Palace of Versailles

On my second day in Paris, I got to go to one of the most historic and amazing places in the world - Versailles. I don't plan to bore you with the details of the palace, but it is still one of the most impressive pieces of architecture I've ever seen. It, like the Louvre is an all day experience, mostly because of the insane crowds.

There was one slightly ENORMOUS problem with visiting the palace when I did. Through the most important part of the place were some of the most horrific works of art by a modern artist. I won't say his name because I don't wish to promote his work or the defiling of this trip I've wanted since high school.

Of course, no stay in Montmartre would be complete without an evening stroll through Paris' red light district to go see the famous (infamous?) Moulin Rouge. At 185 Euros to get in, just seeing the outside was fine with me.

Real train musicians. Pretty good too.

The beautiful Palace of Versailles

The ceiling of the Grand Hall. It's also the world's largest painting.

Louis XIV put in the Grand Canal. He used to put warships on it and challenge other countries to try to shoot them down (or so the audio tour claimed).


The Hall of Mirrors.


In a hall full of mirrors, how do you not take a picture of yourself in the mirror?


The back of the palace at nightfall.


The Moulin Rouge.

So, you remember the atrocities I mentioned about the King's quarters in the palace? Here's a taste of how inappropriate it was. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad in a gallery, but seriously... come on.

Atrocity #1


Atrocity #2


Atrocity #4 (really? Michael Jackson and Bubbles)


Atrocity # 7 - This one was right in the middle of the Hall of Mirrors.


Atrocity #8 (yes it's the Pink Panther molesting Marilyn Monroe)

There were several more, but I couldn't justify publicizing this guy's "art" any more than I have.

Paris Day One

We arrived at Charles DeGaulle airport around 9 pm. We proceeded to take a shuttle into town, but unfortunately, got off at the wrong place. It didn't take long to realize we were well off-course and needed help finding our way to Montmartre, where we planned to find a 2-star hotel for the next few nights. It is at this point that I discovered that despite the many complaints and warnings I had received, Parisians are, in fact both highly friendly and helpful, a trend that would continue over our three days. Of the two of us, one had a very hard time settling on a place, but was quite insistent that we keep looking. Finally, at 1:30 am I put my foot down and got a room. This hotel turned out to be a bit of an adventure.

The next day, I went out early and found a nice little cafe to buy coffee from and some delicious croissants. Catherine's big ambition for Paris was to go see the Louvre. Now, I'm not the biggest art fan, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. So, it turns out the Louvre is enormous and is actually a multi-day experience if you want to see the whole thing. I find that it doesn't take long before one 17th Century French portrait looks exactly like every other 17th Century French portrait. After 2 hours of brain-numbing, library-esque silence with no English descriptions to be found, I hurried on to the Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman galleries and of course, the Renaissance sculptures and paintings. There were definitely some highlights and I'm sure for someone who has some knowledge about art, it would make for a fantastic experience. For anyone else, I highly recommend going straight to the highlights pointed out in the map provided and save yourself hours of pain. The iPod certainly helped matters.

As for the adventure of the hotel room, it's not as though anything bad actually happened, it was really just the fear that the building would collapse and crush us at any time. It seems that the curtain (not the curtain rod, but the curtain itself) was a load-bearing curtain and any adjustment could have disastrous consequences.

We finished the day with a bottle of French wine and escargots over dinner while we decided that our relationship would not survive past the end of our trip.

A view of Montmartre from our hotel room

The Louvre from inside the Louvre.

The sculpture commonly known as the Venus De Milo, which is ironic since it is an ancient Greek sculpture and Venus is Roman goddess. It is actually called Aphrodite.

Michelangelo's Wailing Slave

I hope you know what this one is.

The French Crown Jewels

The Eiffel Tower over the Jardins Toulieres


The Louvre at night

Mmmmmm... escargots.

How a curtain holds up a building.

York

From Newcastle, we traveled south to the city of York. I must admit, York is a beautiful old city, built around a large cathedral, the York Minster. We stayed with a young family, complete with baby Rosie, who gave me my first experiences with minced pie and mulled wine.

My first minced pie and glass of mulled wine. For those unaware, mulled wine is usually served piping hot with some kind of berry in it.

York is the only place left in England with it's walls and gates still completely intact.

The old city.

York, from above.

The York Minster, taken half-way to the top.

The Minster was built on the site of an old Roman barracks. This is part of the wall from the Roman outpost. It wasn't discovered until the late 20th Century.

Interesting historical notes:
The Roman Emperor Constantine was initially declared Emperor by his army here.
Edward the Confessor's son, who died in his childhood, is buried in the Minster.

Baby Rosie.

Newcastle

Newcastle is a beautiful city, both modern and old. It was the first stop in the ninth country of my journey around the world (Russia doesn't count). The highlight of the city was really walking past St. James Park and officially adopting Newcastle United as my official favourite football club. Enjoy a few of the sights from around town.

The old City Wall

St. James Park

I love cobblestone streets

My brand new Newcastle United football jersey

Taking Off

One of the problems with living in Mongolia is that there are few flight options when leaving. Also, you are required to fly out of the somewhat unreliable Chinggis Khaan International Airport.

My plane was set to be the first to depart for our Christmas vacations, scheduled for 7:50 am en route to London, UK via Moscow. Sadly, the flight was delayed until about 11:00, causing me to miss my connecting flight in Moscow. I was originally scheduled to land just after noon, but I was now going to have to take the 2:00 flight out of Moscow, which would be a very tight connection in an airport that I have never seen before.

Before I continue, I should mention that I was flying with Aeroflot, Russia's national carrier. If this is ever an option, DO NOT TAKE IT!! The plane was an old Soviet jet liner that looked to have been built in 1950, and hadn't been maintained since. Despite the terrifying appearance of the plane and the absolute lack of leg room (about 4 inches less than a standard economy seat), I was at least on a plane.

An hour into our 7 hour flight, the plane begins to descend. Of course, I couldn't understand a word of the announcement, so I became a little... unnerved. It turns out that we were landing at Irkutsk's not-so-international airport to... wait for it... refuel. How did we need to refuel an hour into a 7 hour flight? After the hour-long wait on the tarmac, it became obvious to me that I was not going to make the next connection in Moscow either. Not having a Russian visa, I was starting to worry a great deal about spending the night in what turns out to be the most expensive airport in the world.

Finally, with the refuelling completed, we lifted off again for the remaining 6 hours of our entertainment-free, alcohol-free, sleep-free flight. Luckily I sat next to a lovely woman with whom I had the most interesting of conversations. She did not speak a word of English, however; she did speak fluent Mongolian (not really a surprise for a Mongolian to speak fluent Mongolia) and French. I speak terrible Mongolian and enough French to communicate. It turns out that my French is far better than I thought, as we continued our small-talk conversation for most of the trip.

After a very long, uncomfortable 6 hours, we landed in Moscow, where I'm pretty sure the pilot got lost driving the plane around. We spent literally 30 minutes driving around the tarmac. After we entered the airport we had to stand in the long, tedious line where they booked everyone for new flights. After spending 3 hours in this line, before passing through security, I found that I had another 3 hours to wait before my next flight would leave. So, to pass the time, Charlie, an Englishman whom I befriended in the airport in Ulaanbaatar, and I sat down for a couple of beers. Having left UB, I was carrying USD only, and Charlie only had USD and British Pounds. The problem - the airport bar only accepts rubles. The second problem - the only way to exchange money is at a machine that wouldn't exchange any money. Finally, we settled on getting a few beers from one of the stands in the airport. Fortunately, the airline didn't have any problem with carrying open alcohol onto the plane.

After a very long journey, thus far, I boarded my plane 3 hours after I was supposed to arrive in London. The following flight was again entertainment-free, but came with substantially more leg room. The nearly 5 hour flight finally got me to London 8 hours after I was originally set to arrive, ending the chance to drive up to Newcastle that day.

The Land of the Rising Sun

Country number eight is officially in the books.

I flew into Narita on August 18 after what works out to be a 34 hr trip (include time changes). After arriving, I took a 4 hr journey - although it only had to be 2 - on the train to get to the Zushi station to meet my friend Ryan Kowalchuk. Since he has a second apartment for the month due to "clerical error" I had a free place to stay for the two nights. Thankfully, he met me with "beer" (to be explained little later). We went out for some food, before I had to go to bed, since I was a little tired from the trip. The next day, I went off to see the temples of Kamakura. There are 140 temples in the area, and I saw about a dozen of them, and went down to the beach in Hase. That night I met up with Ryan and his girlfriend and went out in Yokohama, the second largest city in Japan at night (apparently Osaka is bigger during the day). We had some dinner, and went out for some more adult beverages. By which, I mean we sat on the patio of one of the variety stores, and drank more "beer". To explain this a little further, Japan has beer and synthetic beer flavoured beverages that have alcohol added. Tastes better than some of the beer I've had in the past. Also, It turns out that this is a common thing. The patio was at standing room only!! Since I flew out at 1:30 the next day, I boarded the airport express at 8:07, and arrived at the airport at exactly 10:30. Couldn't have planned it better if I tried. Sadly, my only sushi experience came in an airport restaurant, but it was still the best sushi I've ever eaten.

The private shrine outside my apartment.

There really ARE vending machines everywhere.

Inside the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Temple

The giant copper Buddha at Diabatsu

The stairway to Sasukeinarijinja Shrine

A small piece of my favourite, the Kosokuji Temple.

Isn't this the cutest statue ever?!? Found at the overly popular Hasedera Temple. Oddly, the Kosokuji Temple was completely vacant, while only a 1 minute walk from Hasedera which had a hundred or so people at it.

A jellyfish on Yuigahama Beach in Hase. The sand was extremely fine, but also black. I assume this is due to the volcanoes that formed the islands.

Me. Ryan.

The "beer".

About time

My International adventures will take on brand new heights in this next year. It starts with a visit to Tokyo, Japan in just a few days' time. Fortunately, my old friend Ryan lives in Tokyo, and has offered a spare apartment to me for the two nights. Since he will be working through the days, it will give me an opportunity to go explore a bit on my own and then meet up with him in the evenings. I expect it to be much like my time in Seoul, but with fewer Canadians.

In December and January, I will be traveling to Europe for the first time. I will be flying in to London (via Moscow) to spend five days in jolly old England. Once again, I will have a tour guide, as my girlfriend is from England. We will spend Christmas day with her family (what a day to meet the parents) and will take off for the continent the next morning. We plan on a couple of days in Amsterdam, one in Brussels, two or three in Paris, one in Lyon and finally a couple in Barcelona before getting back to London in time for us to fly off to our respective countries of employment for another 6 months away from each other.

In addition to the 7 countries I have already stepped foot in (past the airport) I will be adding numbers 8-13 to my list by early January. And no, I am not including Russia since I will not be leaving the airport at any point.

I'll be back in a week with my stories from Tokyo!!