to the waitstaff, one of whom turns out to be an up and coming professional surfer that flies to Sydney quite a lot to compete. There are a few more people that drop by, most of whom seem to be ex-pats rather than tourists or locals which is even more strange to me. After some nibbles and another beer, we decide it is time to move on and explore another place, this one going by the name of Lava Lounge.

We were picked up by another bus, but this time it was going the wrong way, so it took a grand total of about seven minutes instead of five to get there. For some reason, any island that I have visited has a lot of traffic, and this was no exception. We pulled up to the kerb and saw an Australian looking and sounding pub, so thought it best to duck in there and check out what’s going on before continuing to our intended destination. Sure enough, there was James Squires and Hahn Superdry on tap, and what Australian bar overseas would be complete without a bunch of drunk Aussies. Not even 2pm and these guys were borderline written off, yelling things at each bus load of people that happened to go past on this road, which I can confirm is a large volume. I ordered up a local beer and Michelle decided to go with a Pinot Gris, which after careful examination and a taste test turned out to be not so great, and was thus promptly swapped out for a beer. We spent an hour or so, just sitting there on the balcony watching the world go by. Well more accurately, watching the traffic go by, until two actual bus loads of Aussie and NZ tourists showed up, which meant that it was time to go.

Lava Lounge is only 50m up the road and across the street, so we continued to walk straight and like locals dodge in and out traffic, all the while getting mud and dirt all over our legs given the state of the Port Villa roads. I felt like we had missed our destination, but we decided to explore the local food market where finger bananas and turnips reigned supreme. We meandered our way through and before long we ended up close to another bar which was on the list. No sense in doubling back, we headed straight for the Nambawan Cafe to grab a seat right at the front which looked out over the harbour.

At the orientation this morning, the receptionist told us that everyone here speaks a common tongue across all of the eighty islands and that it is a variation of broken English. Having dealt with broken English for most of my life, it was very easy for me to see that this version was a lot more phonetic than the Queen’s version, so a Nambawan Cafe was actually the Number One Cafe. It also made a lot more sense when looking at a lot of the ads around town, and I felt like I had unlocked a great secret. Feeling chuffed with myself, we sat down and ordered a peppermint tea from this place, where we could once again sit down and watch the world go past.

After enough chilling out and relaxing, we decided to hit up the final place, and this time I was adamant we would find the elusive Lava Lounge. We got to the location and while there was a bar there, it most certainly did not look open. I asked a lady that was there and was told that the desired Lava Lounge had closed down and has now been reborn as Club Lit which is only open Wednesday to Saturday, which it being only Tuesday left us in a bit of a pickle as to what to do at the now 4pm.

We decided that we would go back to the supermarket that we saw nearby, grab some beer, bottled water and snacks and head back to our resort to chill out for the evening and afternoon.

The usual bus ride back home saw us crammed in with a bunch of locals, and at the end of the trip I struggled to open the rusted door of the bus van, but luckily the helpful driver came out and stopped me from further embarrassment. Feeling like it was fate, the second that we got out of the bus, the heavens opened up with another fresh deluge of rain, which helped us to dash to our little cottage in no time, ready to relax for the rest of the evening.

The beers that we picked up while in the city were a good idea, especially when combined with reading a book and relaxing before dinner while listening to the rain fall outside. I have realised that I do quite like listening to the rain while reading indoors, but not so much while trying to fall asleep as it tends to be rather loud and bothersome. Once the rain quietened down and we started to fall hungry, we made our way to the resort dining area for some dinner. The menu this evening tempted us with a supreme pizza and some sweet potato fries on the side, while Michelle was also persuaded by a glass of shiraz. The place was a lot more busy tonight than last night, and we could hear several different accents including French, Italian and quite a few British people who had clearly come a long way to go on their holiday. We chatted the night away while enjoying our food, with the sweet potato fries being super delicious, meaning that they will feature on our menu again.

With our bellies full, we decided to call it a night and head back to bed to get some well deserved rest from all the hard resting we had done during the day. Tomorrow is another day, and hopefully a much less rainy one as we are keen to explore the island and do some of the activities on offer. Until then, wishing you all a very relaxing and chilled out day from the islands of the South Pacific!

Your travellers,

Boj and Michelle

[bojk87]

Day 1 - Journey before destination

Journey before destination. It is a line I read in a book recently and it certainly rings true for me. So much goes into a trip, all the planning, preparation, packing and effort before getting away from your world and entering another. In this scenario, the other world for us will be the tropical island of Vanuatu, where the sun, sea and cocktails call to us with their enchanting and relaxing vibes.

The alarm rang much as it would any other Monday morning, but instead of being met with the usual eye rolls and grunts of disapproval, this morning met with smiles and nervous excitement. It was the typical rush of getting ready in the morning with a good measure of packing, repacking, checking things and repacking again that took place at our house before we were able to bid our place goodbye for a few days and set off on our adventures.

We squeezed ourselves onto a fairly packed train, me with my packed carry on bag and Michelle with what felt like an entire house worth of contents squeezed into a suitcase. This time though, we were going in the opposite direction to all those other poor suckers out there headed to a sunny yet cold day of drudgery, which made the squeezing onto the train like a sardine all the better.

We got to the airport, found our check in terminal and made our way through the crowds lined up at customs. I have said it before, and I will say it again, there is something truly magical about airports. They are the gates to work and holidays and adventures and many worlds out there, which is why I feel like a young kid every time I go there with a smile on my face and an extra spring in my step! Who can ever know what awaits for them on their worldly adventures?

Typical travellers, after getting through customs and Michelle being stopped for a random bomb check, we proceeded to devour every aspect of duty free and everything it had to offer. I tried on expensive watches that I one day hope to buy, Michelle spritzed herself with expensive perfume and I tasted some brand new whiskeys from Macallan all before 8am had ticked over. Next stop was to make use of some free lounge passes that AMEX was giving out a while back, and who am I to say no to a freebie. With Michelle’s boarding pass stamped to proceed to the lavish lifestyle that an airport lounge offers, I was the next in the queue. She looked at my free pass and said that they do not honour those at this particular lounge, so it was only by the grace and generosity of my partner who sacrificed her other free pass, that I was saved from being denied entry to the higher eschelons of society.

The lounge proved to be better than expected and definitely a far better way to prepare for a flight compared to my usual queueing and milling around for a few hours. I had some questionable looking and watery eggs, deliciously crispy bacon, a small chicken sausage, badly toasted bread from an ancient toaster and what felt like my entire body weight of surprisingly nice baby croissants and all manner of pastries. Not to be outdone by the others in the lounge we had a fair go at some tea, a cold drip coffee which actually wasn’t bad and a few glasses of sparkling white wine because why not!

After consulting with some doctors a few weeks ago it turns out that Vanuatu has malaria, zika and dengue as active diseases, so being super cautious travellers and not wanting to take any chances, we popped some malaria tablets yesterday and now today. Turns out you have to take these bad boys a few days before your trip begins, everyday during the trip and for a week afterwards, so cheers to the next fortnight of having tablets every morning at 10am!

Feeling full, safe and drugged up on protection drugs we took a long walk to our departure area which felt like it was on the other side of the world! Quick phone call to Mum and dad and we were off on our first international adventure together! A very quick three and a half hours of flying was broken up by having the usual mish mash of aeroplane food that pretended to be some kind of beef, a nice lager style beer from Vanuatu called Tusker, and a scrumptious little white chocolate and raspberry cookie before nodding off for most of the trip while listening to some music.

We land in Vanuatu on the tarmac and are greeted by that true and tried tropical island heat and humidity, where the air itself feels like it is trying to make sure that you don’t need a shirt. The trip to immigration is pretty quick, and the time taken to collect Michelle’s bag seems to drag on for about ten minutes before we are able to leave and get the transport to our accomodation. The transport in this case is an old van that has barely enough power to get up a hill when fully loaded, and is actually trying to compete for the world title of loudest yet least effective air conditioning unit.

There are a few other couples in the van with us, and I think we are all slightly taken aback by the sights around us. The road from the airport to the resorts is certainly much more from the developing world than I was expecting with unsealed and incomplete roads, all with a solid disregard for any form of road rules. What really puzzled me was just how many people there were walking around town, seemingly without anywhere to go, or others just sitting by a tree on the side of the road looking at the traffic go past.

After almost an hour of dropping other people off, we finally arrived at our destination which is Breakas Beach Resort. Upon arrival we are given a welcome drink which was a delicious and refreshingly cold mix of guava and other tropical fruits. It was exactly what the doctor had ordered, so we had those as we explored our accomodation. A very high ceiling, thatched roof cottage that has a large bed and some seating is what greeted us in the first room, while the bathroom was on the other side of the cottage and was complete with an outdoor shower. While basic, the overall accomodation seemed nice.

After a quick freshen up, we headed to the resort bar for a few pre dinner drinks and to really welcome in the holiday. Having glanced at the drinks the others were having, we realised that the cocktails were made with ice, which is the silent holiday killer in places like this for those of us with weak stomachs. An executive decision was made to stick to beer, so we ordered up some of those and got the night started. Looking around we were somewhat surprised that the place wasn’t very busy, and that we were among the youngest people staying there, but luckily this is an adults only resort, so there was no chance there was going to be screaming kids running around.

Live and relaxing music started playing while we were having a drink which definitely added to the whole island vibe. We very quickly picked up on a concept called “island time”, which means that nothing is ever done in a rush and happens in due course. Not a bad life mantra, but certainly not the greatest way to run a bar and restaurant. Starving by this stage, we relocated a couple of steps to the restaurant and ordered up some food which in this instance was some bruschetta, a local chicken dish and a tandoori pizza, all to be washed down with some South Australian red wine. The thing that struck me is that the prices of food and alcohol were no different to ones back home, probably because most things would have to be transported here for consumption. Very quickly, what also became apparent was that while the food and drinks were priced the same as back home, the quality of cooking was a step below, which meant that once again I would be glad to eat when I got back home to Sydney.

With dinner and a bottle of wine done, it was time to call it a night after the start of our holiday. Putting the mosquito net on and squeezing in under it certainly proved an annoying task, but thankfully sleep came on really quickly after that. With day one done, let’s see what day two holds in store.

Your traveller and his partner in crime,

Boj and Michelle

[bojk87]

Day 36 - Last day of holidays

I wake up at my usual time of 6:30am and the first thought that I have is that this same time tomorrow I will be home. It is a sobering thought, one that says the holiday time is over, but also that I am ready to come back. I wake up and after having a shower decide to repack my bag.

It is with great pleasure that I fold my beloved mustard coloured coat and stuff it deep into my check in bag. It has been constantly with me or on me for the better part of five weeks but today is 22 degrees Celsius in LA and it should be about 17 in Sydney so I can safely and easily get by on just having a sweater with me to put on in case things get chilly. With my packing done I head down to the kitchen to grab some free breakfast which for me ends up consisting of two pieces of toast, lightly buttered and a glass of orange juice. I grab my stuff from upstairs and decide to check out early, leaving my stuff in storage until I come back to pick it up around 6pm.

So with my last day of holidays, what is a man to do in Santa Monica? Well, the one and only thing left, which is to walk from there to Venice Beach and the famous Muscle Beach where Arnie himself used to workout at the place that made him a world wide superstar. I grab my trusty backpack and start walking like a true adventurer that I am, dressed in the only gym gear that I brought which are my red knee length shorts and my black shirt with the Silver Surfer superhero printed on it. The walk should take about forty minutes, and apart from the usual postcard like views of palm trees, long sandy beaches and blue ocean, there isn’t too much that is interesting to see. I share the road there with early morning runners and cyclists who are out and about in the early sunshine working on their fitness.

I take in the relaxing atmosphere as I make my way towards Venice Beach, when a very interesting scenic change starts to happen. Along each beach walkway is where a lot of the homeless are parked, to the point that there is a effectively a shanty town that has sprung up along the main walkway. It is not the most pleasant of feelings to be walking down the main street with a full backpack when all around you, all you can see is poverty. These shantytowns then start to get littered with the occasional person selling various knickknacks but there is very little to differentiate them from each other. Added to this, the shops along the sidewalk look very old and tattered, and getting any food from any of those doesn’t seem like a very good idea so I avoid those as well. One thing that I remember from visiting Miami a few years ago and then seeing it again in NY recently is how young guys, generally African American, come up to you and try to give you the music that they created on a CD. They basically hand it to you and then ask for a donation to help support their art and music, none of which makes sense in this day and age as I no longer have any devices that are capable of playing music from a CD, nor do I actually carry cash on me. So basically, for about half an hour I spend my time playing a giant game of dodgeball where I try my best to run the gauntlet and avoid being approached by the homeless, the street vendors or the young artists.

I finally arrive at the famous Muscle Beach location and there are people having fun playing all kinds of sport, but primarily focused on basketball and tennis. I thought about working out at the Muscle Beach because that would be very cool, until I actually saw the equipment. All of it is very rusted through, and any surface on which you would sit have long since been torn apart, leaving behind only a metal frame. I am totally grossed out by this but to make things worse, it is a $10 entry fee to go and workout there.

Wisely deciding to save both my money and my skin from any random number of possible infections, I move onto the skate park close by which while not as famous, features on the to-visit itinerary. It is a nice skatepark by all accounts, with loads of young people using it and even a few oldies still skateboarding, but I wouldn’t really know since I’ve never delved deep into the world of skateboarding. There are two guys also standing there and they can only be described as stereotypical local gang members, with each guy wearing the same hooded sweater with their insignia, knee length black shorts, knee high white socks, black shoes, a blue bandana hanging out their left side because as Snoop Dogg would say, “yeah that’s the Crip side”, and two hunting knives on either side of their belt, with probably a gun hidden underneath their big sweaters, all while listening to death metal music and smoking weed. The only thing that doesn’t make sense in that mental picture is that they are listening to death metal, and both being African American and in a gang, you would stereotypically expect them to be listening to rap music, but once again the world proves to me just how unique its people be.

For obvious reasons, I don’t spend a long time hanging out there and instead decide to move onto the next tourist attraction which is the Canals of Venice. Constructed as part of the architect’s dream to create a version of Venice in America, they are very much the same as the original, albeit with a far smaller body of water making up the canals and instead of gondolas, it is full of small boats that the owners have parked there. I don’t spend very long exploring this part as it is very much a residential area, and decide to take a walk towards home and have lunch somewhere around Santa Monica.

Once again I realise that LA is a city not made for walking, and is most definitely geared towards people driving, but given how much spare time I have today, I continue on my merry way. Similar to the way there, the way back is populated with a lot more tourists and a lot less of the fitness fanatics compared to the morning. I end up close to home and walk around Bloomingdales, which is a smallish shopping centre populated with the most expensive brand names around, so I do some serious window shopping while there in my gym gear.

I grab a gelato from a local place to help cool off a little and continue exploring the mall before settling back at the hostel for a while. With my devices all charged up, I decide that it is time for lunch and head to a place with a funny name of Taco Libre that fully plays on the Mexican wrestler theme and is owned by some very authentic Mexicans. I put on my best Spanish accent and manage to muddle my way through ordering a chicken quesadilla in Spanish, which comes out quickly and tastes oh so delicious. I spend the next hour or so just chilling at this no frills authentic place before going for another long walk further up the promenade and exploring more of this iconic beachfront.

Eventually, feeling tired and a little hot, I retire back to the hostel to relax and wait out about two hours before ordering an Uber. Must be my lucky day because I am picked up in an E Class Mercedes which has always been the car that I have wanted to own, so I am glad to have over an hour in LA traffic in one of the most comfortable cars that I have ever been in. Michael, who is my driver was born in Germany but his parents brought him to the States when he was a toddler, and he has since lived in LA enjoying the lifestyle and the boat that he is so proud of on the weekends that he gets to take it out.

Finally I arrive at the airport, and after going through the check in and security process realise that the lounge where I planned to spend my time is closing in about twenty minutes. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good pass for that, I succumb to walking around like a mere mortal and end up needing dinner, with my choices being the usual burgers or pizza, with a twist of a wine and caviar bar thrown in. No alcoholic drinks before flying is a policy that I stick to, and I am not a fan of caviar, so I end up going to the standard option of a beef burger in all its cheesy American glory. I devour that and proceed to mill around the shops for a bit before settling down at my gate with almost two hours of waiting time to go. A call home to the better half, as well as the family is in order so that occupies my time and puts a big smile on my face knowing that I’ll be back with them in a matter of hours. Well, 14.5 hours worth of flying and crossing the International Date Line, but a few hours nonetheless.

So that’s it for me and my big US and Canada trip. 36 days of fun and adventures, from food poisoning at the start, to shooting guns and winning money in Vegas, physically freezing in Chicago but warming my soul by seeing a long lost cousin, all manner of mischief in NY with old mates, experiencing an ice storm and what it feels like to turn into an icicle in Toronto, to the very green and constantly overcast Seattle with another mate and the very chilled out and cool Portland it has all been a very interesting and fun ride. In a few days I’ll be back at work, so reality will bite hard but I’ll have some new memories to hang on to. Thank you to everyone that has followed my journey and read the blog, I hope I have managed to entertain you and possibly inspire you to visit some of these places with their colourful characters. Keep your eyes peeled for future blog posts and until then, happy adventuring for all, wherever your travels may take you.

Your fellow adventurer,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 35 - Back to Hollywood we go

Another early morning wake up, and I am getting more excited about being back home which is probably the reason I keep waking up so early. I am glad to have received messages from back home overnight, and am even more glad to be able to have a video chat with the better half back home, who is heading to bed just as I am waking up.

Feeling like I am working the night shift, I get up and write a thank you card for my mate that has hosted me for the past week, and of course I throw in a sneaky bottle of Macallan whiskey to be consumed in bad health but good taste at a later stage. With my packing done yesterday, the morning is a very easy one where Roman and I spend an hour chatting away before we say our goodbyes and I get an Uber to take me to the airport.

I am picked up by a US Navy veteran who is quite an interesting elderly gentleman and we spend the entire half an hour chatting away on matters small and large, which makes the trip go by very quickly. My check in with Delta goes by smoothly until we get to the security check where I am greeted by the biggest line I have seen at an airport. To my utmost surprise though, the line moves very quickly and I am going through the metal detector within fifteen minutes of shuffling through the line. Seattle airport has done really well by having sniffer dogs patrolling the line which means that you don’t have to take your shoes off, nor do you have to remove items from your bag which always becomes an issue on the other side of the scanner when you are trying to gather your million and one things along with everyone else who is struggling to put their shoes on.

With that done I head to my gate and decide that it is time for breakfast. The choices apart from Starbucks aren’t great, but I end up choosing a place that has a decent sounding breakfast menu. I order up the classic breakfast which comes with eggs, bacon, sourdough toast and fruit which I find a strange combo but I imagine that’s just them trying to simulate a continental breakfast. What ends up showing up is a very uninspiring breakfast of two dull yellow coloured eggs, two tiny rashers of bacon, two slices of toast which one would give to a toddler for a snack and six distinct pieces of fruit consisting of two grapes, two pieces of rockmelon, one piece of pineapple and one strawberry. I quickly polish off the plate and begin to hope that Delta will serve lunch during the flight given that this small plate of what tried to be food cost me $16 USD. I am however entertained during my breakfast when I see a young Indian guy, not Native American but Indian Indian, wearing a warm Northface jacket and a full blown stereotypical Texas ranger hat that seems so out of character until he begins to talk with a full Texan accent.

Realising once again that the world is truly a small and very interesting place, I go to purchase a bottle of water pre flight and spend a good five minutes before hand counting out all of the US coins that I have collected over the past few weeks. It is a true pain given that US has 1 cent coins that are absolutely useless, and we in Australia complain that we have issues with the 5 cent piece. My $3 worth of coins weighs heavily in my hand but I am glad that my Starbucks bought water comes to $2.75 so I am glad my effort wasn’t wasted and that I have managed to unload so much of the copper and silver that I have been hauling around.

I spend the next hour just relaxing around the airport, waiting for my plane and catching up on my reading. It finally comes time to board the plane and as I get on I realise that the flight is fairly empty. My hopes are justified as the door closes and no one is sitting next to me, or even in the seat next to that, meaning that as the door closes I have all three seats to myself. As soon as we are airborne and the seatbelt sign is off, I lift the arm rests and lie across the three seats, very quickly joining slumber land and loving my flight as much as if I was upgraded to business class.

The flight goes by without me realising, and I basically wake up as the plane is landing in LA. My bag is one of the first to come off the carousel, so it seems that it has been an entire day of Boj VIP treatment that I am happy to take. I go outside and order my Uber to take me to the world famous Santa Monica beach, and the guy arrives within two minutes. An older Asian gentleman by the name of Cheung, he remains quiet during most of the journey but is very surprised that I don’t have an Australian accent. This is not the first time that my chameleon skills have been praised and I’m happy to be thought of as a local, but I am even more happy to be heading home in about 36 hours.

My check in at the hostel goes well, and after meeting some fellow Aussie travellers in my dorm room, I am out the door and exploring within half an hour. I am only a few streets away from the world famous Santa Monica Pier, so I head on down that way with the rest of the tourists. As per most tourist attractions around the world, the Pier is a mix of homeless people begging for money, street artists of all kinds vying for your attention and hard earned cash, local businesses that are set up as tourist traps meant to suck your money away, and obviously a copious amount of tourists taking photos all over the place. I spend about half an hour exploring the place, walking around am taking photos before I decide to move on and get some dinner.

A short walk away back towards my hostel is a craft beer bar that upon entering informs me that they will be closing for a private event in about an hour. In a very typical fashion that has definitely grown old, I order an IPA beer and a beef burger which at this point in time works very well. The place is absolutely dead as I think everyone is turned off by the idea of a private event cutting their fun short, so I decide to bail on both accounts of a private event and a totally boring vibe.

I wander the streets and realise once again that LA is a huge city and that I much prefer hanging out in Santa Monica than I ever did in West Hollywood when I first landed. It is a beach side town, stuck in a big mega city, very reminiscent of being in Bondi back in Sydney with that same tourist vibe, yet enough cool local places hidden away from the Main Street once you know where to go.

Thus, I end up at a place that serves cocktails and looks like it has come straight out of the 1920’s as a pharmacy, or a circus show that has all kinds of wonders from all over the world. Imagine extremely tall ceilings, dark wood on every wall and offsetting black and white tiles on the floor, and a very large selection of drinks and books places in floor to ceiling shelves that I would be very happy to have in my dream house. I spend about two hours having cocktails at this awesome place, enjoying my own company and thinking back on my entire trip and what I have enjoyed, what I would have done differently and what I have learned.

Given all of my musings, helped along with all of my drinks, I decide to take a walk before heading back to the hostel to have a chilled night. I end up in the common room where a bunch of guys are watching a NBA playoffs game and are quite passionately invested. I have never understood people and how they follow teams and cheer them on, but it is quite fun to sit there and watch a very close and important basketball game with some diehard fans of each team, which really raises the atmosphere and lends a certain entertaining element to the game that I haven’t experienced before. It seems these people are seriously and passionately tied to the outcome rather than just enjoying a good game of basketball like I am. I spend the next few hours hanging out in the common room before heading to bed to get some rest before my flight back home the next day. I know, I am such a responsible adult who goes to sleep at 9:30pm before flying out to ensure that he gets the best rest possible.

Overcast Seattle to the warm embrace of LA beachside living is a positive step in my mind. Add to that exploring some iconic places and having a few drinks along with some food and it is a decent way to spend the last full day of holidays. Tomorrow will be the end of my holiday writing, so let’s see what adventures await me on my last day of holiday bliss.

Your responsible adventurer,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 34 - Last day in Seattle

After last night’s drinking exploits, I struggle to sleep well and end up waking up a little earlier than normal. I spend the next hour or so trying to fall back asleep but to no avail, so I get up and browse the wide world of the internet to keep myself occupied. The morning is spent in the usual manner of me making the bright yellow highlighter eggs for breakfast and chatting away with Roman, all the while our laundry is being done because that is the kind of responsible adults that we are.

It is quite a relaxing morning and I spend it milling around the house, packing and listening to a podcast to help pass the time.

Time finally comes to leave the safety net of the home, and I am glad that all my packing for tomorrow is sorted out already, so I order up an Uber and head into the city. I am picked up by a late forty’s Russian man by the name of Igor, and we spend the next half an hour having a great conversation about all things big and small. He moved to Seattle three years ago from Russia where he left a job as a senior manager of a mechanical engineering company because of all the corruption in Russia. He gave up his job, moved his family over to Seattle and for the better part of the last three years has spent his mornings studying English, and his afternoons driving and practicing his English with his passengers. He seems like a happy fellow, with one son who works on Wall St, a daughter who is studying law at Duke which is a good university in the States, and his youngest boy who has adapted well into his high school surroundings.

A nice fellow all round, and it’s funny how for me at least, a good conversation with a stranger can really brighten up my day. I get out in downtown Seattle and proceed to meander through the streets, once again absorbing everything the city has to offer. I end up walking past the same place as yesterday, the big Pike Street Markets and settle into a BBQ place for lunch by the name of Pike BBQ Pit which has all types of delicious smells coming out of it. I get served a platter with mouthwatering beef brisket, smoked chicken, tangy coleslaw, buttery cooked beans, sweet BBQ sauce and a small slider bun to mop up all that juice. I spend the next twenty minutes in absolute meat heaven, enjoying and savouring each bite more than the last before the whole plate is totally clean with not even scraps left.

I decide to take myself for a walk but don’t end up very far, because across the road from there is where the first ever Starbucks opened and continues to operate even today. The logo is slightly different to the now worldwide recognised green siren and inside it is very much about old and recycled wood, metal pipes and generally dark brown decor that reminds me of a warehouse, but all the other elements of the Starbucks chain are there.

I spend a bit of time loitering there, reading my book and watching the world go past before I decide to explore a few more of the local bars. Our plan for tonight is to go to the movies so I have a few hours left to kill, which I use to explore the city and do some research on some amazing bars around Seattle. I come up with a place named Shorty’s and take myself there via a very long route. On my way there I see a bunch of homeless people always huddled up near the drug stores, also known as pharmacies and what I saw shocked and amazed me. They would pool their resources from a day spent begging, go to the drug store which in the States sells beer, and buy a six pack of beer that they would then share in full view of everyone passing by.

Anyway, I arrive at Shorty’s which is an old dive bar, with a very long and dark bar table, chewing gum stuck underneath the bar and a great deal of pinball machines and other old school arcade games such as Pac-Man. I take a seat at the bar, and am surprised by how long it takes to get served given that the place is not that busy at all. A portly gentleman walks up to me and I order up a draft beer at which point he asks me for ID. I hand over my Australian driver licence and am told that it is not an acceptable form of identification in Seattle. I am shocked and he explains that I need to show my Passport to be allowed to drink at this bar. Obviously given that I don’t have my Passport on me, I decide to take my business elsewhere, and am kind of annoyed that being 31 years old I still get asked for ID and rejected because the ID doesn’t seem official enough. As if I would ever take my Passport with me when going for a drink, that is an absolute recipe for disaster!

Previously I had walked past a place called the Whiskey Room which boasted twenty four beers on tap and over 250 whiskeys, so I head back towards there hoping for better luck. I walk in confident as always, sit down at the bar and order up a beer which is their in-house made IPA that has been bourbon barrel aged. I am relieved that I am not asked for ID at all, and am instead handed a glass of nice and delicious beer to devour at my pleasure. I spend the next few hours sitting there at the bar, reading my book and enjoying the smooth taste of beer like the true adult male that I am. I follow up the glass of IPA with a glass of stout just to further cement my status as a grown male.

I head back home through some very annoying Seattle traffic in my Uber which is piloted by a young Egyptian man who is very happy and smiling because the sun is out today, but apart from a few brief conversations the road home is pretty quiet. Roman and I chill out for a bit before heading to a local sports bar to grab a quick bite and a beer before going to the movie. The large bar is set up as a run of the mill tavern and boasts a pretty good selection of local craft beer, so I settle for one called Old Rasputin which is a dark and thick Russian Imperial Stout, whose darkness on occasion can mirror the depths of my soul.

Being still full for lunch I just order a pretzel which comes with some very interesting dipping sauces, none more so than the salted caramel and peanut butter. It is a very confusing proposition but in true overweight American fashion it makes sense but it does come with a side of heavily sweet aftertaste that I need the mustard based sauce afterwards to cut through it.

We spend the time chatting away and enjoying a very intense and close NBA basketball game between Cleveland and Toronto which has the entire bar on the edge of their seats.

With the final play the game heads into overtime, and we have to head off to the movies across the road to watch the latest Avengers superhero flick. I tend to watch two types of movies, ones that make me laugh or ones that are totally mindless, and I leave my deep and intricate plot lines and characters to my love of reading books. I quite enjoyed the movie that has been basically ten years in the making with all the different storylines combining, and it is a good watch for something simple and entertaining that will keep things mindless and fun with loads of one liners and explosions to keep things moving along.

It is almost 11pm by the time the movie is done and we take the fifteen minute walk home in what is an extremely quiet part of the neighbourhood, where the only sign of life was one car that went past us. I fall asleep promptly as tomorrow I am flying to LA for a day before beginning the journey back home.

A lazy day of being an adult and doing chores, followed by a BBQ lunch and then exploring the city and having drinks before finishing up with a beer and a movie with a mate is a pretty good way to spend my last full day in Seattle. Next time I write to you I’ll be in Los Angeles, so I bid you adieu until the bright lights of Hollywood come and get me.

Your adventurer who can legally drink anywhere in the world,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 33 - Boeing and sushi

I am getting comfortable sleeping on blow up air mattresses, which is not something that I thought I would do. Couldn’t do it on an ongoing basis, but while travelling it is a very suitable and useful option. I wake up in my usual early-ish timeframe only to realise that everyone back home is asleep, and that this West Coast time difference between Sydney and Seattle is a true pain. Deciding to make breakfast, I default to my age old tradition of making scrambled eggs and cottage cheese.

I am really taken aback by just how yellow the egg yolks are here in the States. They are literally the highlighter yellow colour that you used in your schooling years, but then again maybe I am going a bit crazy because I could swear that our egg yolks in Australia are far more orange in colour. I take a photo of the scramble and will do the definitive test in a couple of days when I get home.

With breakfast and a shower done, it is time to saddle up and go exploring. It is a consistent ten degrees Celsius here in Seattle, always overcast and gloomy with the occasional rain that reminds me of why I have never wanted to live in a place like London. I order an Uber and go on my merry way to explore the Boeing factory where all the planes are made which to me seems pretty cool, as I am picked by a young and scrawny driver who looks and dresses like he wouldn’t be out of place at a methodone clinic.

It is about half an hour drive on the highway, with very little of the bad traffic that Roman and I got while exploring, so I arrive at the Boeing factory rather quickly. The place isn’t very well labelled and it strikes me as quite odd given that it would be a decently popular tourist attraction. We roll up to the gates and speak to a security guard who tells us to go to another gate around the corner, so we do exactly that. When we get to this gate, the guy tells us to park nearby and enter via another building, which looks very small and reminds me of the demountable buildings we had in primary school. I say goodbye to my Uber driver and enter the building which most definitely is not labelled and certainly does not look like a very welcoming tourist entrance. Sitting around are a few guys who look like they have come to do some serious work, and I walk up to the front counter feeling very unsure of myself at this point. I ask for where the tours start from and am informed that this is an actual worksite for Boeing, where employees work and that any tours are done on a business level with an escort and a full security screening. I realise that this is why everything felt so out of place and the strange looks the security guards were giving me. I am also told that the tours might be done at a place called Everett, which a quick Google reveals is over an hour drive away.

Being quite displeased with myself and my bad decision making, I go to the small shopping centre across the road which is basically a barebones industrial complex set up for the employees to be able to go somewhere for lunch. I grab a turkey and cheese sub from a Subway like chain called Potbellies, which tastes fairly bland but it is good enough to fill my stomach and soothe some of the anger and disappointment at myself. Praying to any deity that will hear me, I open the Uber app and order up a car to take me to Seattle proper because then at least I’ll be in a big city.

My prayers are answered as I am picked up by a portly gentleman in a very large seven seater American machine of a car and driven back to Seattle to see the Giant Wheel. Once again, very little traffic to disturb us sees me arrive to downtown Seattle in about half an hour, and the city traffic starts to gridlock. Deciding that I need to stretch my legs somewhat, I exit the car early and walk down to the pier where the Wheel is. It is good to breathe the city air again and see actual buildings and people, rather than just an industrial centre made for working.

The Giant Wheel is a big Ferris Wheel, ala London, and you can sit in one of the cars as it goes around to get a decent view of the city. Given how the pier is at the bottom of the hill and a bunch of high rise buildings are built at the top of the hill, I struggle to reconcile how you would see anything meaningful. I hang around the Wheel and the pier for a bit, taking some photos and enjoying the atmosphere before I move on to my next destination which is the Pike’s Market Place.

It is basically a giant market spread over six levels that has all types of delights and wonders for customers to purchase, from food, sweets, drinks, trinkets and all the way to a magicians shop.

I end up wandering around and arrive at a place selling fish where a huge crowd has gathered. Believing it is something special, I hang around for a bit, acutely aware that no one is purchasing anything, instead just standing in a semi circle a few metres away from the shop intently watching what’s going on as the people working there go about their own business. And then I remember. There was a video shown to us a few years ago during a training event that talked about how important it is to enjoy and have fun with the people that you work with, and the example used was the fish shop that I was standing in front of. They do fresh fish at nice prices and all that, but they got really famous for having fun at the workplace and throwing entire fish to each other when someone orders it, and this is the reason why everyone has lined up and is waiting for it to happen. About five minutes goes past, and the spectacle begins. It feels like the military where the lead guy yells something out and every employee answers them back in unison. The energy in the room went up several notches as the fish was taken by one guy and tossed several metres in distance over the counter. The second guy caught the fish and it was funny to see all the water and ice splash away onto the bystanders who happen to be behind him trying to get the best view. With that completed, I got to taste a sample of their wares which in this case was the best garlic pepper smoked salmon that I’ve ever had.

With that done, my next destination became the Space Needle, a big observation deck similar to Sydney’s Centrepoint Tower or the Toronto CN Tower that I visited several weeks back. This one happens to be a decent walk away, so I take to exploring the streets and make my way there. Distances in the US are highly deceptive and it feels like I end up walking half way around the city, even walking past the Bosnian place where we had dinner several nights ago. I get to the Space Needle and it really doesn’t seem that high, especially when compared to the Sky Tree in Tokyo or any of the big towers in Hong Kong. I take a few photos but as I get close I see that the tower is under renovation, however it is still open for people to go up even with all the covers and the scaffolding around.

I really do wonder what the point is of going up to an observation tower that you cannot see out of, so I scrap that idea and decide to wander around the grounds and the gardens. There is a small garden that is made up of glass sculptures but that doesn’t interest me too much, so I take myself to a nearby park bench, in an actual garden and spend some time resting and reading my new book.

It is a good way to spend half an hour, sitting in nature, enjoying the peace and serenity while engrossed in a book. Alas though, a man has to make a move, so I ponder what that will be given that I have hit up Seattle’s main tourist attractions already and it is only about 2:30pm, and my dinner plans with Roman aren’t until 6:30pm. Deciding that I would continue exploring, I strike out towards our restaurant meeting point which is in an area called Capitol Hill. Turns out that the Hill part of the name wasn’t a joke, and the hills which are definitely plural in this case, provide quite a workout. After an hour of scaling the city equivalent of Everest, I realise that I have about three more hours to kill before dinner, so I do what any real red blooded male would do and look for the nearest bar.

Lo and behold a highly rated bar is about ten metres away from me, and even more surprisingly it is open at 3pm on a Monday. I walk in and there are two other patrons already there with one bartender, chatting away amicably as I take a seat at the bar. The bartender ends up being a Chrimeian guy, which for those of you that don’t know is a disputed territory is what was formerly USSR, and sits in a modern day area that depending on who you ask is either Ukrainian or Russian. Similar to me, this guy escaped with his family when he was ten years old and has lived in Seattle ever since. We all keep chatting away as several more people join us when I am about half way through my dark porter beer, and the drinks keep flowing. My second beer is from a local brewery that features Blood Orange in the beer name, so it obviously has to be tried. Luckily for me, it is delicious!

Few more people take a seat around me and I get chatting to the locals about all of the observations that I’ve made with my travels around the States, which provides us with some interesting conversations while we make our way through happy hour. Happy hour at this establishment means you get a beer and a whiskey shot, which in America is a double shot, for the low, low price of $6.

Bad decisions make for the best stories, but luckily for me there weren’t any bad decisions, just lots of drinks and fun conversations at a dive bar while one of the Batman movies was playing on the big TV screen. Time to leave for dinner, and as I am joined by Roman I realise that the last few hours of drinks has only cost me $22 USD including tip which makes me even happier than even the alcohol did!

Our choice for dinner is a highly recommended Japanese restaurant where we are promptly seated and treated to some very delicious food indeed. There was a nicely cut wagyu steak, fresh salmon sashimi and all manner of different sushi all of which managed to go some way to filling our bellies. Our plan was always dinner and then yet another hidden cocktail bar that isn’t too far from there.

The thing with this hidden cocktail bar is that it is inside a deli which sells bagels and other takeaway food items, and the way you enter this particular bar is through a very large fridge door. Not an actual fridge, but a door that has been made to look like an old fridge door for the deli and that you would never think to open.

Upon opening it, we are treated to a place that looks like someone’s hidden library, with books lining one wall and the bar lining another.

The cocktail menu is nice and we order up our drinks with mine being a version of the whiskey sour, and for food we get a large jacket potato that is stuffed like a Reuben sandwich with a bunch of cold cuts of juicy meat. We spend the entire time chatting away on matters large and small before deciding to head home. Our Uber driver for the evening is an elderly gentleman who picks us up in a very large Lincoln sedan that is dripping in leather seats and wood everywhere, which is quite a luxurious way to get home and go straight to bed.

A full day in Seattle that consisted of going to the wrong place and then finding my way back to civilisation, wandering around and running into some awesome places before settling down for dinner and drinks, is a day that can be in the end considered a success. Tomorrow is my last full day in Seattle before I fly back to LA for a day and then onwards to home, so let’s see what adventures await me tomorrow!

Your hidden cocktail bar adventurer,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 32 - Road back to Seattle

The time difference between Seattle and Sydney is much more annoying than the time difference between NY and Sydney, so I end up waking up just before 6am with the aim of being able to chat with those back home. I am rewarded with success for my efforts and spend a nice half hour catching up with my better half before getting ready to tackle the day.

First order of the day is breakfast. The strange thing in Portland is that a lot of places are shut on Sunday, and I really cannot thing of any real reason unless this area was mysteriously religious in its past and it is a hark back to those church days. Also, places don’t open for breakfast before 8am, with the vast majority of the rest opening at 9am, which clearly doesn’t sit well with me given that it is about 7:30am. Roman and I do a quick search and decide that a local French American place by the name of Bijou is the way to go and we head there. We aren’t the first ones there surprisingly so we spend a few minutes waiting for the shop to open and for us to be seated. The service is good and I very quickly end up with my breakfast which is scrambled eggs with crispy bacon, green salad and a biscuit. For those that are a little confused, a biscuit here is not a sweet thing like back home, which here is called a cookie. A biscuit here is more like a large scone that is quite buttery and changes flavour based on what you put on it, so you can make it sweet or savoury.

We devour our breakfasts and I try to have the biscuit with both bacon and raspberry jam, separately and together, because you know, ‘Murica! Putting raspberry jam on crispy bacon is actually not a bad idea and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is adventurous enough to try a combination of flavours. So with breakfast done, we head back to the hotel to relax a bit and hit up a gym session where we meet a fellow traveler who happens to be a San Francisco based teacher who has come to Portland with his wife and one month old son to explore the area and see how his little baby will handle flying in an aeroplane. We have a nice chat to him while working out, and when done we head upstairs to shower, pack and get ready to head out for the day.

First port of call is lunch at a local place that came recommended from three separate people and goes by the name of Jack’s Crawfish. This place has been around since the late 1800’s, and it has definitely kept some of its old world charm with the high backed wooden tables, while all the table waiters are old men wearing white suit jackets and ties all the while speaking like they are addressing someone of royal blood. I perouse the menu and see a Manhattan Clam Chowder, something that I have been craving since the last time I was in the States almost six years ago, and for my main meal I go for a delicious sounding Gumbo. The clam chowder arrives and it is everything that I was expecting and missing, with the clams being done in a tomato kind of broth, and from my side is washed down with a nice and dark porter beer.

Yesterday I saw people walking around with a giant pink box that had the title of Voodoo Doughnuts, so naturally I needed to find it and have it. A quick ten minutes sees us arrive at the one and only Voodoo Doughnut store, and a queue of people informs us that we seem to be making the right decision.

Another ten minutes passes for us while we wait in line and try to figure out which sugary delights we will purchase, and given that they have some very creative names we end up with a Voodoo Doll, an Old Dirty Bastard, a Grape Ape and a doughnut that is made to look like a rolled up joint and went by the name of Joint Blazer. With our new acquisition we decide to beat the traffic home, so we grab our car and with some failures from the GPS, we eventually end up getting on the right exit and then the freeway to take us home.

The drive home is long but uneventful, with only a lot of traffic and a podcast to keep us entertained. We arrive home safe and sound, and decide to sample the wares from Voodoo that we acquired. We have our tastebuds overwhelmed with chocolate, jam, custard and all formats of sugar that leaves us on a high for quite a while. Roman goes back to return the car and I chill out for a bit in the warmth of the apartment. Upon his return we proceed to watch comedy for the rest of the evening before retiring to get a good night’s rest.

A weekend of exploring a new city, enjoying delicious food, beer and whiskey has made me a very happy and relaxed Boj, so no complaints from my side. Here is to hoping that all the weekends are like this, or as close to it as possible. From your adventurer,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 31 - Portland

Given that I fell asleep around 9:30pm, I wake up at 6:30am partly from feeling rested and partly for the fact that we are driving down to Portland for our weekend adventure. Out the door by 7am and on the empty road is a good way to be as there is absolutely no traffic and we only end up taking one wrong turn which is easily corrected within five minutes.

The area around here is full of lush greenery and it is a very straight and easy drive down the highway. We stop at a small and sleepy town called Olympia and a tiny coffee shop called Mud Valley, where we are greeted by a guy who looks like he either just woke up or is still stoned from the previous evening. From what Roman is saying the coffee is very average and I can confirm that the bagel I had wasn’t going to win any awards, but it was nice to take a break and enjoy some nice nature views.

We continue the drive, chatting away as we get every closer to our destination of Portland which has been described as a very friendly hipster town. The drive is thankfully very uneventful and we arrive at the Marriott around 10am, ready to explore the city. We are checked into our rooms, and after a quick session at the gym, we grab a quick shower and head out to a place that has come highly recommended.

This institution goes by the name of Deshutes Brewery and we are able to recognise it by the line of people waiting to be seated. I saunter up to the bar in my usual fashion and the greeter tells me that we can take a seat at the bar instead of waiting to be seated at a table which is music to my ears and my grumbling belly. The place is nicely decorated with lots of tall wooden beams and large beer vats, all the while serving delicious craft beer.

Both Roman and I order the brewery tasting plate which comes with six different beers ranging from a lager all the way to the new style sour. Chatting away, we decide that we are starving and order up with my choice being an elk burger.

Yup, a big old elk done medium rare and placed into a burger which is the first time I have had it, and it was delicious. Similar texture to beef but much more lean, it is a very nice and flavoursome way to indulge in lunch, matched with some equally delicious and occasionally interesting craft beer.

With our bellies full we decide to do some exploring and head down to the waterfront of the local river to do some sightseeing. We are greeted by more lush greenery, a somewhat dirty river and some very old but functional bridges which allow us a few photos as true tourists. We keep walking around and enjoying this great city and the lovely tree lined streets as we find our next destination which is yet another bar that brews their own beer. We settle in at the bar and order up some drinks, with me getting a stout and Roman going for an IPA before the young guy next to us joins in the conversation with us and we spend the next half an hour discussing just how great Portland is.

Given our stressful and busy day filled with drinking, we head back to the hotel to relax and snooze for a bit before we head out for the evening. Feeling still quite full after a quick nap, we decide that whiskey is on the menu for the evening, so we strike out towards a local whiskey bar called the Whiskey Library. We find it easily enough and upon entering we are told that there is a four hour waiting list to get in. Four hour waiting time at 8pm means that we wouldn’t be seated before midnight, a time that I envision I’ll be deep in slumber land. We are told that there is another bar downstairs and that we can go and take a seat there right now, so that becomes the plan of action with our decision making being very quickly vindicated when we are holding a nice and delicious glass of whiskey which has been finished in cognac barrels to give it a smooth texture. The place is called the Green Room as true to the name, most if not all the surfaces have a green colour, from the floor tiles to the table lamps and even the ceiling decorations.

We are in the mood for exploring this wonderful city, so after the one drink we decide to brave the rain outside in search of another whiskey place that we passed previously in the day but was closed at the time. It’s a short ten minute walk before we end up at a place called Swine, a bar that specialises in whiskey and moonshine. We saddle up at the bar, order a round of Oregon local whiskey and a plate of Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings to share, which is a damn good way to do an evening. Basketball and baseball are playing on the TV as we enjoy our drinks and our food, chatting between ourselves and the bartender to pass the night away before heading home at a very responsible 10pm.

So far I can say that Portland is an amazing city that has totally exceeded my expectations. The food is delicious, the craft beer is well made, the local whiskey is great, the city is clean and so green, it is easy to walk around and most importantly everything is so reasonably priced and compared to other cities I’d go so far as to say that it is cheap. It is no wonder that Portland is one of the top three cities that the youth of America is moving to!

Tomorrow is another day to hang around Portland before we make our way back home to Seattle. So until then, hope you have enjoyed your weekend as much as I have my Saturday.

Your adventurer,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 30 - The road to Seattle

I wake up extra early, partly from the drinks of the night before and partly from being excited about the flight. I also sneakily went yesterday and got my friends a nice card and a bottle of wine from the urban cellar door that we went to a several days ago, so I spend some time writing a nice message and leaving the wine and card arrangement in an easily visible spot. The bottle that I got was literally the last bottle that the cellar door had of the 2015 Malbec which we had that night, and after selling it to me they switch to the new 2016 vintage, and me feeling like I have achieved something great.

The morning is a flurry of activity with everyone getting ready. It is true that parting is such sweet sorrow, and I know that I won’t see my friends for almost six months, but it honestly feels like the distance is nothing to be worried about and that we will see each other in a week’s time. I order an Uber to take me to the airport and am picked up by a young Indian man who isn’t very keen to talk at all so I spend the next forty minutes in silence and traffic, looking back at my trip.

Alone with my thoughts, I arrive at the check in process which goes smoothly and leaves me with almost three hours to kill. I dial back home which goes well until the 45 minutes of free wifi runs out and cuts my conversations short. I spend a bit of time reading my book and then decide to have a quick walk around the shops. I end up at the duty free shop looking at all the whiskey and fragrances that are available for sale. Just as I am about to leave, I spot a fragrance brand which I have only ever heard of and read about, but never seen in real life for sale. I am greeted by a very happy sales person who is surprised that I know anything about the brand. They go by the name of Creed and they used to make perfumes from the 1800’s only for those of royal blood and only opened up the sales to mere mortals in 1970. The lack of availability and general knowledge of the brand by people, not to mention the price point which is multiples of any of the high end designer brands means that I am breathing in rarefied perfumed air. This item has been on my list of things to buy for quite some time, and given the opportunity in front of me, I decide that it is serendipitous and that I must get it. So I treat myself and get the 100ml bottle.

With a giddy smile on my face, I realise that my flight is taking off in fifteen minutes and it is at the other end of the terminal. Luckily for me I have my running shoes which I put to great use as I sprint across the terminal, praying that I do not miss my flight. Unluckily for me, I went for a run yesterday, and even though I feel pretty good, my legs remind me of my exercise efforts yesterday with shooting pain up and down my quads and hamstrings with each step. Huffing and puffing I get to the gate on last call and am rushed through. I continue my run through the winding staircase and into the airplane and am told that I am the last person to board which makes me feel like I am some great prick, making everyone wait for me and my whims.

The plane door closes and we set off for Seattle on a six odd hour flight. I end up watching the Star Wars movie from last year and trying to sleep a little bit to help pass the time in a thankfully uneventful flight which sees me land in Seattle a little earlier than expected. My mate Roman picks me up after some struggles with traffic, and we make our way back across equally bad traffic back home to his place. In typical US fashion all intersections are a confusing mix of turn offs and shoelace like intersections, and quite obviously we take the wrong turn which sees us add about twenty minutes to our journey.

A quick unpack and shower session, sees me ready to head out for the evening with my mate, with the location of choice being a Bosnian restaurant by the name of Sarajevo Lounge. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to eat the food from my heritage and occasional dreams, we get there and order up a couple of beers and a large platter of meat to share. We spend the better part of two hours catching up on events since Chicago and enjoying the delicious and plentiful food placed in front of us. The chef and the waitresses are authentically Bosnian but the bartender is certainly not, so I can’t help but chuckle every time he tries to pronounce the names of the beers. I am super happy that the food is very delicious and extremely authentic so I can definitely recommend this place to anyone visiting Seattle, though it does lack a bit of vibe, with the only real entertainment being the true to tradition, basketball games being shown on every screen.

Funny part about flying from NY to Seattle is that Seattle is three hours behind in terms of time difference, which means that by 8pm in Seattle, I felt like it was 11pm back in NY and I was oh so ready for bed given my barely five hours of solid sleep the night before. Without exploring any more of Seattle than can be seen from the back of an Uber, we get back home around 9pm and throw on some Netflix comedy before I promptly fall asleep at 9:30pm. Roman also has a fireplace at his place, which is an actual working fireplace not just a decorative one. Having never used a real fireplace before I am excited by the idea so we get it cranking for a bit and the last thing I remember for the night is the sound of the fire as I am falling asleep.

Coast to coast flight, from one mate’s place to another, a dream purchase come true, catching up on movies, delicious dinner and some beers is a good way to spend a day, and I am glad for the chance to explore the West Coast of the US. Tomorrow we strike out for the city of Portland, so let’s see how that goes for me and what we find there.

Until then, your adventurer,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 29 - Sunny last day in the Big Apple

I am getting back into the swing of things, mainly the waking up early. Usual routine of saying goodbye to my hosts for the morning and then calling the loved ones back home. I decide to take myself out to breakfast which is my now familiar order of an egg and cheese everything bagel which is a good twenty minute round trip.

With that done it is time for exercise, and I am certainly glad that the rain has moved on and that the sunshine has come back to NY, which inspires me to go for yet another run. I manage to improve on my running time from last time by twenty seconds per kilometre which I am very happy with, especially for the fact that after the run I feel pretty good and not tired at all.

Now comes the time to be a boring adult and ensure that my laundry is done and that everything is folded so it can be packed properly. I put the laundry to get done and go to grab a shower only to realise that there is only cold water running. I give it a little bit of time but nothing changes, so I assume it could be the fact that the washing machine is running. So I take my I showered self and watch some Netflix while my laundry is being done, keenly aware of the fact that all of shirts are in the wash. Finally the wash is completed, so I put all those clothes into the dryer and head on back into the shower. This time around I am treated to absolutely no water at all. Realising that I am not meant to have a shower today, I wait for my clothes to finish drying before picking a shirt and heading downstairs to see if the concierge knows anything about this. Lo and behold, there seems to be some emergency plumbing work being done and the water supply for the building will be interrupted from 8am to 2pm, with the current time being around 1:15pm.

Feeling somewhat hungry and with nothing else to do, I head down to the local cafe to have some lunch and pass away the time. For lunch today is a nice a healthy bowl of falafels and a cucumber tomato salad, which end up being very refreshing as well as delicious. Upon my return to the building, it is slightly after 2pm and I am incredibly glad that when I turn the tap on, the hot water comes gushing out at a fast, shower like pace. I indulge in the feeling of cleansing the filth off me, and after getting out of the shower proceed to pack for my flight to Seattle tomorrow. That goes quite smoothly and then it is time to finally leave the apartment for the day’s adventures.

Being the last evening in NY, it obviously has to be treated with great respect. Respect and cocktails. So I head to the first place and realise that I have perfectly timed the use of my metro card given that after the trip into Manhattan I have $0.30 left on it. I get out at 14th Street and see that quite a lot of people are just hanging out at the park, sitting in the sunshine and chatting with their friends, so I decide to do the same. I sat in the park, people watching and enjoying the warmth for some ten minutes before moving on. It is quite interesting how the city of NY transforms as soon as there is any sunshine. People take any opportunities to sit outside, cafes make tables available on the sidewalk and you see people smiling everywhere, which is rare sight indeed in NY.

I take a quick walk down to 9th Street and end up walking past Forbidden Paradise which is a geek’s heaven, and I first ran into when I was in London several years ago. The store has all manner of books, comics, shirts, figurines and all manner of artefacts that was fun to explore and indulge my inner geek for a few minutes before moving on. My destination was a hidden bar by the name of “Please Don’t Tell”, which in this case is hidden inside a hot dog shop.

To get into this place you have to call a number at 3pm and request a seat, which didn’t work for me because I couldn’t get through to them. You then have to get there at 6pm when they open and may have to wait for up to an hour to get in, so trust NY to hide a bar really well and then be totally arrogant about the process of getting in. Even knowing all of these things, I nearly missed the entrance inside the tiny hot dog shop. Imagine the toilet doors on an aeroplane and how they fold inward when you push them, but these particular ones are made from wood and glass. Inside those doors is barely enough room for one person to stand, and there is an old pay telephone. The rest of the tiny space is poured concrete so you are meant to pick up the telephone and press the number 1, at which point in time if there is space inside, someone would open the door.

Even though I showed up just before 6pm there was already eight people in the line in front of me, and by the time I got to the front of the line, Heather was able to join me at the front which we could not have timed better if we tried. We are let into the small bar which seats probably thirty people,and given a table near the front, with the rest of the place looking fairly empty. We spend the next hour or so chatting away and drinking cocktails, with me having the Smokey Old Fashioned as per usual, before we move on to the next place which is only a quick Uber drive away.

The next place of choice goes by the name of “Dear Irving” conveniently located on Irving St, and somewhat less hidden than the previous place as it did not have its name plastered anywhere, but had an easily accessible door on top of a stoop. For those like me who have no idea what a stoop is having never lived in a house, it is the several steps that lead to a door of the house and feature very heavily in any shots of NY where people are just hanging outside and chatting away, as well as numerous music videos.

There we meet Dmitri and head inside to a beautifully decorated which reminded me of King Henry VIII’s bedroom with the heavy use of wood frames, stunning decal walls and very classy leather and cloth furniture strewn about, with lots of space between.

Heather’s friend joined us as well which made us a merry quartet, with a joint aim of exploring the world of cocktails. The service is good, but I have a little secret. I was told to ask for a specific bartender who my friend was served by about six months ago, and I do exactly that. It was a funny scenario where I was messaging her back in Australia, and she was messaging him in NY, and he was standing no more than ten metres away from me. Such is the power of technology and the world is truly a small place. His name was Thomas and he came by to say hi, with no idea what we looked like which made it a very funny interaction that we all had great fun with, before we were treated to more delicious and very strong cocktails.

Feeling somewhat hungry and realising that it was almost 10pm and that we had missed our dinner booking at 8:15pm, we headed to the nearest well rated place which turns out to be a hotel bar kind of place, complete with nice marble columns and proper white table cloths. Being fairly happy at this stage, the natural menu choice for me was a beef burger with the meat being done medium rare of course, to extract the most juice when biting down into it.

We grabbed another drink there amidst our burger, pasta and chicken schnitzel feast before ordering an Uber home. In typical US fashion, a humongous SUV comes to pick up the three of us, and in typical NY fashion we get stuck in traffic which makes me realise that it would have been easier and quicker to just get the subway home. We arrive home safely after 11pm and head straight to bed, which for me will be the last night’s rest I get in the Big Apple.

A day of food, exercise, shower issues, hidden bars and connections around the world leading to delicious cocktails sums up my day quite nicely, and what a set of adventures for my last day here. Tomorrow, I will be writing to you from the rainy Seattle, so let’s see what adventures are to be had there.

Until then, your now showered adventurer,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 28 - Rainy Broadway

I wake more than slightly hungover to the sound of rain hitting the window at a not so leisurely pace. I stumble out of bed somewhat groggy and agree with my mate who is getting ready for work that we are not as young as we used to be and that we don’t have the total spring in our step that our sleep should have afforded us.

Call home to make sure that everything is fine and then go across the road to the Jewish place to get some breakfast. On the menu this morning is avocado toast with a poached egg and some feta, all of which go down an absolute treat.

While sitting there I realise at how amazed I am at the amount of sugar that an average American takes in. An early twenty something year old girl orders a large coffee and then proceeds to add full cream milk, three tea spoons of sugar, a big squeeze of honey and then a squirt of a sugary syrup. I cannot believe it, but then again it is so commonplace here. I settle up my bill and head back across the road to hit the gym, shower and get ready to head out.

Today’s activity, which is perfectly paired to the currently rainy New York is a Broadway show by the name of The Bronx Story which has been directed by none other than Robert Deniro himself.

I leave the house and make my via the subway and there are no less than three beggars on the train. It is honestly one of the most confronting things about riding the NY subway, the fact that there is always a homeless person, with rarely different stories begging for money. Any train, any where. I feel particularly bad about it this time as I am half way through eating my roast beef roll for lunch, at which point in time I do the noble thing and offer homeless man the remainder of the roll. He refuses. I am absolutely stunned, but feeling like I have done my bit in trying, I go through and finish off my lunch roll.

As I get out of the train station, I am greeted by more rain but luckily the theatre is not too far away. There I am surrounded by a large crowd of people who are coming to see the show which takes me by a bit of a surprise as it is 2pm and I was expecting it to be quite empty. The place is literally packed, and each seat full and the show is even delayed by about ten minutes by the time everyone gets seated.

This is my first time as an adult going to a theatre, I remember being dragged there with school when I was younger to see Shakespeare which basically helped to kill any interest I may have ever wanted to have in this type of entertainment. A bell sounds in the background and it seems that means that everyone must be seated as the show will begin in five minutes, which I thought was a nice touch. The place is so old school that there is even a young man in a suit and suspenders selling candy and water along the aisles!

For the next two hours I am absolutely entertained by a great performance that had everything from laughter, singing, dancing and very realistic looking and sounding gun shots and fire. The two hours passes by very quickly and I find myself wishing that the show and the story went on for longer, but alas, I have to leave the theatre and find another way to entertain myself.

The passing of a few hours has done nothing to improve the rainy and gloomy weather, so I pull my hoodie further over my head and start walking through Times Square with no real destination in mind. Even given the gloomy weather, Times Square is packed full of tourists taking photos and walking around. There are also very surly looking Mexicans who have dressed up as children’s favourite movie characters and are trying to earn money by getting the kids and families to take photos with them. I spend about an hour wandering around, going in and out of shops and just doing some general browsing. I eventually end up at Madison Square Garden, and after taking a very uninspiring photo, decide to head home.

Rain does not make friends with tourists it seems. It does however force all of the homeless underground and into the subway, so my ride back home is riddled with yet even more homeless people begging for money. One guy was even talking about having lice which ensured that we all moved away from him in a very unorderly manner.

I arrived home and proceed to relax with a podcast, Netflix and more colouring in for a few hours while I wait for the rest of the crew to get home before we head out for dinner. It is very misty outside which gives the whole area a very eerie look that is incredibly hard to capture in a photograph, but I have always enjoyed how fog and mist obscure the sight and lend a certain element of mystique to any shot.

Tonight’s choice for dinner is a local place that goes by the name of Brooklyn Winery. It is an urban cellar door that has wineries in California and upstate New York, but processes all of the grapes in the warehouse at the back. With the pretty cool set up in a very dimly lit space surrounded by wooden furniture that looks like it was made from old wine barrels, we proceed to devour our way through the menu with the help of a nice bottle of Malbec.

Conversations aplenty, we order dessert in the form of vanilla and cinnamon mini doughnuts and of course, a bottle of red dessert wine to help us along our merry ways. A great way to spend a few hours together, we take the quick walk back home and that ends another awesome day. Tomorrow will be my last full day in New York before I fly out to Seattle, so hang on tight for those adventures and I am sure cocktails will feature heavily.

Until then, your foodie adventurer,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 27 - The Bull of Wall St

Another early morning wake up. It’s like my body knows that I will be back to reality and is punishing me extra early! Whatever, I can deal with it. Nothing a bit of aimless internet browsing and social media checking can’t fix. Standard morning modus operandi with everyone else waking up and heading to work while I spend some time talking to loved ones back in sunny Sydney.

I decide to go back to the standard American breakfast and get a bagel, all the while pretending to be somewhat akin to the Suits character Harvey Spectre. It’s a leisurely ten minute walk before I end up with my everything bagel with egg and cheese filling all for under $4 USD which feels like an absolute bargain. On my way I see and smell two people relaxing on the corner and smoking a joint. It is 10am on a Tuesday and people are just casually smoking weed on a street corner. Welcome to NY, the city that never sleeps and anything can happen. Regardless, I spend a bit of time just watching the world go past from the bagel shop and listening to a podcast on a famous US Marine who became the icon for the Marine Core after WW2.

Feeling full, I head back home via an equally leisurely stroll to hit the gym, which keeps me occupied for almost an hour with a mix of cardio and lower body workouts. A shower and some more colouring in of the humongous wall painting, I am ready to tackle the world that is NY at like 2:30pm. Another ten minute walk gets me to the relevant metro station where I see something that I have only ever heard about. I see a subway rat, yes an actual rat, come out of hiding and onto the train tracks to grab a bit of leftover garlic bread that someone threw onto the tracks. It is two minutes until the train is set to arrive and the big rat struggles with the rather large garlic bread piece. He tries and tries and tries to move it away but just doesn’t get there and has to run away before the train arrives. I feel a profound sense of loss for the rat as my train pulls up and a twenty minute ride, punctured by the usual characters of the subway doing public service announcements while crying out for money, sees me arrive at Wall St.

For those of you that don’t know, I used to be an options trader and spent most of my working years in banking and finance related jobs, so Wall St for me is like visiting the most holy of sites. Wall St is where the money is, where the danger is and where the glory is. I walk around and get to the NYSE which is the New York Stock Exchange to the uninitiated, and I get the strangest feeling. I feel like I am at home with the flashing stock prices and the crowds and I wish so badly that I could walk inside to take a photo at the very least but tourists aren’t allowed in for very good reasons.

I spend more time wandering around and taking it all in, seeing all the big and famous banks and financial institutions around, before I make my way towards the famous Bull of Wall St. It is very easy to see it, based on where all the crowds are. I struggle through the throng of the crowd and am unable to get a clear shot, but as per several years ago, I do come up and touch the Bull for good investment advice.

I am glad that the Fearless Girl is also still there and she draws a much smaller crowd, but she wasn’t there the last time I was there, so I am glad that I am able to nab a photo before moving on.

I wander around some more and reach the One World Trade Centre which has been opened up after all those years ago, on the site of the old one. It is meant to have a nice viewing platform at the top, so after finding the right entrance, I am faced with a large queue of people and a $40 USD entry fee. Having been up to Empire State and the Chrysler building before, I do not fancy another long line up just to see the city from the top so I decline, and hang outside for a bit plotting my next move.

I’ve decided that tonight will be a cocktail bar kinda night, so to offset the bad calorie decision which I will shortly make, I decide to walk for about half an hour to the bar where I will be meeting my mate. The thing about cocktail bars in NY is that they open from 6pm at the earliest, so I make my way to a craft beer place that is doing $5 happy hour which most definitely makes me happy given just how expensive drinks can actually be in NY. After my long walk, I am literally the first person to walk into this bar. Feeling slightly like an alcoholic, I order up a nice IPA that goes by yet another funny name of Industrial Arts Safety Glasses. Laughing as I am drinking, I quite enjoy this brew and people slowly start to populate the bar making me feel less like an alcoholic and more like a person who has had a very long day. I finish my beer, and feeling much more relaxed decide to switch it up in terms of beer style and order a Carlton Brown Ale which definitely has hints of chocolate, something that I realise I haven’t had in a very long time.

It comes time to leave and head to my next destination which is a hidden cocktail bar that goes by the name of Attaboy, yet another staple feature of NY nightlife. I get to the relevant destination and stand dumbfounded in front of a steel door with a few other people who look at me somewhat smugly. I try opening it and nothing happens.

I pull out my phone and Google how to get into this place, upon which I am told that I have to knock or ring the doorbell. After that, I wait about five minutes before a long haired, scientist looking kinda guy walks out and takes down everyone’s name and number, and tells us that it could be five minutes or an hour before we are let in. Feeling somewhat over it, I decide to just wait outside given that I don’t really have anything better to do and that is how I spend the next forty five minutes watching the scientist guy come out, take someone in while taking down the contact details of anyone else that wants to come in. Everyone has the same confused look that I had when I first got there, then a slight resignation on their face at the fact that they will have to wait before they can go in. I can just imagine how little business this place would get in winter because it would be impossible to wait outside for that long.

It is finally my turn to be allowed in, and I am shown to the standing room only section which is literally large enough for a maximum of three people to stand. The place is dimly lit with what I call the open globes that you can see the wires lighting up, but I think the more conventional term for them is Einstein globes. There is a long bar that can seat ten people on bar stools, going pretty much the length of the place, and the end are two booths which seat maybe four people each. The place is definitely small, and has only one bartender who approaches me and informs me that they don’t have a menu and asking what kind of flavours I would like. He must think that I am just another schmuk come in from the streets and that I don’t know my cocktails, so he is a little taken aback when I ask for a Smokey Whiskey Old Fashioned, which may as well be called “The Boj” back in cocktail bar in Sydney. The drink arrives about the same time that my mate does, with both man and drink looking very well put together. We spend the better part of the next two hours chatting away, and at one point we are even offered to migrate to the bar stools for an actual seat which makes our lives that much better.

Realising that we are hungry, we leave the little hidey-hole of cocktail goodness and head down the road to a taco place which has an interesting name of Goa Taco. I expected some sort of Indian Mexican fusion, and I was toying with the idea of calling it Indican but realised that it wouldn’t really help anyone to understand what it was, however they were just regular taco options served as giant tacos. We grab another beer there to help wash it down and as we are enjoying ourselves we hear laughter from behind yet another steel door. Talking to the waitress, we are informed that there is a small and hidden comedy club through that door but that it is packed inside and we won’t be allowed in. Feeling still somewhat peckish, we head further down the road to a sports bar where we order another round of beers and some beef sliders which come with waffle fries. All good when we finished up, we grab a quick Uber home and are asleep in no time given all of the alcohol that we have consumed.

A day spent with friends is never wasted, and it is made all the better by the food and alcohol that is shared and the conversations that enrich us. My time in NY is slowly drawing to a close, so I am glad to have these moments with such close friends before I have to go back to reality. Until then,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 26 - Dumbo

I wake up slightly earlier than normal, but then again it is Monday here and I realise that I will be back at work in thirteen days. Yup, in less than a fortnight I will be facing reality yet again, so I figure I should start to align my schedule somewhat. Dim and his better half are back to work today which sees them leave the house by about 7:30am, and leaves me with my usual morning of dialling back home to see how everyone is doing.

Satisfied that everything is going well at home and that everyone misses me sufficiently, I decide to take myself out for breakfast at a local cafe which was started by the late and great Heath Ledger and goes by the name of Five Leaves. A short ten minute stroll on a yet another wonderful and sunny NY spring day sees me seated at the cafe and I am surprised at how busy it is on a Monday morning at 10am. I decide to go against the advice that was given to me which was to have the pancakes that come with fresh ricotta and maple syrup, and I instead opt for my truly missed and quite standard breakfast of scrambled eggs, though this time they come with a side of toasted seven grains bread, smashed avocado and radishes. A truly delicious mix of flavours from the crunchy and grainy bread to the smooth avocado offset by the zesty lemon juice poured over it and the perfectly creamy and smooth scrambled eggs. I spend a good half hour enjoying myself at this bar and listening to my podcast before I head back home.

I’ve seen people out and about today going for runs around the streets and the parks, so I felt inspired and somewhat self shamed into following suit given just how much I have been indulging during this trip. And so it begins. A slow steady pace running around the park and the streets that I am now somewhat familiar with in an attempt to kickstart my fitness again. I see all kinds of people enjoying the sunshine in the park, from those that have just sat down on a bench to enjoy the scenery and listen to music, to those who are also doing the fitness thing and running, and others who are taking their post winter hyperactive dogs out for a play in the park. I power past streets which seem to exclusively belong to the Polish community where I am tempted by all manner of sweets and cakes displayed in the window, but I just keep powering through. Given how long it has been since I have gone for a run, I knew I wouldn’t be incredibly fast, but I did manage to knock over 5.5 kilometres in a smidge under 40 minutes which I am ok with for a first attempt, before my competitive nature kicks into gear.

With that out of the way, I grab a quick shower and do a load of laundry. While the laundry is being done I indulge my creative self in a way that I haven’t done since I was a knee high to a grasshopper. My mate has bought a huge wall drawing of NY, probably about three A1 sheets worth, and the idea is that in their spare time they and any of their friends that come to visit or stay will spend some time colouring in. After a year, possibly about a quarter of the entire thing has been completed, so now it is time for the artist known as Boj to put his mark on the masterpiece. I start of with a tiny section unaware of just how good or bad I might be, and as my confidence with the colours builds I start to tackle the larger pieces. It is a seriously relaxing activity to just colour in, which I remember a friend of mine telling me about a few years ago and me thinking that it was crazy for an adult to even consider that. It certainly makes the laundry time pass by a lot quicker, and before I know it I am ready to head out.

A grab an Uber and a lovely gentleman by the name of Jose picks me up and takes me to Dumbo. Yup, there is an area in NY called Dumbo, and its not just me being silly because it actually stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Once I arrive, there is a functioning pier where all the local ferries turn up to take people across the river, but it is also a place from which you can see both the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge.

Also, if you search around for a bit, there is a street where if you stand at just the right angle, you can see the Empire State Building through the pillars of the Manhattan Bridge, which is one of the iconic shots of NY. I get myself a quick bite at Starbucks and then an ice cream from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory where I end up choosing the butter pecan flavour. It is smooth and creamy, but doesn’t really taste like either butter or pecan which leaves me slightly confused but no less happy given that I have just had happiness in a cone.

I spend the next half an hour wandering through the old cobblestone streets, surrounded by typical NY brick buildings and old factories, catching glimpses of both the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge and taking many photos along the way, along with the iconic and very touristy shot of the Empire State Building which is visible through the pillars of the Manhattan Bridge.

With my touristing done, I sit down on a grassy patch nearby where every other NY has plonked themselves down and spend about fifteen minutes just enjoying the sites before I move on and head towards the nearest train station that will take me into Manhattan. There I decide to do some shopping at a department store which to my surprise turns out to be quite affordable and goes by the name of Century 21. It has five levels of all kinds of goodies which makes it quite fun to hang around and easily get what I was after. With my loot gathered, I head back home to wait for my friends before we head out for dinner, which tonight will be a pizza at a place that goes by the name of Best Pizza.

An hour or so spent at home before everyone is gathered and ready to go, we walk a couple of blocks, which is a couple of streets to you and me, and end up at a relatively small place where rap music rules, the heat from the pizza oven offers a kind and inviting welcome, and the few people that are already there are eagerly waiting for their food. All three of us agree that a cheese pizza with pepperoni and anchovies is the way to go, so we spend the next half an hour chatting away until the 20 inch pizza arrives. There must have been a first date going on next to us given the awkward and stilted conversation that I was overhearing, which wasn’t hard given how closely everyone is seated. It was then that the guy took a napkin and patted down the pizza to remove excess oil, and at this moment I knew that this date wasn’t going to go much further than the doorway, especially given the very confused look on this girl’s face.

We had our very delicious pizza and we all ate it with gusto, being one of the best pizzas I have had in NY.

Feeling glad that their name, and my mate’s recommendation have lived up to expectation, we retired back to the apartment to watch some more comedy shows on Netflix, though we didn’t last very long as we were all in bed and asleep shortly after 10pm. That’s it for another day of exploring and food, a run around the park and then offsetting it all with delicious pizza. Such is life, so until tomorrow’s adventures, your pizza addicted adventurer,

Boj

[bojk87]

Day 25 - Melodic chill kinda day

I wake up around 6:30am which is a little earlier than I have been waking up for the past few weeks of holidays. A nice air bed has kept me comfortable through the evening, and now as per the usual morning ritual it is time to call back home, which is how I spend the next hour or so of my time, occasionally battling a poor connection that proves to be quite annoying.

Everyone is up and about around 9am, so we all take a bit of time to get ready before heading out for breakfast. The target destination is a popular Jewish place across the road that has a very nice set up and a very delicious sounding food menu. I once again remain strong and don’t order any coffee or tea with my breakfast, but instead I end up with scrambled eggs, bacon, bread, salad and some dips. The no coffee thing is becoming torture, and as my father would put it, it is like having pants with no pockets as something is missing. My breakfast arrives and given all the colours on the plate, it looks very Instagram worthy, but more importantly than that it tastes amazing. The scrambled eggs are well made without too much butter, the bacon is crispy and has just the right amount of fat on it, the breads are nicely toasted to give them a good crunch, the spreads are tasty in terms of spice and heat, and the salad of diced tomatoes, cucumber and onions is deliciously refreshing.

We spend a good hour or so relaxing there with our food while chatting on topics far and wide, before we decide to head out and wander around. We stroll towards McCarren Park which is a park that the locals love for all kinds of running, socialising and drinking activities, and in our case a slow stroll while watching all the super excited puppies running around in the sun after the harsh winter that they have been through.

We end up wandering somewhat aimlessly around Brooklyn and Dim gets a few groceries along the way before we head home to relax some more after our totally relaxed morning. We spend the next few hours at home reading, chatting and listening to music, each of us enjoying a very lazy start to the day.

It then comes time for an afternoon sporting activity. Dim is off to play soccer, his better half is off to do yoga, and I head off to the gym downstairs to in the immortal words of Arnie, pump some iron. To be extra healthy I go to the local juice bar and get a cold pressed green juice made from green apple, cucmber, kale, celery, parsley and spinach, and separately I get a banana. I have seriously been craving fresh fruit and vegetables, so I guess this is one step closer, and at least it is a step away from anything deep fried.

Feeling well happy with myself at how well I am treating my body, especially after the food and alcohol abuse that I have put it through the last few weeks, I proceed to do an upper body weights workout which keeps me busy for a good forty minutes, some of which I spend reminiscing on just how super fit I used to be and oh how the mighty have fallen. Still, it feels good to move and workout and get some blood pumping through the body!

I take a good hour or so to just relax back at home and watch some more Netflix before the others get back home. We all decide to go for a healthy and cheap dinner option which is poké, given just how much of a beating our wallets have taken over the past several weeks. For those not familiar with this Hawaiian delicacy, it is a fusion of Japanese and traditional Hawaiian food which combines fresh sashimi with a delicious salad, seaweed and soy sauce.

The place was a cosy little takeaway joint with a few seats, so we had our dinner there listening to a rap song list from Spotify that is eerily similar to what I listen to before heading home. The next few hours we spend watching Trevor Noah’s comedy show from a few years back which is absolutely hilarious and highly recommended and then an episode of Black Mirror, which for anyone that is familiar with the series will realise just how random and messed up that show is. The particular episode we watch is to do with mind controlling implants being given to soldiers and what would happen when that gets taken too far.

It is somewhat strange having such a slow and lazy holiday, but then again, I would definitely recommend it. The day has really felt like a true day on a holiday and tomorrow is another day where another set of adventures awaits.

Until then, your occasionally lazy adventurer,

Boj