Lena | TnL Wanderings

Arizona – Arrival

August 20, 2019

0 Comments

Lena

Panama and Australia, rendezvous? I guess if you were world apart and you decided you should meet somewhere then Phoenix, Arizona would be the answer? Given we are new age thinkers then this is where we decided our journey to the land of heat, desert, cacti and, of course, the Grand Canyon should and would start.

From Australia (for Lena) meant sitting for 14 hours of oversea flying followed by 1 hour of desert which was lovely but the best part was spending 7 hours in the luscious Phoenix Airport. The only real loss here was missing the ice-cream time on QF15. We’ve all wondered why and how you can chill a Weiss bar to -45DegC so that it shatters in your mouth and sticks to the side of your face while eating but at the same time we love this delicious treat while recovering from a hangover at 2am, but alas Qantas has already run out. Shame.

Passport control and customs were easy as well. There is a lot of walking to get from my arrival terminal to my departure terminal. After some sitting around (about three hours in total – thanks to the American Airlines for the delay) I was on my 45-minute journey to Phoenix. I happened to be sitting just above the baggage loading dock and it is one of those things that you better not see. I guess when you have to load hundreds of bags onto the plane being gentle or careful is not your priority. I do feel for the person with a golden suitcase that somehow got unzipped and unloaded some of the luggage as it was coming out of the plane. I think baggage carers collected most of it back, good luck goldie.

Then there was me getting from Terminal 4 to Terminal 2. The airport seems quite nice, nice artwork along the way with descriptions as well. Monorail train takes you from Terminal 4 to Terminal 3, then you walk to Terminal 2 along a walkway, which is when you feel the warm welcome from Arizona – 42 degrees and the wind is almost like putting a blow dryer to your face.

From Panama Tim was waiting for the helicopter from site, but Panama had had other plans and turned out a lovely rainy day with 0 visibility so driving to Panama in the most wrecked minivan that could be found was the best option. This meant arriving in Panama City at 11pm and then readying ones self for the trip via Houston to Phoenix the next day.

The two parted lovebirds could only try their livid best by taking photos of pizza’s they could order in different airports until their long awaited reunion in Phoenix.

The Houston Airport Pizza and Phoenix Airport Pizza

Once through Phoenix and together at last, the best part of the trip over and worst to come, Lena and Tim made their way to the holy Avis car rental department.

One thing which is surprising about America is the sense of cattle herding that you feel when shuffling through the necessary services. The attendants in the airports and the drivers of the shuttles are in a routine and the people traversing their services are mere animals to be reported from one line to another or scolded when they seem confused. We don’t know why it feels this way in America particularly and not in other places, maybe a smile that doesn’t need a tip wouldn’t go astray?

Picking up the car was hardly a joy as the attendant at Avis had decided that we were criminals as our bank momentarily declined our transaction. Tim had decided that if America was too good for our money, and if a an Avis attendant didn’t like the fact that our last names weren’t the same that we were minutes away from booking return flights and never spending time in this country again, whether great or not there are plenty of places in the world to gift your money to. What was most irritating about the entire process was the perception that if you don’t have a credit card then booking accommodation or rentals is impossible. Given that once our bank realised where we were everything progressed easily but we were given the first degree by a car rental attendant and lectured about the need to have a credit card is a good indication that the world is in a poor state if you can’t buy things with money and can only purchase items with debt. However looking at the way banks and interest are operating now it is a curiosity as to why you would save money since it’ll cost you to leave it in a bank.

El Mustang,

Anyway thank god that rubbish with Avis ended and we could finally pickup the Ford Mustang GT, which although the headlight switch is elusive is an absolutely wonderful car. Traveling at night from Phoenix to Sedona was easy and the highways in the state are well signed and easy to navigate.

Araluen Botanic Park

September 24, 2016

0 Comments

Lena

So, we haven’t updated this blog in a while. Shame on us. Obviously some people have the capacity to fit everything in life as well as everything in a blog. One day we might graduate to this point after cloning ourselves and doing some sort of Red Dwarf style mind meld. Speaking of Red Dwarf, it is outrageously expensive on iTunes, why we ask why….

Anyhow. So Araluen, in-fact, Perth Australia generally, lets pause for a paragraph; We’re no longer in Africa or Japan and have been based in Perth for quite a few months. Perth is, much to our surprise being an Australian easterner, not a dust bowl full of rock breakers and hermits wandering in from the desert, but a beautiful cosmopolitan city full of lovely parks, bike ways and even more surprisingly to us at least, a vibrant nightlife full of hidden pubs and music venues. Surprised? I guess if you’re not from Australia this probably doesn’t mean much, but Perth is a very long way from the east, from Brisbane (our old home) it is a mere 360 million centimetres. At regular ant speed this would take roughly 2.3 ant running years to cross. You can tell that we’ve been watching documentaries recently. At some point in the future we’ll, given some time, add some general articles about Perth and what it’s like for an Australian easterner.

For the moment however we’ll stick to the original story, Araluen Botanical Park. Araluen, as known by the westies, is a small government operated ‘botanical’ park south east from Perth by about 25km (5.8 ant days) is apparently difficult to get to by train or bus, but by car it’s only a short trip of about 40 minutes or less in good traffic. The drive can be made quite lovely by getting off the highway and taking as many back options as possible as at the same time that the tulips are out the peach, apple and plum trees are in flower in the orchards close-by. To do this if you’re coming from the city, take a left off the Tonkin high way around Gosnells and take a more direct rout down to via Roleystone, here is a rough map. One of it’s many claims to fame is it’s very impressive display of tulips during the springtime. They’re cheating a little bit obviously purchasing the bulbs and planting them prior to the spring when it’s cool enough in the winter. However that’s the case for just about everywhere in Australia for tulips unless you’re in Tasmania, which must be a pretty amazing place. However if you turn a blind eye to the cheating, which is fine by us as Lena loves tulips, the place is really quite spectacular.

The park itself is not terribly large and would only occupy about half a day if you were slowly walking through the grounds, but given that it’s a relatively short drive from the city it’s worth a look. There is also a nice stream running through the park so if you’re like the many others who don’t mind a bit of timelapse photography of streams then you’ll be in luck. For us the display of tulips was the main game and they did not disappoint. There is also mention of bird life out in the park, but aside from a few common birds flying about we didn’t see much. I would guess that this is largely because of the number of people who were there and as such if there were fewer people you might get some nice shots amongst the flowers.

We would certainly recommend a visit when the tulips are out and about, it was lovely!

Japan – Day 1 – Let the fun begin

December 15, 2015

0 Comments

Lena

For the first day of the trip it was an early start. We got up at 5:30, took a shower, put the last unpacked things in our bags, prepared the unit for departure and headed off to the airport. Surprisingly, everything went as per plan, even though last night we had had a pretty big day/ night out with friends.

Brisbane International Airport has not changed since the last time we were there. Still a bit confused about the use of check-in machines. Why would you use them to just get boarding passes if you have to go to the baggage drop off counter anyway? After a lovely Red Rooster breakfast with our parents who were very kind to take us to the airport we went off to boarding.

The flight was ok, apart from the fact that our seats were at the back of the plane (at least not near the lavatories). There were also a couple of little children who tried to entertain people around them but, thanks to noise cancelling headphones, it didn’t bother us too much. Once again, we came to a conclusion that long day flights within the same time zone are the worst. What a waste of time. We came up with a solution – watch all the movies that you wouldn’t pay money to watch outside of the airplane or wouldn’t watch together. In between the movies we looked out of the window, it was a clear day so we saw some pretty looking places. Papua New Guinea (presuming that’s what it was) looks amazing from the air!

The Japanese really care about people, even those who are self-absorbed

Arrival in Tokyo was painless. We were almost the last ones to leave the plane which meant that by the time we got to passport control there was no queue. This time Lena wasn’t drilled at passport control and customs areas, which was quite nice for a change. The Japanese are probably better sign posters than Australians and as a result airport is pretty easy to navigate around, just look up.

As we briefly mentioned in our planning post we booked our JR Passes in advance which meant we needed to exchange them to real ones. When we found the right exchange office we were unpleasantly surprised with a massive queue of people. We would’ve spent about an hour there for sure, if not more. There is one thing that is worth mentioning with regards to the JR passes. A pass is valid for exactly the number of whole days that you booked it for and validity period starts when you do the exchange. Our passes were booked for 14 days and when we were actually in Japan for 15 days (even though arriving at night on the first day and leaving in the morning on the last). So had we chosen to stay in the queue and get our passes exchanged on the 14th, we would not have been able to use them on the 28th (the day we leave). After a quick check on the next available train which was suitable, the decision was made to pay cash and catch Narita Express to Shinjuku (the closest station to our hotel) and another local train to the hotel and exchange the JR passes the next day.

Why not buy JR tickets when you’ve already paid for a JR Rail pass

Luckily for us there was a helper near the tickets vending machine who helped us to acquire correct tickets and pointed to where we had to go. He gave us two options, the ‘challenge’ or ‘normal’. The ‘challenge’ option was to catch a train departing in two minutes, or the ‘normal’ option was to wait an hour. This doesn’t seem like much of a challenge unless you don’t know how big the train station is or which platform the train was on which was our case. Such as it was, we had been sitting for some time and this was meant to be a fun holiday the ‘challenge’ was accepted. So that was fun! Don’t remember when we had to run with two heavy backpacks on last. At least we made it and spent the next 80 minutes enjoying the ride and “views” out of the window. Actually, it felt a bit surreal. Lost in Translation was now to begin, whether you think of the Chinese book, or the movie which is completely different.

That looks a bit like Sexi-Tel but actually it’s SekiTei.

Change over to Shin Okubo from Shinjuku station was painless as well. We had decided, or at least the more forgetful of the two of us, that we should dump all extra weight off as quickly as possible this included: leaving the e-reader on the plane, leaving the camera bag on the train much to the disgust of an Argentinian soccer fan that Japan seemed to be teeming with. Luckily this was a failed plan and we managed to fail so well that nothing was lost. In Kazakhstan it’s good practise to sit down for a minute before you leave so to avoid forgetting anything. The Western half might eventually become as wise.

Shin Okubo Sekitei Hotel where we are staying for the night was not too difficult to find. It is situated in a dark alley which was a little unnerving for those who are not Japanofiles, but the sigh for it was spotted and Google (10^10^100) maps with a bit of roaming data triumphed.

Our eConnect card turned up at the hotel as expected but we’d recommend if flying out of Brisbane to pickup the cards from the airport as there is plenty of time from the flight arriving at six, and, you’ll feel more comfortable with a GPS in your hands when navigating to a tucked away hotel (instead of paying for roaming fees). In our case we used a bit of roaming data which, at a dollar a MB will probably hurt later when we see the bill. Vodafone it seems does not have a data plan for Japan… I wonder why considering they did have one for Zambia??

After a tour of the room and a refreshing cup of tea we decided to set off for a walk and look for some food in Shinjuku area. Went back to the local Shin Okubo Station and caught a train in. It’s only one stop away, technically, but we were not keen on walking, since we were a bit tired after a long flight.

We did, however ended up with quite a good walk around Shinjuku, first to find an ATM and then to find some food to eat. This was largely thanks to Maps.me which was an extremely handy online and offline maps application, Google (10^10^100) certainly does 99% of the job but if it wasn’t for Maps.me we wouldn’t have located the 7-11 and therefore we would’ve starved. Restaurants were tricky to work out on the first night when late, we ended up using a coin operated restaurant (Kamukura Soup with noodles) which had fantastic food as it turned out and we happened to be in the red light district so watching a bit of the local behaviour was fun.

Tasty – And coin operated into the bargain

On the way back we happened across a wedding photographer with groom and bride posing amongst the masses.

Evening settling into the hotel was a bit daunting but in reality it was simple as, futons were in the cupboard and shifting the table out to the other room was no trouble. Our only issue was that Tim is allergy prone and the straw floors made him a bit sensitive. This might be a consideration for other travellers in similar circumstances. They also have one of those cool toilets with a heated seat and buttons with some additional functions, having it in your own private room on the first night is quite handy, you can learn all the tricks and not make a fool of yourself when you are forced to use one somewhere in public toilets.

Well, that’s pretty much it for Day 1 in Japan. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Stay tuned, or if not tuned, please adjust 🙂

Author

Arizona – Arrival

Araluen Botanic Park

Japan – Day 1 – Let the fun begin