Travel, Technology, Thoughts
The second week of my adventures across Central Europe took me to Vienna.
My Monday morning began very early as the friends I was staying with had appointments before their work day even began. This resulted in me being kicked out of their house before 7am and I was on the first train from Munich to Vienna at 7.30am
Read moreSundays in Germany are quite different to Sundays in Australia. No malls, supermarkets or convenience stores are open. At first this seems really old fashioned and boring but after a weeks you start to really appreciate how relaxing it is to have a day a week where you are essentially forced to take a day off.
Read moreAfter two and a half days in Innsbruck I caught a train back to Munich, first for a business meeting and second to spend the weekend with friends.
After my meeting had finished I had a few hours to kill while waiting for my friends to finish work. The great thing about Munich is there are so many great roads, buildings and shops to get lost in around the central city. Once my friends had finished work we went to the Hackerhaus for dinner where I had a great Sauerbraten (pot roast). We then rounded out the evening at a small hipster bar.
Read moreOn my third day in Europe I was up early enough and awake enough to go skiing. Each of the ski fields around Innsbruck runs a free tourist shuttle bus from various areas around the city directly to the ski fields. Find the area where the ski bus departed from was a little tricky even though it was essentially across the road from the hotel as it wasn’t very well sign posted, however, the buses had very clear labels on them and made the hour long ride out to the ski field very comfortable.
Read moreArriving in Innsbruck after almost 40 hours of travel, one would expect to fall straight into bed, but as it was such a beautiful afternoon I decided it go up to the top of Nordkette instead.
To get to the top of Nordkette you catch a very modern Funicular from the edge of the Innsbruck city centre to the suburb/village of Hungerburg. From here you switch to two cable cars which take you to the top of the mountain. At the top I walked around for at least 30 minutes in snow that was literally knee deep. The ski runs off the top were the steepest I’ve ever seen. After deciding against trying to get to the absolute summit of the mountain in the deep snow I headed back down one cable car to grab a traditional Austrian lunch – Apple Strudel and Red Bull.
Read moreFor the second February in a row I jetted off to Europe for a holiday. Unlike last year this trip had a little more planning and was close to twice as long. Over the month of February I visited five countries and caught up with many friends.
To get to Europe I chose to fly on Etihad, whom I have flown to Europe with twice before. However, getting to Europe this time around was slightly different to previous trips, while I could take the usual Sydney to Abu Dhabi flight I chose instead to go first to Perth and then to Abu Dhabi. This allowed me three hours to stretch my legs in Perth and reduce the length of the ultra-long haul Australia to Abu Dhabi leg of the journey.
Read moreIn mid November I traveled to Bali for a friend’s Wedding.
Bali is not a place that I have ever wanted to visit and a raft of stereotypes held up quite strongly in areas of the Island. In fact when I first arrived I was a little surprised at just how poor some areas of the island are. However, the wedding was good and we did some sight seeing on a day either side of the wedding. During the three days I was there we had dinner on Jimbaran Bay Beach and Kuta, relaxed at Nusa Dua, and did a day trip to Ubud.
Photos are below.
Read moreOn my visit to Singapore I went to the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari.
As we arrived quite late in the afternoon we only had a little over two hours to quickly race around quite a large zoo. Overall the zoo was quite interesting with lots of animals that you don’t generally see in Australian zoos. However I left feeling that the zoo was a little over-hyped.
Below are some photos from the zoo.
Read moreIn mid-April I went up to Singapore for three days. This was my first time in Asia and the decision to visit Singapore was mainly made because of friends who live there and great airfares on Singapore Airline’s budget carrier Scoot.
The flight from Sydney to Singapore left just after midday and arrived almost an hour early around 6.30pm local time. By the time I had collected my bags, cleared immigration, and caught the MRT to my hotel it was quite late in the evening so I had an early night.
The next morning I met up with an Australian workmate who was also visiting Singapore and we explored around Little India.
On Easter Monday I went to Melbourne for the day to see some friends.
With no firm plans for the day we ended up nearly identically repeating the first trip I made to Melbourne in 2009.
After meeting my friends at Fed Square we walked along the Yarra through to Docklands and then caught a tram back into the city, getting lost in the shopping malls until we found lunch.
