The Case for a Shoe Connection

It is about time that I admit it.  Really, I have to stop denying it and come clean.

Yes, my brown casual shoes are pretty much dead.

They were bought as a pair of disposable shoes before a trip to Europe about 3 years ago, and I never expected them to last the trip.  The fact they survived (barely) an ill-advised trek up amongst the steep snow-strewn pathways of an "easy-to-intermediate" Swiss mountain was nothing short of a miracle - and the looks some of the Swiss gave me on my trip, on espying my shoes, indicated that they also thought my survival was something I should be thanking the deities for.

However, after that trip, I took a (metaphoric) shine to these shoes.  Sure, the laces were long and prone to unknotting at the most impractical of times; they were not terribly waterproof (though, being fairly thin, they dried out incredibly easily); and the grip they provided was tenuous at best - but still.

And so, they came with me on trips to South East Asia, and around New Zealand.  And they survived, though some of the threads started to fray and, by the start of this year, the soles of the shoes had started to fall away, turning them kind of into reverse jandals, and in the most dangerous way.

Thus, the shoes entered semi retirement this year, and now, with the purchase of a replacement pair, they may finally be retired to the big shoe store in the sky, with all the other shoe-y soles (argh!  Bad pun; but I had to).

And so, before they are laid to rest, an ode:

An ode to my shoes (RIP)

Oh, shoes
I shall miss youse
No more shall we walk together
With your tan laces and fake brown leather
Our paths diverge, yours and mine
As I abandon shoes that have lost their shine
Rest thee well, my faithful loafer
Now that, for me, your job is over.


Verdict: Goodbye, good and faithful shoes.  You will be missed.  8 laces out of 10.

The Case for Some More Odd Photos - Mid 2011 Edition

Some of the odder images of what I saw in my recent trip to Cambodia:

1)  Never had I seen so much boob enhancing cream.  Never had I even suspected it existed.

2) There was just something so WRONG about the look of this cereal

3) You could jet around town in a batmobile...

4)  Who wouldn't want to belong to this bank?  Well, possibly those who do not like tomatoes...

5) The Sibling Band.  The name is definitely descriptive.

6)   I may have misunderstood this. I mean, it is mis-spelled.  But did I really?

7)  What everybody wants - a Bieber cut.

8)  Anti Hair Fall Shampoo?  Jackie, I should have listened to you a whole lot sooner!

9) Not an odd photo at all - just lots of chocolate!

10) Another in my ongoing "odd mannequin" collections.

11) There used to be a Hungry Kiwi Pizza brand in NZ - could this be related?

12)  And finally - what is the asterisk for?  Does fun come with conditions?

Verdict: Oh, how I love travel!  I find the oddest things highly entertaining - and with the age of the digital camera, snapping said images to share with others has never been easier!  9 snaps out of 10.

The Case for Crossing Tongariro 2011

A few photos, starting with the Beehive with the flag flying at half mast on this sad week due to the Christchurch earthquake:


Last weekend, I was off to do the Tongariro Crossing with some good friends. It's an amazing if occasionally gruelling traverse, and while the descent was a bit tedious, I am definitely contemplating doing it again - a bit slower perhaps, to allow for more photos around the lakes and perhaps a side trip.



And finally a photo from Wellington (well, Petone actually) to show how it can't be beaten on a good day.


And as a total aside, a big THANK YOU to Triangle Stratos for now broadcasting on Freeview terrestrial, especially as it means I now have access to Al Jazeera English (when it is on), featuring a complete blast from the past reporting from the Middle East, Anita McNaught.

Verdict: Well, some pluses but a pretty big minus in the last week or so. All the best to those in Christchurch. A rating of much, much sadness.

The Case for some Vietnamese Oddities 01

Here are some of the less serious photos I took on a Christmas / New Year trip to Vietnam. I hope you find them as entertaining as I did when I took them.

1. Yup, that is Brittney Spears on that tombstone. Do the people of Hanoi know something that we don't - yet?


2. This was actual supermarket fare in the chilled goods section in Hue. My travelling companions taught me the best way to take this photo sneakily, as it did need to be taken.



3. Getting on board an aircraft in Da Nang, its nice to have pictographic representation of what we can't take on board. But surely, in a Communist country, one's sickle is sacred?



4. One of those posters the Flight of the Conchords mock, in Hue.


5. Well, c'mon. I know it's childish, but just look at the sign (in Ho Chi Minh City).



6. Okay, so this one is staged, but my Travelling Bubbles just looked so cute ready to fire on helpless tourists from a helicopter at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.


7. No, don't let it snow, hotel in Ho Chi Minh City! I like the "warm" winter well enough, thank you.



8. The Vietnamese take great pride in depicting the means with which the local populace fought the American hordes, but I found this mural at the Cu Chi Tunnels exhibit just outside Ho Chi Minh City just perhaps a bit too... gleeful?


9. Perhaps its a cheese thing, but I love the use of the Laughing Cow at a night market food stand in Ho Chi Minh City to illustrate that Pho (basically the national dish of Vietnam and wonderful to boot) comes in Cow and Chicken varieties.


10. It took me several times to read the sign below, and I am still not convinced that it is meant to be written in English. How would one even say "nigth"?



11. I may have, in a fir of stupidity, deleted my image of the "Merry Christmas" Huey, positioned behind Santa and his sleigh in front of a Mall just outside Ho Chi Minh City's airport, but they obviously extended the display's life by changing its well-wishing purpose. I made it back just as they were taking down the "Happy New Year" Huey display - whew!



12. Okay, this is not really a "funny" picture, but rather the back of the head shot of a complete @r$ehole who, on the flight from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City, found that there was no space in the overhead locker to put his own bag in, so removed my travelling companion's and chucked it on the seat next to him so he could put his own in, and then left that bag sitting next to him. Our howls of dismay were just greeted with a very "suck on that" smile. A nice man in the row behind him resolved the bag situation, but there were many evil glares directed this man's way. Send your own evil thoughts to him though the medium of the cybersphere, please.



Verdict: There are more "amusing" photos that I will add at a later date. Boy, how I love travelling! Some photos out of a few more.

The Case for Cash Passports

Well, that heading is perhaps a bit misleading.

For those who have had the... experience of experiencing them, Travellex Cash Passports are the latest technology in international currency technology, in that they are pre-loaded cards that allow you to withdraw money from Automatic Teller Machines throughout the world, having "locked" money in US dollars or Euros or Australian currencies at the value at the time the money was converted. This is meant to be an easier and safer way than using traveller's cheques and bank cards. I got one (well, you get two cards with each account) a few years ago in US dollars for a trip abroad - and I have since learned to loathe it.

First off, the cash passport does have some positives: it does deliver what it says on the box. Step up to any ATM with a Visa symbol and, yes, taking money out is as easy as taking money from an ATM using a normal bankcard. It's possible to check balances online and to transfer money to the card from private accounts. And the balance on the accounts can be cashed out if it's not all spent.

Now (and for me) the annoying sides:

1) I could not cash out my $US as $US. The card boasts that there is only one transaction fee to put normal cash into the currency of one's choice, and I wanted the cash rather than leave the money on the card (which expires in 2 years) so I thought the best solution was to go to a Travellex store and ask to just have it paid out. But no.

2) Each card only holds one form of currency. The banks offer cards that do more than one, which would be really handy if travelling through different countries - otherwise, you have to have one card per country or incur fees on the card...

3) ...because, yes, there are fees to transfer money from one currency on the card to another. While US$ are great when travelling almost everywhere, not all countries allow people to draw down US$ from their money machines, meaning more fees when travelling around. And of course, the rate for transferring from US to another currency is open to fluctuation.

4) And then there are the potential fees for using the machines themselves, which add to the cost of using the card. I wasn't charged much to use ATMs abroad, but even US$1 can cause problems as...

5) ... any "fee" comes out of your account, which "unrounds" the amount in the account. And, as people who use cards know, you can't get $20 if you have $20 in your account but the fee to get at it costs $1. Not so helpful, as it practically guarantees you will have some leftover funds in the account.

6) My view of the card plummeted when I discovered that the cash passport has a penalty fee built in when the card is not used for a while. Even with only a 2 year life span, I was not impressed to discover a "not used" charge when I took some money out after about a year. What exactly is this fee covering, considering?

So, in summary, I doubt I will ever get a cash passport again. Getting cash (US$) is much easier, and, in their own paper-based way, travellers cheques are easier too (as least you can always cash out to their value and not get stuff with an amount that you can't access). And if I really need money, I can just get some directly from my bank account (yay for international Debit Cards) and save the intermediate transaction charges. The good things going for it (the security and redundancy, I suppose) really did not make up for the annoyances. But then, I am pretty demanding, I suppose.

Verdict: The Cash Passport seems more trouble than it is really worth, not assisted by annoying bureaucracy at Travellex which puts a lie to claim of this being the no hassle way of getting and keeping cash. I gave it a try - but not again. 3 dollars out of 10.

The Case for Some Odder Euro10 Photos 02

A few more photos of stranger interest from the Euro10 trip earlier this year:

7) This was my plane from Hong Kong to Frankfurt, an older style Boeing 747 with no “personal entertainment system”. I did love the acknowledgement of 50 years of partnership with Boeing, as I supposed they couldn’t really claim to be in partnership BEFORE that...



8) In the British Museum, in the more empty Asian part of the diplays, was this fantastic statue and its enlightening explanation: one of the judges to the underworld. Good to know that Judges have jobs in the afterlife.



9) Again in the British Museum, the child in me comes out, as does the need to take a photo of a statues butt.


10) Flying from Newcastle to Paris, I was somewhat surprised when the plane took a detour over Heathrow airport. I am sure there is some logic lying behind adding more traffic to the skies above what is the busiest airport in the world.


11) At a roadside diner on the way to Normandy, I had to try the andouillette sausage, a reputed local delicacy and what turned out to be rather potent tripe (with chips). The Coke just off to the side was used to help wash it down. I was assured that non-roadside andouillete would taste a bit better, but I was not game enough to try out. Oh, and the spoon is wickedly bent, though you can’t really see that in the image.


12) I think this one more or less speaks for itself. Yum. Not that I had any...


13) Graffiti, French style on the coast between Normany and Brittany. “Never forget” D Day it says. Well, it doesn’t. It actually says “Nevvver forget” – so much for the French education system, unless it’s a tourist adding some foreign colour.


14) The Parisiens call them like they see them: no need to Step Up, just go with the sex angle. And yes, that is part of a reclining woman at the bottom of the image, as I took this in Montmartre, near the red light part.


15) This display in Switzerland may have been meant to inform, but the fact the stuffed animals are all prowling above the drinks stand just kind of gave me the wiggins.


16) A more common sight in Switzerland – well stereotypical perhaps: cowbells adorning a local home.



17) This one may speak for itself. If it does not, check out the duckies’ funky hairdos. And there were no local signs to explain why the bouffant was back in mode this season.


18) Not my Singapore Airlines flight on the way home. This Airbus340 was on the way to Melbourne. I kinda wanted to be on it, just to say I had been on one. Maybe one day.




Verdict: Is it you or is it me? Probably just me, but I will share these with you anyway. More photos out of many.

The Case for Some Odder Euro10 Photos 01

Okay, after a few postings about life in NZ, its time to go back to the recent holiday.

Here are some of the images I took of things that seemed a bit odd or amusing to me in one way or another.

1) Whether out of joy or pity, the guy in the sandwich suit got lots of hugs from people, and quite a few photos in front of Big Ben.


2) I adored the question mark in this one (Surbiton), as I was not entirely sure what it was meant to signify. Is correctly getting the start time of the quiz one of the quiz questions? Is the quiz itself in jeopardy of not being run should the patron be uninspired or attendance below expectations? Unfortunately, I was not around at the time (or was I?) to find out.



3) I saw this in Brighton, and loved the tag line. Adam breathes again - now he is no longer on Shortland Street? Poor guy...


4) The only photo I managed to take in a mall in Chatham (not allowed), though the most important - it sounded like this machine could cure anything.


5) Even in hideous weather, Brighton was cool - and it had some awesome graffitti around the place too. How can you go wrong with a Smurf theme?


6) While the British love their page 3 girls, the French don't even both hiding them inside the covers of a magazine and instead plaster them all over the place, even next to (or above) the less titillating (oh yes, I had to use that pun) or innocent children's magazines that can be on offer.




Verdict: Installment one - there are plenty more things I have found a bit odd on my travels. 6 images out of... a few more...