On the road
After a sleep in and a quick swim in the KOA pool, we hit the road again today continuing East towards Phoenix.
It was a quiet afternoon with a few stops including at a little restaurant in Palm Springs for some drinks and Tortilla chips. They had these cute outdoor seating swings that generated a nice breeze when you swung them – a welcome relief in the 40 degree heat.
As I write this we’re at another KOA RV Park, this time in Salome (aka the middle of nowhere). Seriously, there’s nothing here except desert. We did see a “Beauty Therapy” place, a while back, that appeared to also sell Mexican Food and T-shirts.
The scenery is great though, especially as it’s nothing like anything we’re seen before. There are cacti and rocky mountains for miles.
We’ve detoured slightly north rather than heading directly into Phoenix, but I’ll tell why in tomorrow’s blog post :)
So long LA
Today we said goodbye to our fantastic LA Airbnb hosts (and their super cute little dogs) and headed South to pick up our Cruise America RV.
We’ve booked a relocation special to take the RV from Los Angeles to the Cruise America home base in Mesa, Arizona as it means only $30/day (score!), and a chance to see some parts of the country we otherwise wouldn’t be able to.
This afternoon we drove East for several hours, stopping at Walmart to pick up some supplies where I spotted several items we sell at Beauty Bliss – below my cost price! Painful!
We’ve stopped at a little KOA RV Park in Banning, California. It’s got great facilities but we’re most excited about having a power supply for the Air Conditioning – it’s bloody hot!
LA: Batman, TV and Baseball
Phew, another whirlwind day in sunny LA!
We started our morning at Warner Bros. on one of their studio tours, wandering around and learning how sets are transformed and re-used on multiple shows. I’m a big TV fan so was really excited to hear they were filming Shameless & The Big Bang Theory while we were there. Stretched our necks but didn’t manage to catch a glimpse of any stars unfortunately.
Incidentally it’s been exactly 20 years (to the day!) that Friends first aired on US TV – and we got to visit the set and sit on the famous Central Perk couch. It’s surprisingly quite comfy considering how many tourists it’s had to hold over the past decade.
It’s also been 75 years since the first Batman movie and to celebrate Warner has an exhibition with costumes and all of the Batmobiles together in one building. My favourite was the Batman & Batman Returns (Tim Burton) era Batmobile – built on top of a stripped down Chevy Impala, although you can’t not love the Tumbler which was built to look like “a cross between a Lamborghini and a tank”.
After our tour we drove the Little Green Bug around LA for a bit taking it the sights and sounds. Last time we were here we relied heavily on public transport so this has been a very different experience – and well worth it too. LA is such a car-centric city, it’s much easy to take it all in when you’ve got your own wheels.
In the evening we went to the Dodger Stadium to watch the LA Dodgers play the San Francisco Giants.
Hello again, LA
We’re back in LA! It’s been 7 years since our last visit and little has changed here – but a lot has changed with us. We’re different travellers now, we see things differently and I feel so privileged to be able to return to this exciting place.
We have a car this time, it’s a cute little green Ford – I’m torn between calling it “The Bug”, “The Green Machine” or the “Little Snotball”. I’m sure one of the 3 names will speak to me in time.
Anyway, we started off today by driving to the Farmers Market at The Grove for a quick breakfast and nosey around. Then it was off to Santa Monica Pier and Venice beach – a part of town we weren’t able to see last time. The boardwalk at Venice beach was lots of fun and I managed to get some custom made vans (Dopefish rules!).
We walked in the sand and had a play on some of the random pieces of gymnastics equipment. This awkward looking photo below is for my gymnasts to whom I’ve promised to take a photo “doing a gymnastics move” in every state we visit. Stay tuned for handstands and cartwheels.
Tokyo in Photos
We’ve just spent a whirlwind 10 days in the ever-busy Tokyo, Japan. It’s been our first visit here and the country has lived up to our expectations with the busy capital city, friendly people, crazy-cute-weirdness, and the delicious food.
As with so many of our trips, we’re too busy to write about what’s going on. We’d much rather be out there doing things and making the most of the short time we have! There is always time for a few quick photos though (however blurry) so here a few highlights from our crazy fast time in Japan.
Shopping
Tokyo is divided into precincts and each appears to have it’s own speciality. Shibuya was fantastic for food, Shinjuku for gaming and Karaoke, Akihabara for Electronics and Anime shopping. This Steve Jobs bobble head made me giggle – just one of the many ‘only in Japan’ kitschy things we came across.
Guest House
For 5 days in the middle of our stay, we were joined by our friends Chris & Erin who are 4 months in to a 169 day round-the-world trip. I know, crazy right!? They’re blogging about it here.
We left our Shinjuku hotel and went to stay with Chris & Erin at an Airbnb guesthouse a little off the beaten track in Hikawendai. Despite being a bit of a trek to the train station, it was really nice to be in our own place and also get a view into suburban life in Tokyo. We shopped at the local convenience store and watched young Japanese school children hobble down the road with their oversized backpacks on a Saturday morning.
The All-nighter
We managed to pull an all-nighter at a downtown 7-storey Kareoke establishment. Despite this being a terrible, terrible, blurry photo, I love it. It was taken at around 6am and captures perfectly the drunken blurry mess that was that crazy 24 hours in Tokyo.
Contiki Day 7: Prague to Vienna
As most of today was spent on the bus traveling Vienna I wasn’t planning on writing a blog post. However, we stopped off at the Sedlec Ossuary (Bone Church) on the way and it was just way too crazy to not post a couple of photos.
The Sedlec Ossuary (Czech: kostnice Sedlec) is a small Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints (Czech: Hřbitovní kostel Všech Svatých) in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, many of whom have had their bones artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel.
Our Travel Blog
Posts on this blog are from both Phil and myself as we make our way around the world.
Current Location: Wellington, New Zealand.
