.

2008-06-10T04:25:00.000-07:00

300 days away and 5 days until we're home. We've seen a lot since the last blog. Here's a few things that come to mind:

-Berlin was great. Tanya was a great host and we spent quite a bit of our time walking- around 55km in the three days that we were there. In retrospect we realise we could have easily hired a bike.

-A brief stay back in London with Kent and Sara was nice. More Top Shop, more records, more good food.

-Shanghai was our introduction to China. The place is incomprehensibly big. It's smoggy, hot and there are a lot of asian people. Again we spent quite a bit of time walking, although we also made use of the almost free public transport system. Not sure what else to say about Shanghai. It's quite overwhelming.

-Beijing is our favourite city in Asia. A lot of it probably has to do with out hosts, PJ and Michelle. Other things we love about Beijing include great shopping, the food, the weather (when the sun isn't hidden by smog) and the fact that everything is so freakin' cheap. There's so much construction, so many people, so many massages to be had. It's great. Very much worth the 6 hours we spent lining up in London to get our Chinese Visas.

-In total contrast to the what-you-see-is what-you-get atmosphere of China, our brief stay in Tokyo was quite intense. Crazy place, crazy people. But I guess if we'd spent 14 hours of the day at school, six days a week from the age of 2, we'd probably spend our Sunday shopping, dressed up like Little Bo Peep too. Thanks Belinda for the bed and for introducing us to Loft.

2008-05-21T03:39:00.000-07:00

Well the Balkans are behind us. They weren't as bad as what we made them sound like in the last blog entry- just different. Zagreb (Croatia) and Ljubljiana (Slovenia) were very youthful cities which we really enjoyed spending time in- lots of cool places to drink beer in the sun.

The train ride from Ljubljiana to Lindau (Germany) was right through the middle of Austria. We didn't really take any photos as they would not have come close to describing how beautiful the trip was. If you wanna know what it was like, take the trip yourself.

Lindau is on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) which shares the border with Switzerland and Austria. We were staying with Johanna which was great. She was on holidays too and so we got to see quite a bit of the area. We went to a super old castle, we went on a boat, we went to a modern art gallery, we climbed a mountain. We even rode our bikes to Austria.

Now we're in Köln (Cologne). There is a very large church here. We drink Kölsch. We hang out with Kylie and Aapo. We visit the Lindt chocoalte factory (maybe).

It's now less than a month before we get back but we have a lot to do before then- namely Berlin, London (again), Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.

2008-05-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

There's the photos, and here's our summary of five cities in five different countries...

Our last days in Paris were great. We had a ball catching up with Berenice, we ate the worlds best baguettes and we sat amongst the tulips in a park thinking about how good it is to not have jobs.

It was a relief to get to London home to Top Shop, vast quantities of new and used records and of course the English language. Sara, Kent, Chelsea, Tom, Matt and Elena (Cambridge) also call this place home so it was a busy but friend-filled stop over.

The flight from London to Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul isn't very long but culturally, it's a world away. Lots of markets and people and pigeons and headscarves. We took a boat to an island. We ate a lot of turkish pastry things and we walked like a hundred km.

The train takes 14 hours to get from Istanbul to Sofia (Bulgaria). We think it was the same train they used on one of those movies about the holocaust. Anyway, luckily it is an overnight trip. Unluckily we got woken up at 3am to go line up for a border crossing and then again at 4am and then again at 5am. We also met another person from Adelaide on the train. Classic. Sofia was our first taste of eastern Europe. It kinda tastes like car exhaust mixed with the fading scent of cheap, dead flowers.

One night later, we were back on the train again, this time headed for Belgrade (Serbia). We left a bit after midday and enjoyed a scenic ride through the countryside. After spending four hours waiting for the train to get to full speed, we finally realised that 45km/h was the full speed. 8 hours later, we'd made and new Serbian friend called Mickey, we'd eaten our way through a shopping bag of junk food and we had finally arrived at our hostel. Serbia is just as run down as Bulgaria, however the people were very friendly and the food was good.

We're in Zagreb (Croatia) now but I'll save that for next time.

2008-04-20T03:13:00.000-07:00

As you can see, we're moving around a fair bit now which has been great but it has definitely been more tiring as well. Here's the rundown:

Barcelona:

We really loved this city. It reminded us of Melbourne. We stayed just around the corner from the contemporary art museum which also proved to be the busiest skate spot in the city and there was a childcare playground outside our window which proved more interesting than the 115 episodes of "The Wonder Years" that Tom has on his iPod. One thing that does suck about Barcelona is all the smokers- inside, outside, walking, standing still, eating, drinking, talking, the old, the young, day time, night time- it's always the right time for a smoke in Barcelona.

Bilbao:

Of course this was a pilgrimage to Frank Gehry's city changing art museum but we weren't expecting such a modern and refreshingly green city. The museum was big and everything that we expected- this includes the art collection which took us back to the rather generic US contemporary art galleries but that's fine. We like pop art and abstract expressionism. In this area of Spain, they speak a very old language that no one else understands. It looks like this: vxhueal gvxekk seauxkedw.

Paris:

Thank goodness we are finally back in a city with a multicultural choice in cuisine. Paris is busy. Lots to see and do and walk to and some very specific mens fragrances to track down. We are staying at Philip and Julien's home at the moment but tomorrow we head to an old boardrider friend's (Berenice) house which is also in Paris.

Well, enjoy the photos and the fact that they have people in them but don't get used too used to it.

2008-04-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

Here's some more photos. We somehow managed to score free wifi in Italy so this post is being brought to you by the fine people at D_LINK WIRELESS (whoever they are).

The last couple weeks have seen us sampling life in a variety of Italian settings- seaside towns, dirty cities, ancient ruins, Tuscan villages- it's been a lot of fun. There is so much old stuff here- old buildings, old lemon trees, old trains, old hot water systems, old roads, old dead people who got caught in the middle of a volcano eruption, old men who hang out at sketchy money laundering places that look like coffee bars, old pizza because we bought it at 3pm, old nuns who sit in your reserved seat on the train and pretend that they don't speak English so that they don't have to move- I could go on but I think you get the picture.

We are ready to go to Spain.

2008-03-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

After 5 months of living in Vancouver, it was sad to say goodbye to the people and places and food that we had come to love. We both finished up work. Tom spent the following day back at work DJing as part of the shop’s first birthday celebrations.

After packing up our things and cleaning the apartment it was off to the airport to sit around until we could board our flight to Heathrow so we could sit around for some more before arriving in Rome. We had spent 24 hours travelling. Tom watched The Godfather parts I & II and then slept for maybe 2 hours. Karen slept for 4 hours and tried to sleep for the rest of the time.

Allan and Unity (Karen’s parents) met us at the airport, which was great. Since then we’ve spent most days sleeping in, eating pizza and seeing the sights of Rome- possibly the most unapologetically ancient, populated city in the world. The apartment that Allan found for us is great. Very comfortable and a stone’s throw away from the Vatican wall.

On Saturday we catch the train north to the Cinque Terre which is a group of small coastal towns which are sposed to be very picturesque.

Well this is beginning to sound like a postcard so we’ll stop there.

2008-03-03T17:48:00.000-08:00

Vancouver Island was very relaxing but I guess it'd wanna be really given it was a holiday within a holiday. Victoria is a beautiful city- quite similar to Adelaide in terms of its size and atmosphere. We did touristy stuff which served as a handy reminder that we are not touristy people. The trip also served as a good reminder of what it will be like to travel again. Handy.

Some other stuff that's happened:

-Today we sent home 35kg of stuff home with Nath

-Karen has the flu

-Thanks to Nick & Linda we are uncle and aunt (again) to a new little nephew- Kurtis James Hunt

-We have strawberry cheesecake icecream

-Tom bought another pair of shoes

For now, the end.

2008-02-28T20:08:00.000-08:00

Wow 197 days is a long time. Kinda hard to believe that it's been that long but I guess we have done a fair bit.

After being here for 5 months we really do feel like we're two Australian's living in Canada. We feel very settled here but in a bit over two weeks time, we'll be back on holidays and off to Europe for the second leg of our trip. We're pretty excited especially as it means not working any more.

We've had another visitor since the last post. Nathan Humphris was here on his way to a Heli-boarding trip. His visit was a lot of fun. Tom took a day off work to go impulse shopping with him, we went to the local hockey one night (yes there was a fight), and we even went out for a night on the town- lots of dancing, drinking and then some donuts from the 7-Eleven on the way home.

Tomorrow we catch the ferry over to Vancouver Island so watch this space for a few photos and a short, slightly sarcastic account of what happened.

2008-02-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

No, this blog isn't broken, it's just that we haven't updated it for freakin ages. Well here's a special double dose for yawl. Let's go right back to the end of the last blog.

Our New Years Eve was nice. Quiet but hey, we've already seen well over 25 years come and go. You can't expect every year to feel like you're living a Prince song. Anyways, we had a nice dinner and wine and watched everyone else's fireworks from our balcony.

2008 has seen us working full time but this has been punctuated by visits from various members of the Hutchinson family. Emma (Adelaide) for a few days in mid January, Mark and Mandy (Adelaide/Boulder, Colorado) for the Australia Day weekend and Drew (Auckland) on his way home from a skiing holiday in Whistler. It was a pleasure having all of these people. Our Vancouver tour generally revolves around food but we did manage to show our guests some of the other features of the city as well (our different modes of public transport, homeless people, trees and rain).

Whilst we're on the weather, it feels like it's been getting better. We had another lot of snow but we've also enjoyed some sunny days (I took a photo to prove it). Great for skateboarding so long as your board doesn't fly off the park into the snow.

Last night we went to the monster trucks. Now we know what white people do on the weekends. We're white, so we had fun.

2007-12-29T11:41:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I know we're late with this post but Tom wasn't gonna spend his one day off work putting this up. Better late than never.

What did we do for Christmas? Well we went to a church service in the city on the 24th (a good family service with abridged carols (excellent for Tom who doesn't really enjoy carols, and excellent for Karen who loves carols as it meant that we sang more of them). Christmas eve for us also saw a couple of skype sessions with people back home which was nice. Christmas day had a food focus and another lot of skype chats. Overall a really nice day.

Tom was back at work at 7am boxing day- the people crushing sales day here in Canada. It was crazy but he was out of there by 3pm. Karen had the day off.

Other than that we have been both been well. Karen has been making the most of her library membership and Tom has been busy making things (mainly words and letters) out of plasticine that he bought from the dollar shop (for one dollar of course).

Tom now has 10 pairs of shoes. Karen bought a pair of brown gum boots. She looks like she owns a horse but they keep her feet dry. Tom's shoes are far less practical but they look good and really that's a practical thing... isn't it?

2007-12-09T12:44:00.000-08:00

Today we finally got around to putting up our Christmas tree. Thanks so much to the Hunt Haus for sending over some decorations and some pressies to grace the foot of our three foot, plastic evergreen.

This week saw Tom get promoted at work to Shipper/Receiver which is great as it means a pay rise as well as weekends off and regular hours (7am-3pm). Nice.

Last night we went into the city to see a movie. We caught the train half way home to the bus transfer but the bus didn't come so we walked home. When we got home we found out that it was -4˚ outside.

2007-12-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

Last weekend it snowed. It snowed all day and a lot of the night for both days. It began as a quite light fall but soon built up so that everything was covered by at least 2 or three inches of it. We're pretty lucky. It's not supposed to snow that much in Vancouver.

Now it's back to the rain. Lots of rain. Everything is wet and shiny again.

The latest development on our blog is video. Here is a video of our home. Please note the beginning of the mural on our bedroom wall above the bed. When finished it will be 2 metres high and two metres wide. It's made up of orange post-it notes- 400 of them. Watch this space for progress photos.

2007-11-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

We've both been pretty busy working (which is why this blog has been a little slow of late) but this last weekend we headed up to Whistler for Karen's work Christmas show. We caught the Greyhound bus up there which proved to be quite a bit less seedy than our experience of the US Greyhound service. For Tom it was very exciting due to the fact that he had never visited an alpine region before.

After a 2 hour journey, we arrived in Whistler and for Tom at least, the concept of cold was redefined.

The accommodation and the dinner were both at the Fairmont (very nice resort) and it was all paid for by Asentus which made it even more enjoyable. The two days gave us a great chance to look around the mountain. A quarter-hour gondola ride down the mountain with a group of 8 five year old ski-school kids and their instructor was particularly entertaining.

Oh and it was Tom's birthday last Friday (23rd) and he had to work but we went out to some Buddhist restaurant for lunch and after work we went to an almost uncomfortably uber cool warehouse party for some beers.

2007-11-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

It's official. We both have jobs. Karen has decided to take the job offered to her by the place she was temping at. The work involves project management stuff and is for a company that trains people in Microsoft applications (web management kinda stuff). Thankfully she's getting paid better than when she was working as a temp but it seems like she'll be working quite a bit harder too.

Tom got the job at the clothes shop however his day starts at 7am and his salary is equivalent to what a 14 year old would get paid working at KFC in Australia. The 40% staff discount does soften the blow a little but that's still pretty freakin early. Thanks so much to all the people who provided references for us.

The other day we walked to the beach which is near the University of British Columbia. We our left our apartment at noon and arrived just as the sun was setting. It was a long walk but a beautiful day with a stop at the cupcake shop on the way.

And by the way, I got the Nova stuff wrong. Track Team's on from 7-8pm every Saturday. Check www.nova919.com.au under shows if you don't believe me.

2007-10-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

We've continued to enjoy catching buses to new places in Vancouver but the enjoyment is probably associated more with the new places than with the bus trips. We checked out a real nice national park with waterfalls and inappropriately dressed Japanese tourists and bear proof bins. It was on the northern shore of the city so we had to catch the sea bus there (although the name (like the 'sky' bus that actually travels underground) was a little misleading since it was actually a boat. I guess sea boat sounds kinda lame.)

We also went to check out the biggest mall here. That was OK. Same-old really- mallrats, the internationally standard, independent-of-the-outside-weather mall climate, mall food, mall shops. One thing that was sweet was that there's a big skatepark right next to it complete with a full pipe. Sick mate!

Karen is currently working as a temp at a web marketing/training group downtown. She's only filling in for a week through the temping place but by 2pm on her first day they had offered her a 3+month job. A relief to have some cash coming in finally especially since Tom just found his dream jacket which just happens to be G-$tar. Tom's still waiting to hear back re his job application but rest assured, referees have been contacted.

Tom's also been working on a lot of music stuff having set up a studio at home. Track Team now has a weekly slot on Nova 919- Saturday 10-11pm (and replayed the following Friday from 7-8pm). Tune in to hear our new stuff. He also found a shop with a DJ setup in it and the manager has said that he should feel free to come in and DJ anytime.

That's enough otherwise people will get bored and not want to read this anymore.

Oh, and I've made it so that anyone can comment now- ie you don't have to sign up to leave a comment.

2007-10-23T23:24:00.000-07:00

Well it rained for 8 days straight but now we've got sunshine for a week which will be sweet. It's given us a good chance to do some more exploring. We found the worlds best cup cake store much to Karen's delight. Tom bought a MIDI controller so he can DJ at home now.

And now to the job scene. with all the rain and procrastination getting boring, Tom finally wrote a resume. Today he went in to his dream clothing/shoe/homeware/book store (yes they're all in the one shop), applied and got an interview all in the same day. Karen has been working hard on applications and has an interview with a temping agency tomorrow (although given her little note book of questions, it'll probably be more like Karen interviewing the person from the temping agency).

Fingers crossed...

2007-10-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

Well after 63 days of travelling around north America, we have at last found a place to live for the next 5 months.

It's an apartment in a district just south of the Vancouver CBD. The area is called Soma which is an abbreviated form of South Main. The suburb is called Mount Pleasant and so far it's lived up to it's name. We're on the 5th floor of a building that's less than a year old. The owner moves 'south' every winter so it's kinda like house sitting but a hell of a lot more expensive. Still the price relative to other places is really good and we've got two bedrooms and two bathrooms, washer and dryer, internet, cable- pretty much everything we need and some things we don't.

We're 2 minutes walk in the rain from the supermarket (Buy-Low- classic) and a whole heap of other shops and restaurants. 15 mins by bus to the city makes this a nice break from the "excuse me sir will you please buy me a hotdog" streets of downtown Vancouver. We're pretty stoked to be here.

Once we sort out paperwork and a bank account and a resume (in Tom's case) we'll be ready to begin working.

2007-10-15T22:58:00.000-07:00

We're finally in Vancouver which is a relief. It's a beautiful place with an autumn palette that's redefined our ideas of orange and yellow. There's lots of public parks to walk in and add to that the harbors and mountains and it seems like a very livable city.

So far it's been pretty sunny but we're bracing ourselves for a long and wet winter. Apparently it's not unusual to have 20 consecutive days of rain. Given this, we've made it a priority to find somewhere to live (other than in a hostel room directly above Vancouver's busiest nightclub). We're pretty keen to be living in the CBD as there's quite a bit of work around but of course CDB+living=$$$.

As far as work goes, Tom is trying to work out whether he wants to work at American Apparel (cool factor) or Urban Outfitter (for staff discount on clothes and shoes) and Karen is going to a job fair tomorrow armed with an impressive resume not to mention her charm, good looks and make-you-feel-really-comfortable-really-quickly interpersonal skills.

Everything's gonna be fine- it might just take a bit of time.

2007-10-11T08:03:00.000-07:00

Again it's been a while between posts. Sorry to any daily-checkers out there.

This time last week we were in New York where we met up with Brad and Sam from Adelaide. Nice to chill with a few Aussies. We introduced them to our walking based approach to seeing US cities. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge (long but worth it), caught the Staten Island Ferry with 1000 other people (out past the Statue of Liberty although we already saw the real one in Las Vegas), we went to the MoMA (good but it'd want to be for US$20), ate a hamburger from a guy on the street (best burger we've ever had), went to Ground Zero (really just a big building site) and we came out $100 better off due to a miscalculation by the ridiculously disorganised hostel we were staying at.

On the Sunday we all headed up to Toronto where Brad's living at the moment (Karen Tom and Sam on a 12 hour train ride, Brad on a plane). Brad's place is pimpin. He showed us all a good time- we even spent Karen's Birthday at a local family's house in the burbs. They layed on an awesome spread and we had cake and pumpkin pie (as it was also Canadian thanksgiving) and sang 'Happy Birthday dear Karen".

Now we're about to fly out to Vancouver to find work and a place to live. Toronto is great but the winter here sounds like it's pretty brutal.

2007-10-02T18:15:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we went to Six Flags which is a massive rollercoaster theme park. It probably had at least a dozen huge rollercoasters. Tom's stomach let him know that five was enough and so he spent the rest of the time people watching. Karen, John and Jenni kept thrill seeking until the sun went down. Goodtimes and bad food (delicious but unhealthy).

Tom skated another awesome US park on Sunday and then it was time to pack before one last dinner and some cocktails with Jenni and John.

Now we're in New York City. Today, in true Karen and Tom style, we walked from our hostel on West 102nd to Times Square and back again- about 120 blocks all up. A great way to see the city. It's a very vibrant city- safe, friendly, busy and unimaginably big. There's lots of mums and kids, lots of small dogs, lots of fresh food and lots of things to see and do. Karen is excited by the concept of 'suggested donations' as an admission price for museums. Tom is excited about the MoMA.

We like this place a lot.

2007-09-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a long time between drinks.

After spending a few more days exploring Dallas and Fort Worth, we flew to Mexico City- home to 26 million people, 20 million of which seem to be selling stuff from roadside stalls.

Mexico city is very decentralised and has a number of districts all linked by sketchy roads above ground and a ridiculously cheap train system underground. Our hotel was located just behind the city's main public square- something like Red Square but in central America and surrounded by an old palace, some government buildings and a couple of Spanish Gothic Cathedrals.

We also went on a tour of Teotihuacan- an archeological site 50km out of Mexico city and the site of Mesoamerica's largest ancient city. We climbed the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon and some other pyramids. It was pretty cool but the history is very complex. If you wanna know details, read a book about it. We actually went to the Museo Nacional de Anthropologia e Historia where we were guided through the past 600 million years of Mexican history. By the end it felt like we had lived every minute of it. (The Spanish bit of Mexican history is really annoying especially when you consider how they killed all the native people and tore down their temples and stuff)

We were very careful about what we ate and drank but we still both ended up with upset stomachs. Karen's still yet to retain a meal and her breath smells like acetone. It's OK though, we're back in Dallas and sorting stuff out. Jenni and John have been great.

Sorry that was so long, it's just that a lot happened.

2007-09-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

Our last weekend in Boulder was very busy. We spent Saturday on the Mark & Mandy Tour™ of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. That was a lot of fun. We saw Tundra, elk, a marmot and a warble. (we didn't really see a warble. That's just a word we made up cos all the others sound like they're made up words)

On Saturday night, 53000 people went to a college football game and so we decided to go too. The home team lost however their enthusiasm was probably about ten times that of an AFL team crowd on grand final day. A little bit scary really- especially considering they only scored one touchdown. After 1 hour of game time and three hours of who knows what, all 53004 people went home to bed.

Sunday was out last day in Boulder and Monday was real sad as we had to say 'Thankyou!" and "Seeya later!" to Mark and Mandy.

This blog is being posted in Dallas where we're staying with our friends Jenni and John. John's a local and Jenni's an Adelaide girl. Jenni was born on the 18th of September. Happy Birthday Jenni!

Today we went to check out downtown Dallas. It´s a pretty run of the mill US city except for the morbidly obese preachers that evangelise on the public transport system, the custom made cowboy boot stores and the infamous grassy knolls/sixth floor windows.

Wow, that was the longest post ever.

2007-09-13T21:18:00.000-07:00

It's bin a while since our last post but that's cos we've bin taking it real easy- watching bad cable, sleeping in, just kicking around- it sure is hard not having jobs. We've continued to enjoy our time with Mark and Mandy- lots of talking and beers and adventures to Costco and into the mountains.

Another trip to Denver saw Tom sprain his ankle skateboarding but that's just meant that he's spent more time making making remixes of bad eighties songs. Karen has also spent a good amount of time on her hobbies. She's been busy reading, jogging and transferring the holiday budget to a new software application on the MacBook Pro. Sometimes it's hard only having one computer between us.

2007-09-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

Denver is about 20 minutes or so from Boulder and today we drove there to check it out. It's a pretty nice city with a super long mall, the biggest skatepark I've ever seen and a Daniel Libeskind art gallery. There's also a lot of modern public sculpture- mainly really big things but not crap big things like that big koala on the way to Melbourne or the big lobster- we're talking Claus Oldenberg big things.

Now it's the weekend. Yep.

2007-09-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

We're not really in the habit of writing about the photos we post but in this case we want you to take time to especially appreciate these images taken from the mountains near Boulder as it was a fair bit of work to get up this high to take them. Karen found it hard to breathe most of the time, Tom almost threw up and still has a headache and it rained on the way up. Other than that it was beautiful and we're glad (?) we did it.

Exhaustion aside, the last two days have been great. We spent a bit of time looking around the malls here and found a record shop and a skate park and a Haagen-Dazs and a gym. A nice place to call home for the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for all your comments everyone. We're doing our best to write some kind of response to what you've all written so check back cos we might've written something back to you.

2007-09-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

We're finally in Boulder where we will stay with good friends Mark and Mandy for a bit over two weeks. Nice to unpack for a while (if you're Karen) and great to have a good amount of time to make a mess (if you're Tom).

Today we went to a Labor Day Holiday fair thing. There were lots of hippie like people there as well as children under five rock climbing.

Boulder is a beautiful, laid back college town located at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The weather's real nice at the moment, the scenery is breath-taking, there's lots of excercisey things to do, fresh food is easy to get hold of and you get drunk real quick due to the high altitude. What a wonderful place.

2007-08-31T23:54:00.000-07:00

After 24 hours of bus travel through three states, we're spending tonight right back where it all started- at LAX.

Over the past 3 days we've visited Las Vegas (home to bars that sell margaritas by the foot, streets lined with stocky Latino people handing out strip club flyers, theme park style casinos and indoor malls complete with cloud painted roofs that rain on the hour) and the Grand Canyon (really big hole in the ground that you can't see the bottom of).

And by the way, James Brown is not dead. He runs bus tours to the Grand Canyon out of Las Vegas. We spent the day with him. We can't really say much more than that. He has a strict 'what happens on the bus, stays on the bus' policy.

Oh yeah, and we saw the Hoover Dam. Tom managed to refrain from asking all the dam questions he'd been thinking of eg When can we take some dam photos? Is this a "God dam'? etc.

Thank you for reading.

2007-08-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

After a seven hour drive from San Francisco, we're back in downtown LA again and spent today in Santa Monica looking at the ocean and the sand and the pier and some bookshops and Tom bought a pair of skinny purple pants so that one day he can look back at photos of this trip and say "Oh my God! Check out my pants! What was I thinking!". (Karen is struggling with the length of that sentence and insists that I put a comma in there somewhere but that's my style and I'm sticking with it- Tom)

Tomorrow we catch the bus to Las Vegas.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank the building across the road from the Ritz Milner for the use of their wireless internet connection.

2007-08-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

Lots more walking today and a boat ride out past the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.

Our favourite meal has become hot soup. It´s very easy to get, it's healthy, it's cheap and you can choose from 4 or 5 different flavours at any decent sized supermarket.

We also did our laundry today at a place just down the road from our hotel. There was an old chinese guy there (picture a homeless Mr Miyagi with possible mental health issues) who just came in and sat down and then started talking to whoever about all manner of things. These included: where your not allowed to poop, what happens if you kill someone, how much money he had on him (5c) and how much he used to have ($400) until he gave it all to us and questions about where random people were. The most fun we've had doing the laundry in a long time- maybe ever.

As you can see the SLR digital came out with us today. Have a nice day.

2007-08-25T22:33:00.000-07:00

Today we spent 7 hours walking the streets of San Francisco. We saw (amongst other things): Mondrian paintings, a Daniel Libeskind building in construction, Hubba Hideout, Alcatraz, the Bay and Golden Gate bridges and some very steep streets.

We also saw a homeless black guy with dreads wearing a red poncho and matching red slippers carrying a milk crate that contained 5 empty soft drink cups, quite a few stuffed toy animals and two long sticks- San Francisco personified.

...oh yeah and we forgot the camera.

2007-08-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

Santa Cruz is a beautiful beach town- super laid back with lots of skaters and surfers and hippie like people who look like they're homeless but they have better shoes. Our motel was directly across the road from an awesome skate park. High five!

On the way up north we stopped in at San Jose. eh...

We're in San Francisco now which is nice. Things seem to be pretty sweet here. The weather's a bit cooler. Our hotel room is gold- similar to 4.5 star stuff in Adelaide but at a similar rate to a hostel here (everything seems a bit more expensive here). We have to walk through a super ghetto area to get home at night though. Preparing us for NYC I spose.

Oh well time to watch the Discovery Channel. Tonight we're learning about how to make a snow cave.

2007-08-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

Day two of our roadtrip proved pretty tiring- a beautiful drive through mountains, clouds and roadworks. Six hours later we arrived Monterey.

Today we also discovered that once the empty tank light goes on, we still have at least 30 miles of fuel to work with (but probably not much more than that).

Some annoying things about the US:

-sandwiches with excessive amounts of meat (and fat) in them

-senselessly massive cars/utes

-the way everyone talks

-toilet bowls that are filled with water

-stupid paper money that all looks the same

Things we like:

-Ralphs supermarket

-Free wireless everywhere (especially in hotels)

-Kingsize beds

-The endless number of Mexican restaurants.

-no having to go to work

2007-08-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of our roadtrip up the coastal highway of California. We drove all day with a few stops along the way. Tom bought a new skateboard and some shoes (really?) and Karen bought a bottle of Sprite.

We're staying at a hotel in Pismo Beach. The online customer reviews spoke of a shooting, extremely bad service, a fridge and 98 cable channels. Perfect.

2007-08-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

Today we took the red line to Hollywood Boulevard and walked over all the stars. At one point on our walk there was a fat white guy with crutches sitting on the ground in the middle of the sidewalk. We though he might've fallen over but no, he had a bunch of cleaning products and was polishing his favourite star.

We also visited a record store that was so big that I had to leave. OMG. It was like Limewire in a room but the music wasn't free.

We understand that not everyone wants to sign up to put a comment here. Thanks so much to those who have. It's bin great to hear from you. If you still want to email us feel free. At this stage we check it every couple of days at least.

Today we hire a car and start our roadtrip up the Paific Coastal Highway.

2007-08-19T22:21:00.000-07:00

OK. It's Sunday night and we've just got back from a day at Universal Studios. It was pretty sweet. Highlights were the Mummy and Jurassic Park rides, fat latino children and Tom's purchase of the first of what will probably be quite a few location-specific Harley Davidson T shirts.

Anyways check the photos. You'll probably notice that the image quality isn't quite L-series as we only took the point and shoot Canon today.

2007-08-18T17:56:00.001-07:00

Who would have guessed that I would be putting sunscreen on?! We had another good day today. The weather has been nice and hot and sunny. We are discovering why there is an obesity epidemic in the USA. You can't even buy healthy salads here. I don't even know how they get that much fat in the salad! Amazing.

I've also been trying to remember some Spanish, as almost everything in Downtown LA is written in both English and Spanish and some things just in Spanish. Not sure how I'm going to get us by in Mexico City!

¡Hasta mañana!

2007-08-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

OK, so the hotel we booked with for our second, third and fourth nights had no trace of our booking and were completely booked out but Kaz did some sweet talking and now we're in and we don't have to scam wireless internet anymore. Nice work Kazza.

We can see the Hollywood sign on the top of the hill from our window.

Today we ticked off one of the things on my things-to-do-before-I-die list- we walked to the Walt Disney Concert Hall- a Frank O Gehry building. Better than I imagined. Photos soon.

Here's a few things that we've learnt so far:

-Over here, Lean Cuisine refers to a brand and in no way indicates how healthy a product is.

-Our hotel marks the unofficial boundary between the financial district and the ghetto.

-LAX is an airport. That's it. There's not even a vending machine there.

-I like watching the black TV channel- it's almost better than Discovery.

That's it.

2007-08-17T14:34:00.001-07:00

We've arrived in LA. The plane ride was ridiculous.

These are some pictures I took this morning around where we're staying in El Segundo. All the smog makes for quite a nice pink glow when the sunrises.

If you walk for 3 hours from where we are, you get to the beach which also has a powerstation on it. Who says water and electricity don't mix.

At the moment we're trying to find a hotel to stay at for our second night. It's not looking good...