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Cardiff Castle and Cheese
A post graduate degree is hard work. The last few months of travelling and all the challenges that went with it are small in comparison to what I am studying now. Over the past 6 months I have blogged about visiting new countries and about getting very lost. Well Wales is a fairly new country for me, and since most of the signs are in Welsh I am constantly getting lost.
I have just started a post graduate degree in broadcast journalism at the University of Cardiff, and love every minute of it. This course is completely different to anything I have done in academia. For one thing we get to play with expensive microphones, and are tasked with building our own contacts book to generate stories for Radio and Television. Almost no time is spent in the library, and reading the morning papers counts as research!
Over the next few months I will be starting other projects to showcase my work, so this blog will continue to be about things outside of journalism. However you should expect the occasional shameless plug here, especially into the New Year.
So this is what I have managed to do so far; I have explored the beaches of Ogmore, Cardiff Castle and sampled a lot of its cheese thanks to a local festival. After much searching I have discovered the location of Ikea, Tescos and Asda! I am in the process of setting up my own basketball team, an impressive feat since I can't catch! Finally I have remembered how to cook nice meals again. so now I am off to make crumble!
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New beginnings
Over the past few months I have been without a phone, a laptop, a Satnav and for the most part a good camera. Highly surprisingly in our modern society I have actually survived without all of these things while rushing around the world. However as soon as I returned to the UK I especially realised how dependent modern life/relationships are on technology. It was very difficult to organise meeting my friends without my phone, (phone lost in New Zealand, SIM somewhere in the land of "down the back of the sofa"), I couldn't navigate my way to Cardiff without the Satnav and don't get me started on my mental distress of not being able to get my laptop to work!
Accordingly I decided it was time for an upgrade, and after much faffing (and a lot of help from Dave) I signed up to a new mobile phone contract with a HTC HERO handset. My mum also decided she needed an upgrade and has recently got an iPhone so between us we are testing the best the mobile market can buy! (Exempting the Hero's next upgrade model which I can't afford, and a Blackberry which my dad already has and uses.) The first problem I had with my Hero was my lack of ability to find a user manual in the snazzy box it came in. I didn't find the electronic user manual for almost 2 days and so have had to learn how to use my phone without it. This caused much grumpiness;
"I can't get the dam thing to text!"
"Where is the off button?"
"NO I don't want to upload all my photos to facebook!!!!" etc.
To top it all off because setting up a Gmail account is very essential to the Hero I did this and promptly forgot the password. This means that I will very probably have to reset the phone handset, thus loosing all the small things I have accomplished on it already!
I have now mastered most of the basics off it, and even downloaded a clever cow jumping game called abduction. These are small events in comparison to other news stories around at the moment, but modern journalism is very dependent on technology. Over the next few months I will be uploading all sorts of journalism work, in a variety of different formats, all very probably without user manuals, and I am looking forward to the challenge. I can only hope that I explain things clearly enough so that you can access the content without user manuals.
Finally mum still has not got her iPhone out of the box, although if she isn't careful my younger brother might pinch it off her! My mobile number has not changed, so if all those people who have my number could text me theirs, that would be appreciated. I need people to talk to.. once I have worked out how to answer a call
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We're going through changes
For the past few weeks I have been residing in Southampton, occasionally cleaning and generally making a bit of a nuisance of myself. This is partially due to boredom, for although I am very happy to be surrounded by my family and friends again, it takes time to get used to the fact that I am not changing addresses every few days.
One of the classic examples of this is that I am yet to replace the phone I lost in New Zealand, and have not sorted out my travelling photos (all three and a half thousand of them!) Still I am now settled back, and looking forward to starting new adventures. In the next fortnight I am going to my first ever wedding which is very exciting, and I am moving to Wales.
Firstly I want to say congratulations to my old housemate Alex who has recently got engaged, but the wedding I am attending in 2 weeks is that of an old school friend, Jenny. I am really looking forward to it, especially since there has been some discussion about wearing the biggest hat you can find, so I am looking forward seeing to the outfits!
As to moving to Wales, I attended the postgraduate house hunting fair at Cardiff last week, and am set to move in with 3 other post grads in the next month or so. My dad went to Cardiff University when education was still free, and he keeps on giving me lots of tips about places to go drinking... sad to say most of them have been demolished since the bay was flooded/ redeveloped.
There will be some more travelling pic's coming up soon, but more procrastination will probably occur first! Although before that I will be taking more since I am heading to Portugal for the bank holiday weekend!
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Travels in England
So I have been back two weeks and so far all everyone wants to know is if I am sad to be home! It appears that because I have been to many exotic places, I must be depressed that I am back in very wet england! So far this week everyone I know seems to think that I must be very unimpressed with England, ans that I must have the post travel blues. Well this quick blog (written on my uncle's phone!) is just to say that England is the best country I have visited this year because the people are kind, funny and endlessly self deprecating!
Also once I have sorted out my 3500 photos I will upload them (I want you to see the best ones granny H) but in the meanwhile check out my cousin becky's blog on http://www.getjealous.com/eurotour
Love as always hxxx
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Vegas!
Had a great time in Vegas and Venice Beach - saw all the sights and stayed in some great hotels!
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California Dreamin'
Well the sun is shining, lots of Americans are celebrating their independence by wearing flags and having barbies on the beach, and Hannah and Dave are reunited. This is just a quick post to tell all family that we have successfully managed to meet up in the maze that is LA and are looking forward to our trip across the USA.
In other news Venice Beach is full of little old ladies carrying small dogs dressed as children, and muscle men eating ice cream. Very bizarre! x
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Hello from the future!
Yes at last the computer bugs have been killed by the mod squad and I am free to blog again.
Not that I really have much to report, I am currently in Auckland getting ready to fly to Fiji. Over the past 6 weeks i have been travelling around New Zealand and i have really enjoyed it. The South Island is home to stunning scenary and free wine tasting, the North Island is home to swine flu and marine volcanoes. Thankfully when i caught my current cold i was in Queenstown (apparently you get a cold when you wear a dress in minus 14 conditions why did nobody told me!) so i am no danger to the public health.
The other thing i would say about New Zealand is that I should send all my single girl friends here! I have been travelling around the South Island with a variety of single female friends and now I feel that I have the wingman attitude sorted to perfection. It generally involves doing lots of dancing which I enjoy, and lots of falling over which I don't. Those of you who have seen me dance realise that I like to swing dance, and since I have been here I have taught a few people how to do it. This has been great except kiwis in general seem to believe that when you spin a girl they should let go, this has resulted in my knees looking like two beaten up peaches... very bruised.
So asides from a few hard knocks I have climbed on glaciers (very cold more bruises), have swum with dolphins (very cold and suprisingly hard to spot), and been to 2 rugby matches (very cold but with a good atmosphere especially when New Zealand win). I have also been to cadburys New Zealand (chocolate definately tastes different despite what they say), had lots of wine tasting ( oh yes darling has anyone tasted a good Gewertz), and walked into a kiwi (both the bird the fruit and the people).
Now I am off for my dinner before flying to desert islands for a couple of tan topping days x
love you all xxxxxxxx
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Happy but almost ready to come home
A little known fact about New Zealand is that 1 in 4 kiwis suffers from a food allergy, of which the most common is wheat/gluten intolerance and/or Coelaic Disease. The other little known fact is that because hannahgreen.net is based in the UK, and I am in New Zealand I have not been able to access my website. This accounts for the lack of updates, and despite daves great technical expertise, he cannot overcome the difficulties of geography. However while the second of these two facts has been annoying, the first means that I am now travelling through food heaven. Every coffee shop and restaurant has specific Gluten Free stuff on the menu, so i have felt the urgh to try everything that is offered to me. I had my first ever club sandwich yesterday and the day before that a BLT :D
But food aside New Zealand is basically Scotland. At least the North Island certainly seems that way. There are less kilts and more volcanoes but the people are just as friendly and the weather is identical. Your average kiwi has a great sense of humour and definately takes sarcasim to a whole new level which i love!!! The main difference from the rest of my trip is that there are lots and lots of other backpackers here, and as a result there are lots of businesses tailored to their needs. Once I got over the novelty of being able to drink tap water I was kind of disapointed since every sense of adventure now comes gift wrapped with its own dvd or photos on offer.
Saying that I have not stopped doing crazy stuff, in Auckland I drove a Segeway around Davenport a little coastal town made from extinct volcanoes. I also fell off this 2 wheeled contraption at 10 miles an hour into a huge pile of mud! Serves me right for trying to score a segeway try on a rugby pitch in mid winter!! I have also been horse rideing, sky diving (at 15,000 feet, very exciting especially since my dive buddy was called darcy!!!), and I have walked into the centre of an active volcanoe. All rather mad but in some respects not as thrilling as walking down Sudder Street in Kolkatta. Lord I never thought I would miss India!!
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Blogging from the future!
For those of you who know my parents they will tell you that they really enjoyed their weeks holiday with me in Malaysia and Singapore and that i am healthy and well. Personally i think that Mum's assertions that I have put on weight are due to her not seeing me for a little while, since i weighed myself today and I am the same as I was when i started this trip. However after a week of good food, good wine and good company it is probably not surprising that I looked very healthy when I left them.
That was over a week ago and since then I have crossed through Thailand and flown down to New Zealand which means that if you are reading this in England then you could argue that you are reading the future. New Zealand being 11 hours ahead of England, and this being Wednesday morning my time! While I was in Thailand I moved to Kho Tao and Kho Panyang, firstly for the scuba diving and secondly because I wanted to meet with Livi Hunt for the Full Moon Party. I shall tell my weeks activities in this order.
Kho Tao is an island paradise with white beaches, warm water and lots of sunshine. It is also full of scuba diving companies which meant that when I did go Scuba Diving with Big Blue Diving there were often more than 30 divers at any one dive site. This was caused by it being Japanese Golden Week;a 2 week national holiday in Japan, and so there were lots of Japanese Divers. Most divers go to Kho Tao to see whale sharks which are fish the size of small cars which eat krill, however as my guide told me Japanese divers regard a dive as a bad dive if they don't see a whale shark. In other words they wont settle for anything less. So when a whale shark was sited at a particular dive site then all the dive boats (including us) rushed to the site and jumped in the water, scaring these normally inquisitive and gentle animals away. These creatures are very rare in the first place, and so it isn't really surprising that despite doing 7 dives I didn't see a single one. Still the visibility under water was fantastic, the people at Big Blue were really nice, and the water was really warm.
Kho Pan Yang is internationally famous for its full moon party, where once a month Haad Rin Beach is taken over by about 8,000 "clubbers" who cover themselves in UV paint and dance through till sunrise. Those of you with Facebook will see some photos of that night coming soon, since I danced till about 4, had UV paint all over me, and drank my drinks out of very elegant childrens sand buckets. I partied all the better because I was with Livi, and because I knew that all the Tits and Dave were also out celebrating Gregs birthday (happy birthday greg!!!) in Southampton, so while I danced in the sand, they danced in Southampton and all were happy :D
Since then it is has really been a transport fiesta! Over the past 48 hours i have used all the below forms of transport;
- back of a jeep
- the front of a landrover
- a slow boat
- an even slower bus which almost meant i missed my
- overnight train
- tuk tuk
- mini bus
- 12 hour overnight flight
- mini bus
and my own feet of course!
Asides from the cold I really like new zeland and am looking forward to exploring Auckland today x
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Riots, Temples, Dolphins and Sunburn
Cambodia is a fantastic country plain and simple. The people are really nice and the food is unbelievable. It has home comforts (electricity) but still maintains its heritage, and if truth be told I wish I had longer here.
But before I get too involved in telling you all about cambodia I should touch on the riots that occured in Bangkok about 2 weeks ago. I was there when the protests started and I commented on the BBC website about how peaceful and calm everything was. I walked amoungst the protestors and got chatting to them, i even had a good chat with the riot police :D Everyone is so keen to keep things calm for tourists that they were really interested in telling me there side of the story.
I decided not to volunteer with the tigers because unfortunately I did not have enough time. Instead I visited Ayatha which is the Angkor Wat with Thailand. I got there by local train which was in itself hilarious. I was the only westerner on it, there was no aircon and the train decided to sit at Bangkok station for over an hour for no reason.
When I returned to Bangkok the protests had escalated and the people had started closing roads, they tried to blockade the train station but my tuk tuk got me back safely. At no point did I ever feel threatened or scared, since both sides wanted things to remain peaceful for tourists. However the locals were saying that Thai new year was 2 days away and I thought things might get ugly then since it was a national holiday and famous for its water fight which bring locals and tourists onto the streets. So after one more day looking at temples and shopping I crossed the border to Cambodia and headed for Siem Reap.
The next day was Thai new year and it turned violent and made international news. Most tourists in Thailand that I spoke to had no idea there were protests going on. The english newspapers available in Khosan Road (main tourist district) did not speak of the riots, and it was only due to the BBC that I knew anything about it at all.
The temples of Angkor around Siem Reap were fantastic, and I spent 3 days there exploring different temples, riding bicycles and chilling out during Khymer new year. They were great but there is not really much to say about them other than the fact that the Lara Croft movie has made them more touristy, they have Lara Croft trees :D
I then went to phomn penn (PP) which was deserted due to Khymer new year, and headed to northern Cambodia to the Mekong river. In the small town of Krati it is possible to see Mekong Irwaddy river dolphins and they were so much fun. I saw 5 adults and 1 baby catching fish and squirting water at each other. In Karati i also got my first taste of the rainy season which offically starts in about 4 days. The storms was loud and there were lighting strikes every 6 seconds. The streets were flooded within minutes and most of the local market floated away.
I then returned to PP and visited the Tuelslang genocide museum which was the main torture place of the Pol Pot regime and the killing fields which is where most of the victims of that place ended up. I dont really want to go into detail about it since it was very upsetting, especially when you realise that most of the current government of Cambodia is Khymer Rouge and that there is not really any effective justice here. Pol Pot is dead and local people say that even those convicted by the current genocide trials (which only started 3 weeks ago!) are not serving there jail sentences. They pay poor people to serve them for them.
I went to the beach for a few days for chill out time and now I am back in PP waiting to fly to Kuala Lumpur to meet mum and dad. I cant believe I am over half way through my trip but I am having a great time.
I just wish that I had more time here, but I am looking forward to Malaysia and a winter in New Zealand !! :D xx
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