Oh my gosh so much has happened since i last posted which was in thailand, i think i should start from the beginning of the holidays...
Well, i took a prolonged holiday to thailand and then further into scandinavia, while missing out on a week of school and the only reason i'm posting this right now is because of me spending 24 hours travelling back from denmark. Jet lag and a constant stream of coffee in my veins is mostly what is keeping me awake right now at 6:30 in the morning. It is a powerful force to be reckoned with, i kid you not.
Well, what can i say, thai airways has really good service but it's facilities are severely undermined. If we could get them a few things such as chairs which don't destroy your tailbone and tables which actually support things heavier than 2 kg then that woul be fantastic. All in all it was a good flight. Movies were kinda boring, couldn't really see the screen and my headphones broke. Lame headphones ~grumbles~
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Arrive Bangkok, quite warm. Well, more humid than it was warm. Anyway, it made me wear a t-shirt, so it is warm/hot. Bangkok wasn't really the most exciting of places. Vietnam is much like thailand but thailand's metropolis is a lot larger but it's pretty much thte same infrastructure as vietnam. Another of those developing Asian countries well on the way to succeeding, just give it a little bit of time.
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I spent 4 days in Bangkok but it wasn't realy exciting, there just really wasn't much t do there as there was in anyother metropolis. However, i did manage to sample the food experience rather well. There was one day, where parents were out shopping and checking out the town, while i stayed back and looked after my brother sleeping in and watching star movies and throwing things at the screen, when i went down to the street to buy some food and there was a chicken kebab guy right outside the door. His wares were pretty cheap so i decided to get a few. "A few" ended up in him having to pack up and leave the area early because we ate all of his chicken. Oh chicken, how i love chicken.
The thai people are generally very nice and quite inviting. The hotel services were excellent and everyone bowed, which meant i had to bow back, and i did so, quite deeply. My back ached after the first two days :P.
After Bangkok, an hour flight to Koh Samui Island. Now this was the real thailand experience. We stayed in a resort which was really nice, with pool and great view, but best thing was, it was next to the sea! So the next week was pretty much just lazing on the beach, swimming, lazing on the beach, jet skiing and playing frisbee with the locals. The guys we played frisbee with, if there was an international sport called frisbee throwing, they would win it for sure. I was about 40-50 metres away and they threw it within half a metre of where i was standing. Think i'm exaggurating? go to koh samui and find out for yourselves. These guys were seriously awesome.
I am toning it down a bit so that i can fit all of this in one post before i get to school, but there is so much to talk about. After Koh Samui, we took a connecting flight to bangkok and then an international departure to Copenhagen. The flight was better. Why? because i slept through all of it. I love those type of flights, where you just sleep through the entire thing and it seems like that it was in no time whatsoever. Awesome
Copenhagen. Colder than thailand, but not by much. The climate was considerably less humid than thailand. Something to do with the equator and tropical climates :P. The airport had a wooden floor! ~suprised~ First airport i've seen with a wooden floor. I might say, that the airport is nowhere near big enough to house the needs of it's people. Maybe if they spent more time and money on the airport rather than the taxis. The taxis are amazing. They have automatic doors, mini-tvs and gps systens. In every one of them! And they are all upper-clas Mercedes. Rich bums. Reached the ship and oh my gosh it is huge. A mean 17 stores high, 5 star luxury liner with prime suites, 24 hour buffet (obviously the best part), a large number of pools, jacuzzis, hot tubs and saunas, gym, sports centre, tours and activites for all. Absolutely breathtaking at first sight. Even now i'm still awed by the sheer size of that thing.
Half-day on the ship, spent most of it gorging myself on the buffet, then working it off in the gym, meeting new people such as the staff cleaning our rooms, dinner waiters/waitresses and peers on board the ship. There was even a special place restricted to 13-17 year olds only, which meant that johann coudlnt' get in! :( poor kid. Met a number of new faces, mainly of which came from Canada and the US.
Southern hemisphere for the win! :D
Full day at sea, got to know the people on board a bit better. Time spent in the pools and hot tubs mainly. A lot of interesting backgrounds but nothing really special. The whole day was spent meeting new people and getting around the many floors of the ship
Arrive Stockholm, Sweden. A very nice place with a lot of historic sights. Pity i couldn't see them all before we left again. We went to the armory of the swedish kings and experienced the much backstabbing (or backshooting to be precise) Very interesting. If i wasn't giving massages to my cousins the whole way through. Then went to the gold chambers, what more to say :P. And the viking historical villages. All very interesting. They provided us with chairs to sit on. And i mean portable chairs, the metal frames that we carried around with us. After a brief but fruitful trip to sweden, back to the ship!
Next stop, Helsinki, Finland! This stop was spent mainly on the bus seeing as the tours were conducted mainly on the bus. We stopped by the Jean Sibelius monument and that was quite exciting because we saw the pipes of an organ there, which was surprising because Sibelius didn't write any organ music. Strange huh? Did some shopping around even though we didnt' buy anything. Had to rush back into the bus because we were late. Tsk Tsk. Even though a short stop in Finland, i reckon it was the best stop. Finland is such a nice place.
Our next port was St. Petersburg, Russia. Here we stayed for two days. Unlike the rest of the people we had our own private tour. Our guide was so enthusiastic. Very amusing because we weren't really paying much attention having slept quite late the night before. His english was really good but he was so rude to the other tourists. You could tell that he respected the sites very much but maybe he was a little too enthusiastic. Two days with the guide. I don't' think the driver liked us very much. St Petersburg is a great and beautiful city. The buildings are old, but they are magnificent, and it has its fair share of modern buildings and structures. Awesome place. Don't think I'd want to live there though.
Talin Estonia. Not exactly a well known country but still a very nice place. But, if you visited there, you woudlnt' tell the difference between it an an of the other scandinavian cities such as copenhagen, stockholm or Helsinki. Still, nice place. Not much happened here.
Poland was next, in the city of Gdansk. Another fine city with a lot of culture in the streets. We saw a street vendor get robbed of one of his toys. We told him who took it but by that time he had gotten away. Poor fellow. We went to the amber chambers and let the mothers do their shopping :P. After this visit to Poland, i don't tyhink i want to see an amber shop ever again :P
warnemunde in germany was pretty much the shopping port of this trip. All we really did was look at clothes that we wouldnt' buy, let the mother run off and buy their own stuff while walking up an down the beautiful port of germany. It was relaly quite scenic with all it's boats and little ships coming in and out of the port. Very cute. I got a tatoo done there, not a real one but they ran out of henna so it was permanent marker instead :P. how lame.
We skipped Helsingor and went straight back to copenhagen. Here we said our goodbyes to our new friends, exchanged email addresses and contacts and left the boat. And then i had to prepare myself for the 25 hours of travelling i would do to get backt o canberra. What fun
All in all it was a very nice trip and a good experience. I missed all of you dearly and i hope you all had a good time in sweet sweet canberra
TK
posted by TK at
1:45 PM
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