james's blog

To anyone following on LiveJournal, I realised the links weren't working part way into the journey, and couldn't fix it till I got to Wellington. They apparently are working now. Silly me for not leaving them on the default settings.

Today I'm off to Te Papa Tongarewa, the museum of New Zealand. Will report with photos later, I hope.

The flight to Wellington was fairly uneventful. The plane was only half full, so I had a row to myself. I watched the in flight movie for a bit, but it was pretty awful, so I snoozed for a bit.

On the way into Wellington, we were treated to some pretty amazing views of the complex of islands and peninsulas making up the northern tip of the South Island. Amazing fractals.

At the airport I was greeted by Norman Cates, a former DUFF winner and all round nice guy. He gave me a lift to his house, showed me around, and headed back to work. It was really nice of Norman to pick me up, as while I'm sure I could have made my own way, it really made it a whole lot more lot more pleasant.

I was fairly shattered, so I had a nap for a couple of hours. After getting up and having a shower, I felt human again, and caught up with email till Norman got back from work.

Okay flight to Wellington is boarding in a few minutes. see you there!

I'm writing this on an iPad in Sydney airport.

Nice bit of kit despite some minor annoyances. I miss Swype for the keyboard, for example. The kid next to me has been showing his grandmother how to use it for reading eBooks, and they can't seem to make the fonts big enough for her to read comfortably. But this isn't the place for a technology rant.

Back in the vastness of Bangkok, I was chatting with a chap in a purple Buddhist robe who turned out to be from Texas, but has been living in Burma (isn't that Myanmar now?) for the last nine years and is flying home to see his parents for the first time in tearly a decade.

The woman sitting next to me on thpe plane is a school teacher from Sydney, flying home from England where her husband was playing cricket, and their daughter lives. We comparg the Irish and Australian education systems. They seem to have a lot in common, probably because they were both set up by the British.

Bangkok airport is huge and modern and all looks very shiny. However, it is quite possibly connected into an alternate reality, with a vast concourse seeming to stretch to infinity. I walked for what ssemed like miles and came to the baggage collection and immigration areas. I didn't need either of these so I walked back and went through the security check for connecting flights.

The first half of the flight was fine, with a good selection of movies and TV shows (I watched How to Train Your Dragon, which was silly, but good fun. Hoping to get some sleep on the second half.

I think changing my socks would be a good idea.

Next stop Sydney!

Well, here I am in Heathrow.

Liam stood me up to go surfing in cornwell, but that's okay - I'd have done the same (if I wasn't going to Australia instead).

However, James Bacon met me instead on his lunch break, so that was cool. Then went to the pub for beer and fish'n'chips (that's french fries for any Americans). Going to head over to check in a while (just have to confirm which terminal to go to).

Also been charting with Kate about my programme items, so that was useful. Isn't the internet wonderful?

Next stop Bangkok.

Mad last minute packing, but think I have everything, and hopefully just within the weight limit.

One thing that isn't coming is camilla the lizard. She makes a lovely shoulder pad, but I think the Australian authorities would fail to see the funny side of finding her I'm my luggage.

I want to send back lots of photos from my trip, and I'm hoping this smart phone will help. Today I discovered it has an extra camera facing towards me. How cool is that?

If the technology gods are being kind to me, there will be a photo of me attached to this post.

Today I did something I have never done before, and frankly, something I didn't expect I would ever do. Indeed, it is something that I have poured scorn on others for, the sort of activity I would generally mock others for and laugh at their stupidity.

Yes, today I bought my first team sports top.

And not just one, I bought two Ireland Rugby jerseys.

Now, what I really object to is the sort of sports shop that will charge €80 or more for the official kit of some sports team, and especially the sort of mentality that says it's not good enough to have the official kit, but only this year's slightly changed version will do.

So in my defence I will claim that these jerseys were reasonably inexpensive, and reasonably good value as a wearable item of clothing, regardless of the logo. Are they the official jersey? Probably not. Do I care? (Answers on a postcard, please.)

I also feel that I should have something to show my Irishness down under.

For anyone in London, especially west London, I have a few hours to pass in Heathrow next Saturday, the 21^st. Unfortunately it's not really long enough to go far, so Liam (@lproven) suggested a drink within the airport, and Weatherspoons in Terminal 4 is to be recommended. I shall aim to be there about 5:30pm on Saturday, so I hope you'll come and join me.

Please comment if you think you might make it.